dered at him.’ He embodied his views in a series of six sermons, of which the first was preached on 27 May 1761. A contemporary account describes the excitement produced by his utterances; his outspokenness won for him increased respect, though he made few converts. The sermons were not published till 1793, when they were out of date, but they are noteworthy for their time as anticipating the historical argument of Priestley. Seddon lived on good terms with neighbouring clergy, especially with John Clayton (1709–1773) [q. v.], the Jacobite fellow of Manchester collegiate church. He was beloved for the amiability of his temper and his charity to the poor. After a long illness he died on 22 Nov. 1769, and was buried in Cross Street Chapel. He married, in 1743, Mottershead's eldest daughter, Elizabeth (d. 1765), and left a son, Mottershead Seddon. His library was sold on 26 Feb. 1770. He edited, with preface, ‘The Sovereignty of the Divine Administration,’ &c., 1766, 8vo, by Thomas Dixon (1721–1754) [see under Dixon, Thomas, M.D.]. His ‘Discourses on the Person of Christ,’ Warrington, 1793, 8vo, were edited with ‘An Account of the Author,’ by Ralph Harrison [q. v.], at the suggestion of Joshua Toulmin, D.D. [q. v.]
[Harrison's ‘Account,’ 1793; Toulmin's Memoirs of Samuel Bourn, 1808, p. 253; Monthly Repository, 1810 p. 322, 1818 p. 430; Rutt's Memoirs of Priestley, 1832, i. 59; Baker's Memorials of a Dissenting Chapel, 1884, pp. 30 sq. 143; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity (1893), v. 98 sq.; Cross Street Chapel Bicentenary, 1894, p. 49; extract from manuscript minutes of the Lancashire and Cheshire Widows' Fund (for date of birth), per the Rev. P. M. Higginson; extract from Glasgow matriculation register, per W. Innes Addison, Esq.]
SEDDON, JOHN (1725–1770), rector of Warrington Academy, son of Peter Seddon, dissenting minister successively at Ormskirk and Hereford, was born at Hereford on 8 Dec. 1725. He appears to have been a second cousin of John Seddon (1719–1769) [q. v.], with whom he has often been confused. He was entered at Kendal Academy in 1742, under Caleb Rotheram, D.D. [q. v.], and went thence to Glasgow University, where he matriculated in 1744, and was a favourite pupil of Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) [q. v.] and William Leechman [q. v.] On completing his studies he succeeded Charles Owen, D.D. [q. v.], as minister of Cairo Street Chapel, Warrington, Lancashire, where he was ordained on 8 Dec. 1747. Soon after his settlement the Percival family left the established church and attached themselves to Seddon, ‘a liberal divine of Arian persuasion.’ Seddon gave private tuition to Thomas Percival (1740–1804) [q. v.], who described him as scholar, preacher, and companion ‘almost without an equal.’
Owing to the closing of the academies at Kendal (1753) and Findern, Derbyshire (1754), which had been due to private enterprise, a project was launched in July 1754 for establishing in the north of England a dissenting academy by subscription. Seddon was one of the most active promoters of the scheme; it was due to him that the final choice fell upon Warrington rather than upon Ormskirk. On 30 June 1757 he was elected secretary, and when the academy opened at Warrington on 20 Oct. he was appointed librarian. As secretary he did not get on well with John Taylor (1694–1761) [q. v.], who had been appointed to the divinity chair; the trustees, however, sided with Seddon against Taylor. Discipline was always a difficulty at Warrington; with a view to better control, in 1767 the office of ‘rector academiæ’ was created, and bestowed upon Seddon. At the same time he succeeded Priestley in the chair of belles lettres; his manuscript lectures on the philosophy of language and on oratory, in four quarto volumes, are in the library of Manchester College, Oxford.
Taylor's difference with Seddon originated in a controversy respecting forms of prayer. On 3 July 1750 a meeting of dissenting ministers took place at Warrington to consider the introduction of ‘public forms’ into dissenting worship. A subsequent meeting at Preston on 10 Sept. 1751 declared in favour of ‘a proper variety of public devotional offices.’ Next year the ‘provincial assembly’ appointed a committee on the subject; a long controversy followed. On 16 Oct. 1760 a number of persons in Liverpool, headed by Thomas Bentley (1731–1780) [q. v.], agreed to build a chapel for nonconformist liturgical worship, and invited several dissenting ministers to prepare a prayer-book. Taylor declined, and wrote strongly against the scheme. Seddon warmly took it up. On 6 Jan. 1762 he submitted ‘the new liturgy’ to a company of ‘dissenters and seceders from the church’ at the Merchants' coffee-house, Liverpool. This compilation, published 1763, 8vo, as ‘A Form of Prayer and a New Collection of Psalms, for the use of a congregation of Protestant Dissenters in Liverpool,’ is often described as Seddon's work; he edited it, but had two coadjutors; of its three services,
