Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blunt, Henry
BLUNT, HENRY (1794–1843), divine, the son of Henry and Mary Blunt (her maiden name was Atkinson), was born at Dulwich, 12 Aug., and was baptised at the chapel of Dulwich College, 20 Aug. 1794. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, which he entered in his twelfth year, 1806, and left for Pembroke College, Cambridge, as Parkin exhibitioner, in 1813. He took his B.A. degree as ninth wrangler in 1817, and became fellow of his college. He was ordained on his fellowship by Dr. Howley, bishop of London, receiving deacon's orders 5 July 1818 and priest's orders 20 Dec. of the same year. After having filled preacherships at the Philanthropic Institution, and Park Chapel, Chelsea, and Grosvenor Chapel, in 1820 he was appointed vicar of Clare in Suffolk, and on 21 Dec. of that year he married Julia Ann Nailer, one of the six daughters of a merchant residing at Chelsea. At Clare, in addition to his parochial duties, Blunt took private pupils. In 1824 Dr. Wellesley, a brother of the first Duke of Wellington, then rector of Chelsea, induced him to resign his country living to become his curate. This post he filled for six years with steadily increasing fame as a preacher, and on the erection of Trinity Church, in Sloane Street, in 1830, he was appointed its first incumbent, becoming a rector 15 June 1832. So high was the estimation in which Blunt was held that, on the resignation of Dr. Wellesley in 1832, he was offered by Lord Cadogan, the patron, the mother church of St. Luke's, with the understanding that he was to hold the two livings together, with a sufficient staff of curates. This offer was unhesitatingly declined. In 1835 he was presented by the Duke of Bedford to the rectory of Streatham, Surrey. His health, always delicate, had by that time been completely undermined by the incessant labours of a large London parish, and pulmonary weakness compelled him to pass successive winters at various health resorts, Rome, Pau, Torquay, &c.; he died in his rectory at Streatham, 20 July 1843, in the 49th year of his age. He was buried at Streatham.
Blunt's chief work as a preacher and a writer was done at Chelsea. Here the influence he exerted, especially over the higher classes, was very great, while the clearness and simplicity of his style made him also acceptable to hearers of the humbler classes. There is little depth or originality of thought in his writings, nor are they conspicuous for any rhetorical power; but the practical and earnest piety and tender sympathy which animate the whole, together with the beauty of his language, have given a well-deserved popularity to his sermons. For his time he may be called a good evangelical churchman, decidedly opposed to the then rising tractarianism, but holding his own opinions without narrowness or bitterness. The most popular of his printed works were the courses of lectures delivered in successive Lents at Chelsea to crowded audiences on the lives of various leading persons in the Old and New Testament. The first of these were the ‘Lectures on the Life of Jacob,’ delivered in 1823; these were succeeded by courses on ‘St. Peter,’ 1829, ‘Abraham,’ 1831, ‘St. Paul,’ in two series, 1832, 1833, and closing with one on the ‘Prophet Elisha’ in 1839, the six years' interval being marked by the publication of three courses on ‘The Life of Jesus Christ,’ 1834–36, a volume of discourses on ‘Some of the Doctrinal Articles of the Church of England’ in 1835, and a volume of selected ‘Sermons’ in 1837, and ‘Expository Sermons on the Epistles to the Seven Churches’ in 1838. The last of Blunt's works published in his lifetime, exclusive of separate sermons, was an ‘Exposition of the Pentateuch’ (3 vols.) for family reading. Three volumes of ‘posthumous sermons’ were issued under the editorship of his old friend, the Rev. John Brown, of Cheltenham, and passed through a number of editions. The lectures on St. Peter went through sixteen editions between 1829 and 1842, those on Jacob fifteen editions, 1828–40, those on Abraham eleven editions, 1831–44. In these lectures we have Blunt at his best. They are expository and practical, and only incidentally deal with doctrine. Few works of the kind are so full of human interest, and to this, as well as to the simple beauty of their style, their popularity is chiefly due. It should be added that, in spite of very feeble health, Blunt was a diligent parish priest, and ‘by holy living and faithful preaching became a leading power amongst the vast population of 30,000 souls amongst whom he lived.’ In his early youth before he went to college, he, with a young layman, afterwards his brother-in-law, established the first Sunday school at Chelsea at the ‘Clock House,’ and he continued to manifest a deep interest in that form of education. He also, amidst much ridicule and determined opposition, introduced bible and communicants' classes. He published the first parish magazine, called the ‘Poor Churchman's Evening Companion.’
[Private information; Davies's Successful Preachers, pp. 189–205.]