Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Glazebrook, James

1191984Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 21 — Glazebrook, James1890Charles William Sutton

GLAZEBROOK, JAMES (1744–1803), divine, son of William Glazebrook, was born at Madeley, Shropshire, on 11 Oct. 1744. When he was a young man of twenty-three, working as a collier and getter of ironstone, he was brought under the influence of the Rev. John Fletcher of Madeley [q. v.] and he determined to become a clergyman. With this view he was educated at Lady Huntingdon's college at Trevecca in South Wales. He was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in December 1771, and six years later he received priest's orders. In 1779 he married Dorothy, daughter of Dr. Thomas Kirkland, and removed to Warrington, where he became incumbent of a new church, St. James's, Latchford, consecrated in 1781. In that year he joined in a sharp controversy with Gilbert Wakefield on infant baptism. Wakefield afterwards acknowledged that his opponent was ‘a man of talents, very superior in his education and advantages, and deserves the warmest commendations for the pains which he must have taken with the cultivation of his understanding in very untoward circumstances.’ On being appointed vicar of Belton, Leicestershire, in 1796, being then broken in health, he left Warrington, though he retained St. James's incumbency. He died at Belton on 1 July 1803. His son, Thomas Kirkland, is noticed below.

He wrote:

  1. ‘A Defence of Infant Baptism,’ &c., 1781.
  2. ‘The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, a Sermon,’ 1789.
  3. ‘The Practice of what is called Extempore Preaching recommended,’ 1794.
  4. ‘The Minister's Enquiry into the State of his People, a Sermon,’ 1798. # ‘Sermons on various Important Subjects (with Life by T. W. Whitaker),’ 1805.

[Rylands's Genealogies of Bate and Kirkland; Ormerod's Cheshire, 2nd edit. i. 603; New's Memorials of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, 1858, pp. 214, 228.]

C. W. S.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.135
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page Col. Line  
422 ii 8 f.e. Glazebrook, James: for Glasebrook read Glazebrook