John Rowe

John Rowe (1764-1832), after studying at the Dissenting academies at Hoxton and the New College, Hackney, began his ministry among the Unitarians as assistant to Joseph Fownes at High Street Chapel, Shrewsbury, in 1787. He became sole pastor in 1789 and at one point, in 1798, invited a young Samuel Taylor Coleridge to apply as his assistant. That same year Rowe left Shrewsbury to become assistant minister to Joh Prior Estlin at the Unitarian chapel in Lewin’s Mead, Bristol, remaining at the church until his retirement in 1832. He helped found the Western Unitarian Society in 1792. His wife, Mary (d. 1825), was also his cousin and the daughter of the influential Unitarian layman in the West Country, Richard Hall Clarke of Bridwell, Devonshire.