Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burton, James Daniel
BURTON, JAMES DANIEL (1784–1817), Wesleyan minister, was the son of Daniel Burton, of Rhodes, near Manchester, and was born at Manchester 25 July 1791. He received a good education, but one not purposely intended to fit him for the office of minister. At the age of sixteen he was in the habit of attending the theatre at Manchester, but was soon turned from 'the snares connected with that place of gay resort and destructive pastime,' and, as the result of his 'effectual awakening,' prepared himself for the Wesleyan ministry, and devoted a considerable portion of his time among the poor in the neighbourhood of Middleton. He became a methodist itinerant preacher at the age of twenty-one. In the tenth year of his ministry his health failed, and he died, 24 March 1817, in his thirty-third year. In 1814 he published, at Bury, in Lancashire, 'A Guide for Youth, recommending to their serious consideration Vital Piety, as the only rational way to Present Happiness and Future Glory,' 12mo.
[Methodist Mag. 1817, pp. 708, 881; Osborn's Methodist Literature, p. 78.]