Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/286

Avondale a series of thirty plates, slightly etched from drawings by Andrea Locatelli, entitled 'A Specimen of Sketching Landscapes.' He for some time kept a print-shop, and published some political caricatures, which were mostly directed against the French, and in support of the administration of Charles James Fox. Six of these, 'French Spies attacked by British Bees,' and others, were engraved by himself in 1780. He died at Brighton 11 May 1820, at the advanced age of ninety-nine.

[Ottley's Notices of Engravers, 1831; Gent. Mag. 1820, i. 476.]  AVONDALE,. [See .]

AVELING, THOMAS WILLIAM BAXTER (d. 1884), independent minister, received his theological training at Highbury College, and in 1838 was appointed to the pastorate of the Kingsland Congregational Church. Here he acquired a high reputation for eloquence and learning, his popularity with his flock being evinced by the fact that his connection with them was only terminated by his death, which took place at Reedham, near Croydon, 3 July 1884. In 1876 he was appointed chairman of the Congregational Union. He was also for many years the honorary secretary of the Asylum for Fatherless Children at Reedham. Some years before his death he received from the Washington University the degree of D.D. During his half-century of ministerial labour he published a large number of sermons and other fugitive pieces, and one work of a more substantial character, viz. 'Memorials of the Clayton Family,' 8vo, 1867, which, as it contains correspondence never before published of the Countess of Huntingdon and other persons eminent in the religious world of the last century, has some pretensions to the character of an original authority.

[Times, 5 July 1884; Congregational Yearbook; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  AVERELL, ADAM (1754–1847), Irish primitive Wesleyan clergyman, was born on 7 May 1754 at Mullan, county Tyrone, where his family had settled in the sixteenth century. His parents were of the established church, and related to Dr. John Averell, bishop of Limerick, who died in 1771, aged 58. In 1773 Averell went to Trinity College, Dublin, the provost being the Right Hon. Francis Andrews, nephew of Bishop Averell. In 1774 he became private tutor to Sir Richard St. George. He was ordained at Clonfert by Bishop Cope on 25 July 1777, but took no charge. At this period he met John Wesley in Dublin, and heard him preach. In 1781 he went to Eton with his pupils; the next year he became alienated from his patron, St. George. On 18 Dec. 1785 he married the daughter and heiress of the Rev. R. Gregory of Tentower, Queen's County. He was at this time in the habit of preaching against the methodists, and lived as a man of the world, enjoying cards, hunting, and dancing. Two circumstances produced a change — the reading of Wesley's 'Appeal,' and an illness which seized him during some private theatricals. Becoming evangelical in his views and habits, he acted as curate to Dr. Ledwich at Aghaboe, 1789-91. He was offered in 1792 a curacy at Madeley, but preferred to exercise a gratuitous ministry nearer home. On 7 Oct, 1792 he preached for the first time to a methodist congregation; in 1796 the Dublin conference admitted him to full connection. In 1797 he was separated from his wife. In the division which was the result of the controversy respecting the administration of the sacraments by the preachers (1814-18), Averell took a prominent part with the conservatives who adhered to Wesley's polity, declaring on 21 Jan. 1818 at Clones that the methodists 'are not a church but a religious society.' The first meeting of the Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Conference was held on 10 July 1818; Averell was elected president, and constantly re-elected till after 1841, when his infirmities led him to decline office. He died on 16 Jan. 1847. The primitive Wesleyan body he represented (re-united since 1878, with few exceptions, to the Irish Wesleyan Conference) must not be confounded with the primitive methodists of English origin, who go to an opposite extreme.

[Memoirs by Alexander Stewart and George Revington, 1849, where a portrait is given.]  AVERY, BENJAMIN, LL.D. (d 1764), physician, was originally a presbyterian minister at Bartholomew Close, London, but quitted the ministry in 1720, in consequence of the Salters' Hall controversy on subscription, 1719, He practised as a physician, and was treasurer of Guy's Hospital. He retained the confidence of his presbyterian brethren, and acted for several years as secretary to the dissenting deputies, organised 1732, for the protection of the rights and redress of the grievances of the three denominations. He also rendered important services to political and theological liberalism by contributing to the 'Occasional Papers,' collected in three volumes, 1716-19, sometimes called the 'Bagweell' papers, from a word formed