JOSEPH HUNTER: (1783-1861), antiquary, was born at Sheffield on 6 February 1783, being the son of Michael Hunter, who was engaged in the cutlery business. His mother dying while he was quite young, he was placed under the guardship of Joseph Evans, a Presbyterian minister, who sent him to school near Sheffield, where he received the rudiments of a classical education, while he devoted all his spare time to antiquarian studies and to the collection of church notes, filling many volumes, still in existence, with copies of monumental inscriptions, coats of arms, and the like. He was removed in 1809 to a college at York, where he studied for the Presbyterian ministry under the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved. In 1809 he became minister of a Presbyterian congregation at Bath, where he resided for twenty-four years. He married in 1815, Mary, daughter of Francis Hayward, M.D., Bath; by her (who died in 1840), he had six children, of whom three sons and a daughter survived him. His principal works are: 1. Four sermons printed between 1811 and 1819, and other writings on religious subjects. 2. “Who Wrote Cavenish’s Life of Wolsey? A Dissertation,” London, 1814, 4to. 3. “Hallamshire. The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York. With Historical and Descriptive Notices of the Parishes of Ecclesfield, Hansworth, Treeton, and Whiston, and of the Chapelry of Bradfield,” London, 1819, folio; new and enlarged edition by the Rev. Alfred Gatty, London, 1869, folio. 4. “Golden Sentences. A Manual That may be used by All Who Desire to be Moral and Religious,” Bath, 12mo. compiled from the works of Bishop Hall, Fuller, Sir Thomas Browne, Whilcote, and Dr. Richard Lucas, of whom brief biographies are given. Composer of many other miscellaneous books.
