author

John Sargent

1780–1833

An English clergyman and biographer, he moved in the Evangelical circles around Charles Simeon, William Wilberforce, and Patrick Brontë. He is best remembered for popular religious memoirs, especially his life of the missionary Henry Martyn.

1 Audiobook

The life of Rev. Henry Martyn : Written for the American Sunday School Union, with some account of Abdool Messeeh, a Hindoo convert

The life of Rev. Henry Martyn : Written for the American Sunday School Union, with some account of Abdool Messeeh, a Hindoo convert

by John Hall, John Sargent

About the author

Born on October 8, 1780, John Sargent was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. Although he had first been intended for the law, his path changed under the influence of the Evangelical leader Charles Simeon, and he was ordained in the Church of England in the first years of the 1800s.

Sargent spent most of his working life as rector of Graffham and later Woolavington in Sussex. Contemporary accounts describe him as a country pastor with strong ties to the Evangelical movement, and he was connected to several major religious figures of his time. One notable episode from his Cambridge years was his role in helping Patrick Brontë continue his studies, with support arranged through Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce.

As a writer, Sargent is chiefly known for biographical and devotional works rather than fiction. His Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn, first published in 1819, was widely read and reprinted, and in 1833 he published The Life of the Rev. T. T. Thomason. He died on May 3, 1833, at Woolavington.