Elizabeth (Betsey) Ronalds (April 2, 1788-May 5, 1854) was an English horticultural illustrator, best remembered for the lithographs in her father Hugh Ronalds‘ renowned book Pyrus malus Brentfordiensis: or, a concise description of selected apples (1831). Her beautiful depictions of fruit and flowers enhanced the international reputation of her family’s nursery.
Harm Jan Huidekoper (April 3, 1776–May 22, 1854) was a businessman, philanthropist, essayist and lay theologian, a vice president of the American Unitarian Association, and a founder of the Meadville Theological School. Not well-known in the annals of American Unitarian history, he was nonetheless acquainted with many prominent Unitarians in his time.
Samuel Carter (May 15, 1805-January 31, 1878) was a lawyer who shaped the legal codification and business practices of the early railways in England. For nearly four decades he was solicitor to two of the corporations that created Britain’s rail network.…
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922-April 11, 2007) was an American novelist also known for short stories, essays, and plays. His writing often displays a darkly comic and satirical style revealing serious moral commentary, sometimes through the medium of science fiction.
William Joseph McEldowney (1889-1967) was an accountant and lawyer before switching—in mid-life—to the Unitarian ministry. Raised among Methodists and Presbyterians, he was in his forties when he started attending Unitarian services in Wellington, New Zealand. Attracted to the ministry, he enrolled at Manchester College, Oxford in England.…
Thomas Fyshe Palmer (July 1747-June 2, 1802) was one of five, eighteenth-century British political reformers, who came to be known as “The Scottish Martyrs”. Palmer was born in England, educated at Cambridge University, and ordained to the Anglican clergy before falling under the influence of Joseph Priestley.…
Helen Richmond Young Reid (December 11, 1869-June 8, 1941) was a Montreal social worker involved in local, national, and international reform movements. A life long Unitarian, she founded and directed a number of charitable and educational organizations. She served on government committees and she published articles and books in the fields of social welfare, public health, and immigration.…
Sir Francis Ronalds (February 21, 1788-August 8, 1873) – inventor, engineer and scientist – is known for building the first working electric telegraph and, while director of the Kew Observatory, the first successful continuously-recording camera. He was also arguably the first electrical engineer.
Eliza Anne McIntosh Reid (October 30, 1841-January 8, 1926) was a social reformer, women’s activist, and a leader in the movement to gain access to higher education for Canadian women. A life long Unitarian, her contributions would be continued and expanded by her daughter, Helen R.…
William Thomas (April 7, 1834-December 11, 1879) has been called “the founder of modern Unitarianism in Wales”. He was the minister at the Llwynrhydowen church, which, founded in 1733 as the first Arminian church in Wales, became an anchor of Unitarian religion in a small and isolated region of inland West Wales lying near the River Teifi, which separates Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.…
Hone Tuwhare (October, 1922-January 16, 2008) was one of the leading poets of the twentieth-century. Building on his Māori and Scottish background, his poetry reflected, critiqued, and celebrated New Zealand culture and its people. He was a social justice advocate, a defender of the working class, and an advocate for the Māori.
Thomas Dawes Eliot (March 20, 1808-June 14, 1870) was a renowned Massachusetts attorney and a passionate progressive politician in the years leading up to and following the Civil War. A dedicated and capable Unitarian church leader, he served as president of both the National Conference of Unitarian Churches and the American Unitarian Association.…