Octavius Winslow (1808-78) was born in Pentonville, a village near London. He descended from Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim leader who braved the Atlantic to come to the New World on the Mayflower in 1620. Octavius’s father, Thomas, an army captain stationed in London, died when he was seven years old. Shortly after that, Octavius’s God-fearing mother took her family of thirteen children to New York.
Winslow was ordained as a pastor in 1833 in New York. He later moved to England where he became one of the most valued nonconformist ministers of the nineteenth century, largely due to the earnestness of his preaching and the excellence of his prolific writings.
Winslow pastored a Baptist church on Warwick Road in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (1839-1858) and in 1858, become the founder and first minister of Kensington Chapel, Bath. In 1865, the church became a Union Church (a mixture of credobaptism and pedobaptism). This marked a change in attitude in Winslow who in 1867 left the Baptist Pastorate and was ordained an Anglican deacon and priest in 1870. For his remaining years, he served as a minister of Emmanuel Church, Brighton. In 1868 he had produced a hymn book for this very congregation.
Octavius later wrote a book about his family’s experiences from his mother’s perspective, titled “Life in Jesus.” He was also a popular speaker for special occasions, such as the opening of C. H. Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861. After a short illness, he died on March 5, 1878, and was buried in Abbey Cemetery, Bath.
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