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VENN
Adm. pens. (age 17) at TRINITY, Aug. 4, 1789. [Eldest] s. of Henry (1760), of Liverpool. B. there Jan. 29, 1772. School, Blandford, Dorset (the Rev. H. Jones). Lame from childhood. ' Matric. 1789; Scholar, 1792; B.A. (19th Wrangler, aegr.) 1794; M.A. 1797. Ord. deacon (Winchester) June, 1797; priest, Feb. 1798. C. of Brading and Yaverland, Isle of Wight, 1797-1805. Assistant Chaplain at the Lock Hospital, London, 1805. R. of Turvey, Beds., 1805-27. Chaplain to the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, 1814. Edited selections from the writings of the English Reformers, under the title Fathers of the English Church. As Simplex, contributed tales to Christian Guardian, 1809-14; reprinted by the Religious Tract Society (of which he was sometime joint secretary), as The Annals of the Poor. One of these, The Dairyman's Daughter, was translated into French, Italian, German, Danish and Swedish, two million copies being published during his lifetime. A close friend of Wilberforce, naming a son after him. Collected materials for a work on the theory and history of music. One of the first to encourage village Friendly Societies. Raised a large sum of money for a library at Iona, Scotland. A library in the Uxbridge Road, London, endowed to commemorate him jointly with Charles Keene, the caricaturist. His name was, before he died, almost a household word among religious minded people in England. Married July 22, 1797, Mary, only dau. of J. W. Chambers, of Bath. Died May 8, 1827, at Turvey; buried in the Church. M.I. there. Father of Henry S. (1827). (D.N.B.; Munby, Former Days at Turvey; Fry, Domestic Portraiture; Foster, Index Eccles.; Grimshawe, Memoir of Legh Richmond, which contains a portrait.)