Curwen, Spedding

Curwen, Spedding an English Congregational minister, was born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, January 19, 1790. He was brought up in the Established Church, but joined the Independents at Leeds, and was soon engaged in speaking at weekly prayer-meetings and at adjacent villages on Sunday evenings, and finally became a student in Rotherham College. He was ordained at Heckmondwilce in December 1814; was called to the Church at Cottingham, near Hull, in 1819, also preaching on Sunday evenings at Fish Street Chapel; and accepted a call from the Church at Barbican, London, in 1824. While there he, with others, founded the Christian Instruction Society. In 1828 he went to Frome, Somersetshire, where he labored for eleven years; in 1838 he settled for a few months at Newbury, whence he was called by the new society at Castle Street, Reading, and there remained until his death, January 9, 1856. See (Lond.) Cong. Yearbook, 1857, page 173-175; Evangelical Mag. March 1856.