William Enfield

William Enfield (29 March 1741 – 3 November 1797) was a British Unitarian minister who published a bestselling book on elocution entitled The Speaker (1774).

Enfield was born in Sudbury, Suffolk to William and Ann Enfield. In 1758, he entered Daventry Academy at the behest of his teacher and minister, William Hextal. In 1763 he became the minister at Benn's Garden Chapel in Liverpool, a wealthy and well-connected congregation. In 1767 Enfield married Mary Holland, the daughter of a local draper, and together they had five children. In 1770 he moved to Warrington to be the minister of the Cairo Street Chapel and a tutor of rhetoric and modern languages at Warrington Academy. He remained there until 1785, when he was called to be the minister of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich.

In Norwich Enfield's congregation assembled prominent families: the Martineaus, two unrelated Taylor families (those descending from John Taylor his predecessor at the Octagon, and that of William Taylor), and several others. His reputation was for bringing those of different views into polite discussion,, and he founded the Speculative Society, including Anglican and nonconformist clergy, and physicians.

Enfield died on 3 November 1797.

Despite being a Unitarian, Enfield still respected the Established Church and supported the government intertwined with it. When fellow Unitarian Joseph Priestley attacked these institutions, Enfield published Remarks on Several Late Publications in a Letter to Dr. Priestley (1770). Enfield believed that Dissenters would eventually win recognition from the government and decried Priestley's abrasive strategy. Priestley replied in a dismissive pamphlet, but the two still remained friends. Eventually, after the failure of the Feathers Tavern Petition, Enfield changed his position, agreeing with Priestley that Dissenting civil rights were too slow in coming.

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