Andrew Reed (minister)

English Congregational minister & hymnwriter (1787 1862)

Andrew Reed (27 November 178725 February 1862) was an English Congregational minister and hymnwriter, who became a prominent philanthropist and social reformer. He was the father of Sir Charles Reed and grandfather of Talbot Baines Reed.

His parents were "humble tradespeople" and he was originally an apprentice. He entered Hackney Academy in 1807 to study theology under George Collison and was ordained minister of New Road Chapel in 1811. About 1830 he built the larger Wycliffe Chapel, where he remained until 1861. He visited America on a deputation to the Congregational Churches in 1834 and received the degree of DD from Yale. In addition to an account of his visit to America (2 vols., 1834), he compiled a hymn book (1841), and published some sermons and books of devotion. Reed's name is permanently associated with a long list of philanthropic achievements, including the London Orphan Asylum (now Reed's School), the Infant Orphan Asylum, Wanstead, and the Reedham Orphanage, which he undertook on non denominational lines because the governors of the other institutions had made the Anglican Catechism compulsory. Besides these he originated in 1847 an asylum for idiots at Highgate, afterwards moved to Earlswood in Surrey with a branch at Colchester, and in 1855 the Royal Hospital for Incurables at Putney. His religious emphasis appears to have been in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 13: that of the three virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, the greatest is charity. One of his projects did not succeed in being nondenominational, however; at a fairly early stage in its history the Orphan Asylum at Wanstead was taken over by a management committee who ruled that all children must be brought up in the Church of England, a move that disadvantaged many of London's orphans who had been brought up with different religious backgrounds.

Reed was active in supporting repeal of the Corn Laws, Dr Philip's initiative to right some of the wrongs of the native people of South Africa by financing their trip to London to speak directly to a Committee of the House of Commons, and took part in conferences in America (as one of two international delegates from the Congregational Union of England & Wales) in the 1830s, one of which led to the formation of Boston's first anti slavery society. In his account of his American visit, he wrote Yes, the slave must go free! Slavery now has a legal existence only in America. But America is the very place, of all others, where it cannot, must not be tolerated Besides this, there is another field of philanthropic service open to America. It is that of seeking the welfare of the aborigines of the country. They are far less thought of, at the present moment, than the oppressed African; but their claims are not inferior, nor scarcely are their wrongs. They amount to about 500,000 persons. They have the highest claim to the soil. Justice, Truth, Mercy, Religion—Earth and Heaven, demand of America that she should assure the world she is what she professes to be, by preserving the Indian, and emancipating the African. His son, Charles became more directly active in politics, becoming an MP and Chairman of the first London School Board.

Reed died in Hackney, London, and was buried in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, north east London. His memorial stands at Abney House Corner, towards the south end of this Congregationalists' non denominational cemetery. It is a tall, imposing obelisk in polished red granite situated close to the later memorial to one of his sons, Sir Charles Reed (Hackney's first MP and a Trustee Director of Abney Park Cemetery). A grand Celtic cross in memory of his grandson Talbot Baines Reed stands nearby. His eldest son, Andrew (1817–1899), a Congregational minister and author, is buried with him. There is no memorial to his wife Elizabeth, and her place of burial is uncertain but may be with her parents. Andrew and Elizabeth's first child, Jasper Holmes Reed (d. 21 July 1818), was buried at the Anglican church of St Mary, Lewisham.