John Moultrie (poet)

John Moultrie (1799–1874) was an English clergyman, known as a poet and hymn-writer.

He was born in Great Portland Street, London, on 31 December 1799, at the house of his maternal grandmother, Mrs Fendall; he was the eldest son of George Moultrie, rector of Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, by his wife Harriet (died 1867). His father was the son of John Moultrie of South Carolina.

After preliminary education at Ramsbury, Wiltshire, Moultrie was in 1811 sent to Eton College; John Keate, whom he annoyed by a visit to Thomas Gray's monument at Stoke Poges, was then headmaster. among his friends were William Sidney Walker, Lord Morpeth, Richard Okes, John Louis Petit, Henry Nelson Coleridge and Edward Coleridge, and Winthrop Mackworth Praed. He composed with great facility in Latin, but was indifferent to school studies, distinguishing himself as a cricketer, an actor, and wit.

In October 1819 Moultrie entered, as a commoner, Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became intimate with Thomas Babington Macaulay, Charles Austin, and others of their set. He played first-class cricket for Cambridge: he is recorded in one match in 1820, totalling 6 runs with a highest score of 6 not out and taking 1 wicket. Proceeding M.A. in 1822, he spent time at the Middle Temple, but after acting for some time as tutor to the three sons of Lord Craven, he gave up the law and decided to take holy orders; he had an offer of the living of Rugby, Warwickshire, by Lord Craven in 1825. In 1825 he was also ordained, and on 28 July in that year he married Harriet Margaret Fergusson, sister of James Fergusson.