William Sturch
William Sturch was an English Unitarian theological writer.
Nonconformist background
William Sturch came from a long line of General Baptist ministers. His great-grandfather, William Sturch, ministered in London. His grandfather, John Sturch, ministered at Crediton, Devon; he published A Compendium of Truths, Exeter, 1731, and a sermon on persecution, 1736. His father, John Sturch, was ordained on 21 June 1753 and ministered to the Pyle Street congregation at Newport, Isle of Wight; he wrote A View of the Isle of Wight, 1778, which passed through several editions, and was translated into German by C. A. Wichman, Leipzig, 1781. He died in 1794. One of his daughters married John Potticary, the first schoolmaster of Benjamin Disraeli.Life and family
William Sturch was born at Newport about 1753. He became an ironmonger in London, and an original member in 1774 of the Unitarian Essex Street Chapel opened by Theophilus Lindsey. He took the chair at a dinner given in London to Henry Montgomery, LL.D., when Charles Butler was one of the speakers.Sturch died at York Terrace, Regent's Park, on 8 September 1838, aged 85, leaving a widow Elizabeth and family. He was buried in the graveyard of the New Gravel-Pit chapel, Hackney. His second daughter, Elizabeth Jesser, married John Reid and founded Bedford College, London, in October 1849.