Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823-May 9, 1911) was one of the most distinguished and multi-talented Unitarians of the nineteenth-century, yet few people today are aware of his prominence or the extent of his interests and achievements. Minister, author, activist, lecturer, soldier, naturalist, physical fitness enthusiast—he was all of these things and more.…
Edward Mott Woolley (October 31, 1803-May 4, 1853) was an itinerant, circuit-riding Universalist minister in New York and Michigan. He was the father of Lucia Fidelia Woolley Gillette, one of the first women Universalist ministers and the grandfather of Clarence Mott Woolley, a prominent twentieth-century industrialist and a benefactor and trustee of St.
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (April 8, 1889-February 22, 1983) was one of the foremost British conductors of his time. Well-known for his advocacy and performance of the works of twentieth-century British composers, he was equally proficient in works of the standard repertoire.
Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822-June 10, 1909) was one of the most prominent American Unitarian ministers of the last half of the nineteenth century. He was also a popular journalist, editor, and author. His short story, “The Man Without A Country,” is an American masterpiece.
Lincoln Ashton Gribble (March 12, 1930-August 8, 2012) came from a family long associated with Unitarianism. From an early age he harbored the desire to become a Unitarian minister, a goal he finally reached after schooling at Manchester College in Oxford, England.…
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817-May 6, 1862) was a person of many talents and interests: surveyor, pencil-maker, naturalist, lecturer, schoolteacher, poet, anti-slavery activist, and spiritual seeker, to name but a few. He is best known as a member of the Transcendentalist circle of writers and religious radicals, and author of numerous books and essays, especially Walden and “Resistance to Civil Government,” better known as “Civil Disobedience.”…
Margaret Brackenbury Crook (May 5, 1886–May 24, 1972) was a British Unitarian minister, women’s suffragist, peace activist, and religious studies professor. She was the first English woman to be fully trained for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester College in Oxford, as well as one of the first English women to be granted sole authority over a large church.
Harold Hitz Burton (June 22, 1888-October 28, 1964) was a Unitarian layman, lawyer, and politician who served as Moderator of the American Unitarian Association (AUA). After three terms as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, he was elected to the United States Senate and in 1945 appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President Truman.
John Murray Spear (September 16, 1804-October 5, 1887), made his career as a Universalist minister, abolitionist, activist against the death penalty, and advocate for women’s rights, temperance, and many other nineteenth century reforms.
Charles Spear (May 1, 1803-April 13, 1863) took up the idea of abolishing the death penalty at a time when the idea was widely regarded as a hopelessly impractical, even utopian notion. For years Spear campaigned without stint to change public opinion and the laws, especially in Massachusetts and other New England states, but also throughout the country by means of his newspaper, The Prisoner’s Friend.
Samuel Hoar (1778-November 2, 1856), a native of Lincoln, Massachusetts, and Sarah Sherman (1785-1862) of New Haven, Connecticut married in the fall of 1813 and made their home in Concord, Massachusetts. Both Samuel and Sarah were from distinguished families.
Dr. Joseph Workman (May 26, 1805-April 15, 1894), known as the “Father of Canadian Psychiatry,” was in 1845 the principal founder of the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto. He largely wrote the church’s constitution which affirms “the free exercise of private judgment in all matters of belief” and provides that “females” were to “exercise the same privileges as.