William Huntington

William Huntington S.S. (2 February 1745 – 1 July 1813) was an English preacher and coalheaver. He is said to have preached that "moral law" is unnecessary, a theological view known as Antinomianism. Huntington was a strict Calvinist who believed some were predestined to be saved and some were not. He was also convinced that he would be identified as a true prophet on Judgement Day. His unusual, polemical style of preaching and writing made him popular but brought conflicts with other preachers throughout his life. He founded or opened chapels throughout England, many of which survive including Bethlehem Chapel, Richmond upon Thames. Biography William Huntington was born in 1745 near Cranbrook in Kent, and was given the name William Hunt at his baptism there five years later. It is said that his father was Barnabus Russel – his mother's husband's employer – despite his mother's marriage to William Hunt. He was the tenth child of Elizabeth Hunt and the only male to achieve maturity. He had an unsuccessful romance with Susannah Fever, from which a child was born. He left the Kent area and changed his name. Now William Huntington he was free from his financial obligation, but not his conscience. He changed his surname to Huntington in 1769, his rationale was that the "-ing" represented the present participle in words representing sinful activities, such as "stealing" and "swearing", and "ton" referred to his being "a vessel of the Lord". Later that year, he married Mary Short, a servant, they moved to Mortlake in Surrey and Huntington resumed his gardening work. Nevertheless, he was still very poor. He did attend a number of schools, but it was always as a result of charity. He said himself that he was frequently hungry. He was the son of a farmworker and he undertook work that was unskilled or semi-skilled, such as driving hearses and coaches, gardening and heaving coal. He also spent some time as a tramp. In 1773, Huntington and his wife moved to Sunbury-on-Thames in Middlesex. Soon afterwards he reported that he had been contacted by Christ. The vision, which appeared as a bright light from which Christ's bloodied body emerged, told him that he was brought under the covenant love of God's elect. He became dissatisfied with his existing religious beliefs, and began to associate with Baptists, Methodists and Calvinists in various Surrey and Middlesex towns.