Early Life and Spiritual Formation Thomas Newberry was deeply conscious throughout his life of the mercy of God in granting him a Christian mother and a godly elder sister, through whose instruction and example he was, like Timothy, taught the Holy Scriptures from childhood. From these early years…
Early Life and Background John Jewell Penstone was born in 1817 in Clerkenwell, London, into a Quaker family. Both his parents were members of the Society of Friends, and from them he inherited habits of seriousness, reverence, and moral discipline. The Jewell family name—taken from his mother’s side—remained…
Early Life and Background John Nsticke Scobell was born in 1803, into an ancient Devon family of considerable standing. He was educated to university level, becoming a Bachelor of Arts, and later served as a Justice of the Peace for Somerset and Cornwall. His social position was reflected…
Early Life and Family Background Henry William Soltau was born on 11 July 1805, the second son of George Soltau, a prominent merchant of Plymouth. His father was a man of strong Christian conviction and public spirit, one of the founders of the Plymouth Free School, notable for…
Early Life and Family Background (1814–1830) James Butler Stoney was born on 13 May 1814 at Portland, County Tipperary, Ireland. He came from a household marked by strong moral discipline and intellectual cultivation. His father was a strict Puritan in temperament, while his mother, from the Butler family,…
Early Life and Social Position (1826–1860) Frederick Charles Bland was born in 1826 at Derriquin, on the shores of the Kenmare River in County Kerry, an estate that had been in his family for generations. He belonged to the landed gentry of the south of Ireland and was…
Early Life and Background (1823–1841) George Brealey was born on 4 September 1823 at North Tawton, Devonshire, into a poor but respectable Christian home. His parents were sincere believers, and from them he received early religious impressions; yet these were soon counteracted by adverse influences. At the age…
Early Life and Education (1819–1837) William Collingwood was born on 23 April 1819 at Greenwich, into a cultivated and intellectually distinguished family. His father, Samuel Collingwood, was an architect, and his wider family included Samuel Collingwood, Printer to the University of Oxford and proprietor of the Oxford University…
Early Life and Family Heritage (1818–1829) Henry Groves was born in November 1818 at Exeter, the eldest son of Anthony Norris Groves, the pioneering missionary to Persia and India, often regarded as one of the spiritual forerunners of the Brethren missionary vision. From the outset, Henry’s life was…
Early Life and Conversion (1834–1855) Frederick William Grant, universally known as F. W. Grant, was born on 25 July 1834 in the Putney district of London. His conversion was distinctive in that it came directly through the reading of Scripture, rather than through the influence of preaching or…