Charles Owen

Born into a notable Welsh nonconformist family, he was the younger brother of James Owen and trained first at Bethnal Green and then under his brother’s guidance at Oswestry. He served at Wrexham in the mid-1690s before settling in Warrington, where he became Presbyterian minister in 1699 and remained there until his death on February 17, 1746.

At Warrington he also ran a respected academy for students preparing for ministry. Contemporary and later accounts describe the school as small but well regarded, and in 1728 he received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Edinburgh alongside figures including Isaac Watts.

He wrote extensively in English, including a 1709 life of his brother James Owen, theological works, sermons, hymns, and political pamphlets. He was especially known in northern England as a strong supporter of the Hanoverian succession, and one of his political publications led to a prosecution that ended in acquittal but cost him heavily. Among his later works was An Essay Towards a Natural History of Serpents (1742), an unusual blend of natural history, religion, and learned digression.