Robert Spears (minister)

Robert Spears (Newcastle upon Tyne 25 September 1825 – Highgate, London 25 February 1899) was a British Unitarian minister who was editor of the confessedly "Biblical Unitarian" Christian Life weekly.

He was fifth son by the second wife of John Spears, foreman of an ironworks, and was born at Lemington, parish of Newburn, Northumberland. His father was a Calvinistic Presbyterian, but the family attended the parish church. Brought up as an engineering smith, his love of reading led him to leave this calling and set up a school in his native village. He joined the New Connexion Methodists; a debate (1845) at Newcastle upon Tyne between Joseph Barker and William Cooke led him to the conviction that doctrine must be expressed in ‘the language of scripture.’ In 1846 he was master of the New Connexion school at Scotswood-on-Tyne, and was taken on trial as a local preacher.

A lecture at Blaydon in 1848 by George Harris (1794–1859) brought him into relations with Harris, and was followed by an introduction to the unitarian body in 1849. Leaving the Methodists, he became Unitarian minister without salary at Sunderland (1852–8). There he conducted a very successful school, and originated (1856) a monthly religious magazine, the Christian Freeman'. He removed to a pastorate at (1858–61), where he originated (30 December 1859) the Stockton Gazette (later the North-Eastern Gazette).

In 1861 Spears attracted the attention of Robert Brook Aspland, was invited to London by Sir James Clarke Lawrence, and became (1862) minister of Stamford Street chapel, Blackfriars. In 1867 he was elected co-secretary of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association with Aspland, on whose death (1869) he became general secretary, reviving it and nearly quadrupling its income. In 1874 he left Stamford Street to take charge of a new congregation at College Chapel, Stepney Green.

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