NEWTON, JOHN (1725-1807), English divine, the friend of William Cowper, was born in London on July 24, 1725 (O.S.). His father, who for a long time was master of a ship in the Medi terranean trade, became in 1748 governor of York Fort, Hudson Bay, where he died in 1751. The lad had little education and served on his father's ship from 1737 to 1742; shortly afterwards he was impressed on board a man-of-war, the "Harwich," where he was made a midshipman. For an attempt to escape while his ship lay off Plymouth he was degraded, and treated with so much severity that he exchanged into an African trader. He made many voyages as mate and then as master on slave-trading ships, devot ing his leisure to the improvement of his education. He left the sea in 1755, when he was appointed tide-surveyor at Liverpool. He began to study Greek and Hebrew, and in 1758 applied to the archbishop of York for ordination. This was refused him, but, having had the curacy of Olney offered to him in April 1764 he was ordained by the bishop of Lincoln. In October 1767 William Cowper settled in the parish. An intimate friendship sprang up between the two men, and they published together the Olney Hymns (1779). In 1779 Newton left Olney to become rector of
St. Mary Woolnoth, London, where he laboured with unceasing diligence and great popularity until his death on Dec. 31, 1807.
Like Cowper, Newton held Calvinistic views, although his evangelical fervour allied him closely with the sentiments of Wesley and the Methodists. His fame rests on certain of the Olney Hymns (e.g., "Glorious things of Thee are spoken," "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds," "One there is above all others"), remarkable for vigour, simplicity and directness of devotional utterance.
His prose works include an Authentic Narrative of some Interesting and Remarkable Particulars in the Life of John Newton (1764). Omicron (a series of letters on religion, and Cardiphonia (1781). His Letters to a Wife (1793) and Letters to Rev. W. Bull (posthumous, 1847) illustrate the frankness with which he exposed his most intimate personal experiences. A Life of Newton by Richard Cecil was prefixed to a collected edition of his works (6 vols., i8o8; I vol. 1827). See also T. Wright, The Town of Cowper.