# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Payne, George (1781-1848)

​PAYNE, GEORGE (1781–1848), congregational divine, born at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, on 17 Sept. 1781, was youngest son of Alexander Payne, a cooper, by his wife, Mary Dyer of Bampton. The father, who was a churchman, in early life turned baptist after hearing the sermons of Law Butterworth of Bingworth, and in 1783 became the baptist preacher to the church of Walgrave, Northamptonshire. Two years later (June 1785) he baptised his own wife, and received ordination on 6 July. Along with Fuller and Carey he was a founder of the Baptist Missionary Society. Alexander Payne died on 13 Feb. 1819, aged 77, and after a pastorate at Walgrave of thirty-three years. His wife died on 5 Jan. 1814, aged 71. There is a tablet to their memory in Walgrave church.
George went to school at Walgrave, and subsequently at the Northampton academy. He entered Hoxton academy to study for the congregationalist ministry in 1802, and on 13 April 1804 he was elected, with Joseph Fletcher, Glasgow scholar on the Dr. Williams trust. The two proceeded to Glasgow University together (Memoirs of Thomas Wilson, Esq., pp. 275, 276, 279; Memoirs of Joseph Fletcher, p. 47). Payne graduated M.A. in the spring of 1807, and returned home, marrying, on 30 Oct. 1807, a daughter of Alexander Gibbs, a corn factor, and member of the Scottish church, Hoxton. For a year he acted as assistant minister to Edward Parsons of Leeds. On 28 Aug. 1808 he accepted an invitation to become George Lambert's permanent coadjutor at Hull. Terminating his engagement at Hull on 14 June 1812, Payne was ordained at Edinburgh on the following 2 July, and entered on his pastorate of a congregation of seceders who had divided from James Alexander Haldane [q. v.] in March 1808 on the latter's renouncing infant baptism. This body met in Bernard's rooms, Thistle Street, Edinburgh. A new chapel was built for Payne in Albany Street, and opened 2 May 1817, and here he laboured till 1823. While in Edinburgh he contributed to congregationalist literature, and assisted in the foundation of the Edinburgh Itinerant Society and the Congregational Union of Scotland.
In April 1823 he left Scotland to become theological tutor of the Blackburn academy, the precursor of the present Lancashire Independent College. For the first two or three years of his residence in Blackburn Payne also acted as pastor to a congregational church which met in Mount Street (Evang. Mag. 1823). On 18 Nov. 1828 he received the degree of honorary LL.D. from the university of Glasgow on the occasion of the publication of his ‘Elements of Mental and Moral Science.’
Payne left Blackburn to become theological tutor to the western academy on its removal from Axminster to Exeter 1 July 1829. In 1836 he was chosen chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. In 1844 he preached the eleventh series of the congregational lectures initiated by the committee of the congregational library in Bloomfield Street, Finsbury. His course of eight lectures was published in the following year under the title ‘On the Doctrine of Original Sin.’
In January 1846 the western college was removed from Exeter to a site between Devonport and Plymouth. In April 1848 ​he visited Scotland as the delegate from the Congregational Union of England and Wales. He died on 19 June 1848, after preaching at Mount Street Chapel, Devonport. He was buried on 27 June at Emma Place chapel, Stonehouse, in the grave of his wife, who had died on 25 Oct. 1847.
Payne's writings prove him to have had a genuine gift for metaphysical speculation. He wrote, apart from sermons and short tracts: 1. ‘Remarks upon the Moral Influence of the Gospel upon Believers, and on the Scriptural Manner of ascertaining our State before God,’ Edinburgh, 1820, 12mo. 2. ‘Elements of Mental and Moral Science designed to exhibit the Original Susceptibilities of the Mind and the Rule by which the Rectitude of any of its States or Feelings should be judged,’ London, 1828, 1842, 1845. 3. ‘The Separation of Church and State calmly considered in reference to its probable Influence upon the Cause and Progress of Evangelical Truth in this Country,’ Exeter, 1834, 8vo. 4. ‘Lectures on Divine Sovereignty, Election, the Atonement, Justification, and Regeneration,’ London, 1836, 1838, 1846. This work was answered by J. A. Haldane and others, to whom Payne replied in the last edition. 5. ‘The Operation of the Voluntary Principle in America,’ Exeter, 1836, 12mo. 6. ‘The Church of Christ considered in reference to its Members, Objects, Duties, Officers, Government, and Discipline,’ London, 1837, 12mo. 7. ‘Facts and Statements in reference to Bible-printing Monopoly,’ Exeter, 1841, 8vo. 8. ‘Elements of Language and General Grammar,’ London, 1843, 12mo; college and school edit. 8vo, 1845. 9. ‘The question “Is it the duty of the Government to provide the means of Education for the people?” examined’ (directed against Sir James Graham's Education Bill), London, 1843. 10. ‘The Doctrine of Original Sin, or the Nature, State, and Character of Man unfolded,’ London, 1845; forming the 11th series of the ‘Congregational Lectures.’ 11. (Posthumous) ‘Lectures on Christian Theology,’ edited by Evan Davies, London, 1850, 2 vols.; with a ‘Memoir’ by the Rev. John Pyer and ‘Reminiscences’ by the Rev. Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. Payne also assisted Greville Ewing in the selection of ‘A Collection of Hymns from the Best Authors,’ Glasgow, 1814.
W. A. S.