Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, John (1812-1848)
HUNT, JOHN (1812–1848), missionary, the third child of a farm bailiff, who had previously been a soldier and a sailor, was born at Hykeham Moss, near Lincoln, on 13 June 1812. After a few years in a parish school, Hunt was put to farm labour at the age of ten, and worked for some years as a ploughman at Balderton, near Newark, and Swinderby. He became a methodist when about sixteen. At Swinderby he educated himself in his spare time, and preached there and afterwards at Potter Hanworth, near Lincoln. In 1835 he was sent to the Hoxton theological college for Wesleyan ministers; in 1838 he was ordained and sailed for Fiji as a missionary. Here he was very successful, making long journeys to the various mission stations on the islands, and working hard at translation. In 1848 H.M.S. Calypso visited Fiji, and Hunt made a long tour with the captain. He died of an illness the consequence of fatigue on 4 Oct. 1848, and was buried at Vewa, one of the mission stations. His wife, Miss Summers, of Newton-on-Trent, whom he had married on 6 March 1838, and several children survived him.
Hunt took part in translating the Scriptures into Fijian. The New Testament was published at Viti, Fiji, in 1853, 12mo, and the whole Bible in London in 1864-8, 8vo., He also wrote: 1. `Memoir of the Rev. W. Cross,' the life of a missionary, to which he added a short notice of the early history of the mission to Fiji, London, 1846, 12mo. 2. 'Entire Sanctification, in Letters to a Friend,' edited by J. Calvert, London, 1853, 12mo.
[Memoir by the Rev. G. S. Rowe; Brit. Mus. Cat.]