Thomas William Baxter Aveling

Who was Thomas William Baxter Aveling?

Thomas William Baxter Aveling, was an independent congregational minister, born at Castletown in the Isle of Man, the son of a soldier and an Irish mother.

Aveling received his theological training at Highbury College, and in 1838 was appointed to the pastorate of the Kingsland Congregational Church, Hackney. Here he acquired a high reputation for eloquence and learning, his popularity with his flock being evinced by the fact that his connection with them was only terminated by his death.

In 1876 he was appointed chairman of the Congregational Union. He was also for many years the honorary secretary of the Asylum for Fatherless Children at Purley. During his half-century of ministerial labour he published a large number of sermons and other fugitive pieces, and one work of a more substantial character, viz. 'Memorials of the Clayton Family,' 8vo, 1867, which, as it contains correspondence never before published of the Countess of Huntingdon and other persons eminent in the religious world of the last century, has some pretensions to the character of an original authority.