The life and work of Thomas Haweis (1734-1820)

Abstract

Thomas Haweis has received scant notice from the historians of the eighteenth religious revival in England. His is a neglected name amongst the Evangelicals. There is, of course, an abundant literature surrounding the recognized leaders of the awakening - John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Howell Harris, the Countess of Huntingdon. Eull length biographies have also been accorded to many of the secondary figures, such as William Srimshaw, James Hervey, John Newton, William Romaine, Henry Venn, and Samuel Walker, to list only a few. But some there be that have no memorial. Their names have lapsed into unmerited oblivion. Thomas Haweis belongs to this group of forgotten men. He remains unhonoured and unsung. Ho worthy record of his life and labours has ever been produced. The longest memoir extends to a bare thirty-eight pages in John Morison's The Fathers and Founders of the London Missionary Society, and, in keeping with the object of that work, confines itself mainly to Haweis' endeavours to promote the cause of overseas missions. Of Thomas Haweis the Evangelical practically nothing has been written. An adequate account of his life and work is thus an obvious desideratum.Fortunately a considerable amount of new material relating to Haweis has recently been made available. William Jay, the famous Independent preacher of Bath, lamented the fact that Haweis' diary could not be consulted after the death of its author, for it "would have thrown much light on the earlier periods and events of the revival of religion in our own country". He himself wished to use it in preparing a "biography of Haweis. Permission, however, was refused "by Haweis' son, the Rev. J.O.W. Haweis, M.A., Rector of Slaugham, Sussex, and later a Canon of Chichester, who was somewhat ashamed of his father's Evangelical associations. Writing in 1840, John Campbell, in his Maritime Discovery and Christian Missions, expressed his view that " a debt of sacred justice 11 still remained to be discharged to the memory of Haweis, and added:"The responsibility of performing this duty is the more strongly felt from the circumstance that the memorials of his life are in the course of preparation by the pen of a Churchman; and from the experience we have had in the respective cases of Rowland Hill, William Wilberforce and Hannah More, there is ground to fear that a record will be issued which the Doctor himself would have felt to be, on points of great moment, a libel and a wrong, and have perused with indignation and tears!"This biography was never published, and the intended author remains unidentified. Possibly the veto of the incipient Canon effectively suppressed the project. Whatever the circumstances may have been, no life of Haweis was ever produced, nor did the manuscripts so jealously guarded by anti-Evangelical prejudice become available to a would-be biographer until 1947, when the bulk of them were purchased by the Mitchell library, Sydney, Mew South Wales, where they are now housed. Amongst these invaluable documents is an unfinished Autobiography, begun in 1796 and finally revised in 1815, which covers the years 1734 to 1796. From 1796 until 1818 there are intermittent entries in a Diary, intended as a supplement to the Autobiography. In addition, there are eighty-two autograph letters written by Haweis to such recipients as the Countess of Huntingdon, Lady Anne Erskine, Sir Charles Middleton (later Lord Barham), Sir James Wright, Lord Dundas, George Burder, William Alers Hankey, Joseph Hardcastle, George Hodgson, John Newton and Matthew Wilks; and seventy-two letters to Haweis from George Burder, John Eyre, Samuel Greatheed, Joseph Hardcastle, Christian Ignatius Latrobe, Samuel Marsden, William Romaine, Ambrose Serle, and others. Numerous papers and notes are also included in this fascinating collection, which has been microfilmed for the purposes of the present thesis.Besides the Sydney manuscripts, the following letters represent further primary material: twenty-six letters from Haweis to Sir Joseph Banks, in the Sutro Library, San Erancisco: twenty-three letters from John Newton to Haweis in the custody of Messrs. Maggs, Bros., Ltd., London: one letter of Haweis to Thomas Charles, one letter of Lady Huntingdon to Haweis and nineteen letters from Lady Anne Erskine to Haweis in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth: twenty-four letters from Haweis to various correspondents, including J.T. Vanderkemp, and ten letters to Haweis from J.T, Vanderkemp, William Edwards and Sir Evan Nepean, in the Library of the London Missionary Society: two letters of Haweis to unspecified recipients in the Lamplough Collection: and one letter of Thomas Coke to Haweis in the possession of the Wesley Historical Society of America. It will readily be seen that these manuscript sources, together with his thirty-six publications and the information about him that can be gleaned from contemporary books, pamphlets and periodicals, provide an ample basis for a comprehensive treatment of Thomas newels' life and work.This study, however, does not claim to be an exhaustive biography. The available matter is too extensive to be compressed satisfactorily within the usual compass of an academic thesis. It is not possible to supply more than a rapid sketch of Haweis as an Evangelical and a missionary pioneer. The approach is primarily historical. An attempt is made to cover Haweis' life chronologically. It has been felt advisable to pay more attention to that part of his career which has been least publicized. Thomas Haweis the missionary agitator is not an altogether unknown quantity: the standard histories of the London Missionary Society by Ellis and Lovett have traversed this ground with reasonable adequacy, and the chief preoccupation of the chapters dealing with this period is with the new light shed upon it by the manuscript sources. On the other hand, Thomas Haweis the Evangelical is only a shadowy figure as yet. Particular notice has therefore been given to the years prior to his missionary endeavours. His training under Samuel Walker and George Conon, his indebtedness to Joseph Jane, his formation of a religious society at the University of Oxford, his Evangelical preaching at St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, and his subsequent expulsion, his witness in the metropolis and his Chaplaincy of the Lock Hospital, his Evangelical stand in his Aldwincle parish, his itinerancy for Lady Huntingdon, his position in her Connection, his friendships with John Newton, Henry Venn, William Romaine, Martin Madan, Thomas Wills, George Burnett, Joseph Townsend, James Stillingfleet, Matthew Powrley, William Talhot, Legh Richmond - these are little known features of his life which afford fresh insight into the progress of Evangelicalism. It is one of the aims of this thesis to secure a sharper focus on the Evangelical party to which Haweis belonged, and care is taken, mainly by means of references, collected at the end of the work, to supply accurate information regarding the personalities of a segment of the Revival all too sparsely documented as yet.Haweis' writings are not dealt with in great detail, although, of course, they must needs be noted in a study of this nature. Haweis was not a thinker of the first rank. His gifts were practical rather than theological or speculative. His life is more significant than his works, and his works are of greatest interest when related to his life. It is primarily from this aspect that they will be considered. Although nothing Haweis wrote is indispensable, some of his literary products retain a relevancy for the modern reader. His Biblical Commentary and New Testament translation have some hermeneutical value. His hymns and tunes still live on, and his sermons reflect the style and content of contemporary Evangelical preaching. His Church History, despite its many defects, is noteworthy for its unusual purpose, shared by Joseph Milner, of tracing the true, spiritual viiand Evangelical Church amidst the manifold historical distortions of primitive Christianity. Haweis' defence of the Calvinistic interpretation of the Articles, liturgy and Homilies against the attacks of Bishop Tomline reveals him as an able controversialist. His Communion manual affords additional evidence to support the growing realization that the Evangelicals were not so indifferent to worship and the Sacraments as has "been supposed, and that G.W.E. Russell was justified in describing Evangelicalism as preparing the way for the Oxford Movement in a positive manner. These more important works of Haweis will be examined in their setting and some assessment of their merits essayed.