John & Henry Venn, Evangelical Divines
1 July -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Pastors, page 483
John Venn was born at Clapham in March 1759, where his
father, Henry Venn Senior, was a curate. Later that year,
Henry took his family to Huddersfield, where he had been
appointed vicar, and they remained there until 1771. John
was educated at Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge, and became rector of Little
Dunham in Norfolk and eventually of Clapham in 1792. He was
one of the founders of the
Church Missionary
Society in 1797. It was here that he also became a
central figure in the group of religious philanthropists
known as the Clapham Sect. John was also an active
participator in the movement for the abolition of the slave
trade.
John's son, Henry Venn, was born at Clapham in 1796.
After his time in
Cambridge, he was
ordained and held various livings, but in 1846 he devoted
himself entirely to the work of the Church Missionary
Society. He was secretary for thirty-two years and his
organising gifts and sound judgement made him the leading
spirit in the counsels of the Society. In his later years,
he was recognised as a leader of the evangelical body of the
Church of England. John Venn died at Clapham on this day in
1813 and his son Henry died at Mortlake on 13 January 1873.