William Field (minister)
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William Field (6 January 1768 – 16 August 1851) was an English Unitarian minister.
Field was born at Stoke Newington on 6 January 1768, the son John Field, his father, a London medical practitioner, and founder of the London Annuity Society, and his wife Anne Cromwell, daughter of Thomas Cromwell, a grocer, and sister of Oliver Cromwell (c.1742–1821), the biographer and lawyer; the apothecary Henry Field was his brother.[1][2]
While at school Field corresponded with his father in Latin. He studied for the ministry first at Homerton College, but left for doctrinal reasons soon after the appointment of John Fell. In 1788 he entered Daventry Academy under Thomas Belsham, and left when Belsham resigned (June 1789).[2]
Career
Field succeeded James Kettle in 1789 as minister of the presbyterian congregation at Warwick, where he was ordained on 12 July 1790. On this occasion Belsham gave the charge, and Joseph Priestley preached. Dr. Samuel Parr, who then first met Priestley, attended the service and the ordination dinner. Thus began Field's close intimacy with Parr, a connection fostered by their common devotion to classical studies.[2]
In 1791 Field started a Sunday school, the first in Warwick. This led him to clash with some of the local clergy. Field then became a pamphleteer. His meeting-house, rebuilt 1780, was fitted with a sloping floor, to improve its quality as an auditorium; Field excited some comment by surmounting the front of the building with a stone cross. He kept a boarding-school for many years at Leam, near Warwick.[2]
About 1830 Field took charge of an old Presbyterian meeting-house at Kenilworth. There he conducted afternoon service in addition to his Warwick duties. This meeting-house was rebuilt (1846) by his son Edwin Wilkins Field. Field remained in active duty for nearly 60 years. He resigned Warwick in 1843, and was succeeded in 1844 by Henry Ashton Meeson, M.D. At Kenilworth he was succeeded in 1850 by John Gordon.[2]
Death
Field died at Leam on 16 August 1851; a marble slab to his memory was placed in High Street Chapel, Warwick.[2]
