page_title: Thomas Belsham
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Belsham / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Tomb of Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808), Elizabeth Rayner (1714-1800) and Thomas Belsham (1750-1829) in Bunhill Fields burial ground.
context_page_description: Thomas Belsham was an English Unitarian minister
context_section_description: Belsham was born in Bedford, England, and was the elder brother of William Belsham, the English political writer and historian. He was educated at the dissenting academy at Daventry, where for seven years he acted as assistant tutor. After three years spent in a charge at Worcester, he returned as head of Daventry Academy, a post which he continued to hold till 1789, when, having adopted Unitarian principles, he resigned. With Joseph Priestley for colleague, he superintended during its brief existence the New College at Hackney, and was, on Priestley's departure in 1794, also called to the charge of the Gravel Pit congregation. In 1805, he accepted a call to the Essex Street Chapel, which was also headquarters and offices of the Unitarian Church under John Disney, there succeeding as minister Theophilus Lindsey who had retired and died three years later in 1808.
  Belsham remained at Essex Street, in gradually failing health, until his death in Hampstead, on 11 November 1829. He was buried in Bunhill Fields burial ground, in the same tomb as Theophilus Lindsey. His joint executors were Thomas Field Gibson and his father.
caption: Tomb of Theophilus Lindsey (d. 1808), Elizabeth Rayner (d. 1800) and Thomas Belsham (d. 1829) in Bunhill Fields burial ground
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