Benjamin Parsons

Born in Gloucestershire in 1797, Benjamin Parsons became an English Congregational minister whose life combined preaching, teaching, and writing. After early schooling and an apprenticeship as a tailor, he trained for ministry at Cheshunt College and was ordained at Ebley in 1826, where he spent most of his working life.

He became known not only as a minister but as a practical reformer. Sources describe his efforts to expand education in his community through lectures, night classes, and schools, and they also note his support for causes such as abolition, temperance, and opposition to the Corn Laws. That mix of pastoral work and public campaigning helps explain the strong moral purpose that runs through his writing.

Parsons died in 1855. A memoir published soon after his death, The Earnest Minister, helped preserve his reputation as a serious, socially engaged religious writer whose work spoke to ordinary readers as well as chapel audiences.