# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Urwick, William

​URWICK, WILLIAM (1791–1868), congregational divine, son of William Urwick by his wife, Elinor Eddowes, and a grand-nephew of Thomas Urwick [q. v.], was born in Shrewsbury on 8 Dec. 1791. He was educated at Worcester under Thomas Belsher, and subsequently, in 1812, entered Hoxton Academy to study for the congregational ministry under Robert Simpson. In 1815 he was invited to the pastorate of the church at Sligo, and was ordained there on 19 June 1816. With great energy he threw himself into the work of converting the Roman catholics, took the lead in philanthropic movements, and gave his services as secretary of the famine committee in 1824–5. He more than once intervened to prevent duelling, which was rife in the district. ​In 1826 he was called to the pastorate of the church in York Street chapel, Dublin, built in 1808 by the Countess of Huntingdon's connexion. During Urwick's ministry the huge building, capable of seating sixteen hundred, soon was filled. Little of stature, although with a noble head and a clear bell-like voice, Urwick obtained the sobriquet among the students of Trinity College, many of whom attended his chapel, of multum in parvo, and on the Exchange he was known as ‘the little giant.’ With Henry Harvey [q. v.] he was the pioneer of the temperance movement before Father Mathew's time, and for years he was the only clergyman in Dublin who as an abstainer gave the pledge. In 1829 he published ‘The Evils, Occasions, and Cure of Intemperance.’ He published in 1831 ‘The true Nature of Christ's Person and Atonement stated,’ in reply to Edward Irving [q. v.], and in the following year ‘One hundred Reasons from Scripture for believing in the Deity of Christ.’ In this year (1832) he was called to the chair of dogmatics and pastoral theology in the Dublin Theological Institute, an office which he filled, together with his pastorate, for twenty years. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him (1832) by the trustees of Dartmouth College, Connecticut. In 1835 he published ‘The Value and Claims of the Sacred Scriptures, and Reasons of Separation from the Church of Rome.’ Archbishop Whately having published a letter to his clergy forbidding the holding of meetings at which extempore prayers were offered, Urwick issued a reply entitled ‘Extemporary Prayer in Public Worship considered,’ 1836.
Urwick's two chief works appeared in 1839. ‘The Saviour's Right to Divine Worship’ took the form of letters upon the unitarian controversy addressed to James Armstrong [q. v.], then William Hamilton Drummond's colleague in Strand Street. ‘The Second Advent,’ opposing the pre-millennial hypothesis, is still regarded as the best work from that point of view. With this literary activity he combined great energy in preaching throughout Ireland, and founded an Irish congregational home mission, of which he acted as honorary secretary for some years; he fought a hard battle for home rule in church matters against the opposition of the Irish Evangelical Society of London with its paid officers. He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance, inaugurated at Liverpool in 1845. He attended its meetings regularly, and spoke in Paris in 1855 and at Geneva in 1862. On occasion of ‘the papal aggression’ in 1852 he published ‘The Triple Crown,’ giving a concise history of ‘the papacy, its power, course, and doom.’ He also wrote a memoir of his friend Thomas Kelly the hymn-writer. In 1862, the bicentenary of the nonconformist evictions of 1662, he wrote ‘Independency in Dublin in the Olden Time,’ giving the lives of Samuel Winter, provost of Trinity College, Dublin, from 1650 to 1660; John Rogers of St. Bride's, John Murcot, and Samuel Mather. The jubilee of his residence and work in Ireland was celebrated in November 1865, when a cheque for 2,000l. was presented with illuminated addresses from the Irish churches. Of this sum he at once gave away 600l. to the city charities. In March 1866 he published ‘Christ's World School,’ essays in verse on Matt. xxviii. 18–20, and he left in manuscript two other poems, ‘The Inheritance of the Saints’ and ‘My Sligo Ministry.’ He died in Dublin on 16 July 1868, aged 76. His last book, ‘Biographic Sketches of James Digges La Touche,’ the patron of Sunday schools in Ireland, appeared after his death. ‘A Father's Letters to his Son on coming of Age’ was published by the Religious Tract Society in 1874. On 16 June 1818 he married Sarah (d. 1852), daughter of Thomas and Mary Cooke of Shrewsbury. By her he had ten children, five of whom survived youth.
Besides the works above mentioned and some single sermons, Urwick wrote: 1. ‘A Concise View of the Ordinance of Baptism,’ 1822. 2. ‘A Collection of Hymns,’ 1829. 3. ‘The Duty of Christians in regard to the use of Property,’ 1836. 4. ‘Thoughts suggested by the Ecclesiastical Movement in Scotland,’ 1843. 5. ‘Remarks on the Connection between Religion and the State,’ 1845. 6. ‘Life of Howe,’ prefixed to his ‘Works’ in the ‘Library of Puritan Divines,’ 1847. 7. ‘A Voice from an Outpost,’ two discourses upon ‘the papal aggression,’ 1850. 8. ‘China,’ two lectures, 1854. 9. ‘Earth's Rulers Judged,’ on the death of the Czar Nicholas, 1855. 10. ‘History of Dublin,’ for the Religious Tract Society.
W. U.