Andrew Reed (minister)

Andrew Reed (27 November 1787 – 25 February 1862) was an English Congregational minister and hymnwriter, who became a prominent philanthropist and social reformer. He was also the father of Sir Charles Reed and grandfather of Talbot Baines Reed.

His parents were "humble tradespeople" and he was originally an apprentice.

He entered Hackney Academy in 1807 to study theology under George Collison and was ordained minister of New Road Chapel in 1811. About 1830 he built the larger Wycliffe Chapel, where he remained until 1861. He visited America on a deputation to the Congregational Churches in 1834 and received the degree of DD from Yale. In addition to an account of his visit to America (2 vols., 1834), he compiled a hymn-book (1841), and published some sermons and books of devotion.

Reed's name is permanently associated with a long list of philanthropic achievements, including the London Orphan Asylum (now Reed's School), the Infant Orphan Asylum and the Reedham Orphanage, which he undertook on non-denominational lines because the governors of the other institutions had made the Anglican Catechism compulsory. Besides these he originated in 1847 an asylum for idiots at Highgate, afterwards moved to Earlswood in Surrey with a branch at Colchester, and in 1855 the Royal Hospital for Incurables at Putney.

His monument, a tall obelisk of polished red granite, can be seen today at the London Congregationalists' garden cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery close to that of his son, Charles Reed, the eminent lay Congregationalist, typefounder, and Chairman of the first London School Board.

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