William Urwick

William Urwick (1791–1868), the elder, was an English Congregational minister and author, for most of his life in Ireland. He was known in Dublin as the "little giant". Life The son of William Urwick by his wife, Elinor Eddowes, he had Thomas Urwick as great-uncle and was born in Shrewsbury on 8 December 1791. He was educated at Worcester under Thomas Belsher, and in 1812 entered Hoxton Academy to study for the Congregational ministry under Robert Simpson. In 1815 Urwick was invited to the pastorate of the church at Sligo in Ireland, and was ordained there on 19 June 1816. He undertook the converting of Roman Catholics, took the lead in philanthropic movements, and acted as secretary of the famine committee in 1824–5. He tried to prevent duelling, which was rife in the district. Urwick was called in 1826 to the pastorate of the chapel in York Street, Dublin that had been built in 1808 by the Countess of Huntingdon's connexion. He filled the huge building, with many students attending. With Henry Harvey he was a pioneer of the temperance movement. In 1832 he was called to the chair of dogmatics and pastoral theology in the Dublin Theological Institute, a post which he filled, with his pastorate, for twenty years. The degree of D.D. was conferred on him the same year by Dartmouth College.