Thomas William Baxter Aveling

Thomas William Baxter Aveling (11 May 1815 – 3 July 1884), was an independent congregational minister, born at Castletown in the Isle of Man, the son of a soldier and an Irish mother.

Aveling received his theological training at Highbury College, and in 1838 was appointed to the pastorate of the Kingsland Congregational Church, Hackney. 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.

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 Purley (later named Reedham Orphanage, in honour of its founder Andrew Reed). 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.

The Dictionary of National Biography (1885) incorrectly states that "some years before his death he received from the Washington University the degree of D.D." Aveling actually received his honorary D.D. degree in 1874 from Howard University located in Washington, D.C.

Aveling died at Reedham, near Caterham on 3 July 1884, and was buried at the Abney Park Cemetery, London.

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