John Owen

John Owen (1766 – 26 September 1822) was an English Anglican priest, a secretary on its foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Life The son of Richard Owen, a jeweller of Old Street, London, he entered St Paul's School on 18 October 1777. He went on, in 1784, as Sykes exhibitioner, to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as sizar. He migrated to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was admitted a scholar there later in 1784, graduated B.A. in 1788, became a Fellow in 1789, and proceeded M.A. in 1791.

In the spring of 1791, Owen went on the continent of Europe, at first as tutor to a young gentleman. In September 1792, he left Geneva for the south of France, and arrived in Lyon to find it in the hands of revolutionaries. He returned to Switzerland, and so to England, in 1793. Funeral sermon on the surgeon William Sharp.

As BFBS secretary, Owen wrote: An Address to the Chairman of the East India Company, London, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions, 1807. It was a reply to an attack by Thomas Twining and John Scott-Waring on the society's work in India, on the ground that a conquered nation's free exercise of religion was being improperly limited. The History of the Origin and First Ten Years of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 2 vols. London, 1816. It was reviewed by Robert Southey in the Quarterly Review, 1827, who criticised the society's translations. A French translation of the work appeared.

Family Owen married Charlotte Green in 1794, and they settled in Cambridge. Several of their children survived him, including sons Henry and John Orde. Their daughter Mary Frances married in 1820 William Wilberforce (1798–1879), the eldest son of William Wilberforce, who was being coached by Owen for a career as barrister. Esther Owen (1804–1871) married in 1823 Nathaniel Wells, as his second wife.