Biography

Edward Adey was born on the 31 March 1799 in Turnham Green

Turnham Green

Turnham Green is a public park situated on Chiswick High Road, Chiswick, London. It is separated in two by a small road. Christ Church stands on the eastern half of the green. A war memorial stands on the eastern corner...

, but was christened in Hammersmith

Hammersmith

Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

 the following month. He was the second child and son of Daniel and Catherine Adey. Coming from a religious family he eventually trained at Newport Pagnall, like his elder brother, John, as a minister before taking up a position in the Baptist church. His first appointment was in Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard

-Lower schools:*Beaudesert Lower School - Apennine Way*Clipstone Brook Lower School - Brooklands Drive*Greenleas Lower School - Derwent Road*Dovery Down Lower School - Heath Road*Heathwood Lower School - Heath Road*Leedon Lower School - Highfield Road...

, a job he was hold for 25 years and a place where he would eventually be buried.

Adey took charge of the congregation of baptists at Lake Street in 1828 who came from an older congregation who had been meeting since 1775. In 1832 there was a split in the church as some objected to the pastor. A new stricter chapel was formed that did not allow the open communion that was practised at Lake Street. Today the chapel, or its 1864 replacement for 500 people, no longer stands, but it is recognised in the name of the Chapel Mews that are now on that site.

Adey was an active member of the Anti-Slavery Society advising on such matters as how to free those slaves who were held in the Danish colonies. He was known to William Wilberforce and he is one of the people chosen to appear in Haydon's picture of the 1840 Anti-slavery convention where the aged Thomas Clarkson

Thomas Clarkson

Thomas Clarkson , was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves...

 is shown addressing the first international convention on anti-slavery.

One of the people who Adey preached with on a tour of the south Midlands was William Knibb

William Knibb

William Knibb , English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica, is chiefly known for his work to free slaves.-Missionary in Jamaica:...

, a Jamaican missionary. Knibb also attended the 1840 Anti-Slavery convention.

Many notable people are in this painting including Lady Byron, Daniel O'Connell

Daniel O'Connell

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...

, Thomas Fowell Buxton

Thomas Fowell Buxton

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer....

 and Richard Tapper Cadbury

Richard Tapper Cadbury

Richard Tapper Cadbury came to Birmingham in 1794 and started a linen draper's business in partnership with a fellow Quaker His children included John Cadbury who was given help to start a tea and coffee business that would develop into Cadbury's.-Biography:Cadbury came from Exeter and he was born...

 )who was just behind Adey in the painting).

In 1863, Adey was instrumental in forming a Baptist church in Brackley

Brackley

Brackley is a town in south Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Oxford and miles form Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the intersecting trade routes between London, Birmingham and the English Midlands and between Cambridge and Oxford...

in Northamptonshire.

Adey married Mary Linnell in 1835 and had four children although one died young. He died in Leighton Buzzard on 28 April 1876.