Caleb Ashworth 1722-1775

Caleb Ashworth (1722-1775) was a correspondent of Ann and a fan of her hymns and poetry. In 1763 he had visited her and she had expressed a lack of assurance. He sought to help her.

He was born at Cloughfold, Rossendale, Lancashire. His father, Richard Ashworth (1668-1751) was a lay preacher among the Particular Baptists; he had three sons - Thomas, PB minister at Heckmondwike; Caleb; and John, a General Baptist minister, colleague of Dr. James Foster, who preached his funeral sermon in 1742.

Caleb was originally a carpenter; he probably was not in sympathy with his father's views, and thus did not at first turn to the ministry. He was afterwards educated for the Independent ministry, under Philip Doddridge, at Northampton, where he first took up his quarters in 1739; and settled at Daventry in 1746, originally as assistant to James Floyd.

Under Doddridge's will, management of the academy was left to Ashworth, and, as the Northampton congregation did not elect him their minister, he moved it to Daventry in 1752. He obtained the degree of DD from Scotland in 1759.

Under Ashworth, Daventry Academy became a leading seat of culture among liberal Independents and Presbyterians, who at that time were close, and shared views on theology and church polity. A list of his students is in Monthly Repository, 1822. The academy covered languages, biblical criticism, and ecclesiastical history quite weakly; its staple was dogmatics and philosophy, including psychology (then called pneumatology), ethics, and physics. Ashworth published for his academy a Hebrew Grammar.

His most distinguished scholar was the Unitarian Joseph Priestley, who says that Ashworth took "the orthodox side of every question" in theology and philosophy, the sub-tutor, Samuel Clark, "that of heresy". Doddridge's plan of referring to authors on all sides of every question, and requiring his students to give an account of them, was pursued by his successors. Rev. T. Thomas, a former pupil says: "Under Dr. Doddridge there was a more popular exterior; under Dr. Ashworth a more disciplined interior."

Article by Simonetta Carr

An interesting article on Anne Steele by Simonetta Carr can be found here.

Nancy Jiwon Cho on Margaret Maison

In a Durham PhD Nancy Jiwon Cho quotes Margaret Maison's essay '"Thine, Only Thine!" Women Hymn Writers in Britain, 1760-1835' (1986) She says it was the first serious modern critical study on women's hymn writing, an essay giving an overview of the pre-Victorian tradition that scrutinises the conditions in which hymns were written, and the themes and tropes that emerge. She asserts that: [The hymn's] extraordinary popularity gave women welcome opportunities for authorship. Icy hostility to Christian ladies as writers melted in the sunshine of sacred song, and those three giants of eighteenth-century hymnology, Isaac Watts and the two Wesleys, John and Charles, all encouraged, influenced and were influenced by women hymn-writers and hymn-singers.

One idea which Maison perpetuates in her essay, says Jiwon, is that Anne Steele is `one of the brightest stars in the firmament of Baptist hymnody, hailed by the historians as the "mother" of English women hymn writers' (p. 14).

Maison writes that Steele's hymns: echo the attractive simplicity, spontaneity and ardour of Watts and the Wesleys, with added notes of feminine sensitivity and introspection. The love and praise of God, the pleasures of the `grateful rapture, ' and the joys of a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ come across strongly. Christ is frequently addressed in the language of a lover [... ]. But He is also the crucified Saviour, with `bloody sweat, like drops of rain'. (p. 15) 

The PhD is accessible here.