Isaac Watts

(From the Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1899)

Isaac Watts (1674-1748), hymnwriter, was born at Southampton [England] on 17 July 1674. His grandfather, Thomas Watts, a commander of a man-of-war under Blake in 1656, died in the prime of life through an explosion on board his ship. His father, Isaac, occupied a lower position, being described as 'a clothier' of 21 French Street, Southampton (1719). As deacon of the independent meeting, he was imprisoned for his religious opinions in the gaol of Southampton at the time of the birth of his son Isaac and in the following year (1675). In 1685 also he was for the same cause obliged to hide in London for two years. In later years he kept a flourishing boarding-school at Southampton. He had a liking for the composition of sacred verses. One or two of his pieces appear in the posthumous works of his son (1779), and several others in that volume are credited to him by Gibbons in his biography. He died in February 1736?, aged 85. His wife was daughter of an Alderman Taunton at Southampton, and had Huguenot blood in her veins.

Isaac Watts was the eldest of...

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