Raffles, Thomas

RAFFLES, rāf´elz, THOMAS: English Independent; b. at London May 17, 1788; d. at Liverpool Aug. 18, 1863. He studied at Homerton College, 1805–09; was pastor at Hammersmith, London, 1809–11; and at Liverpool, 1811–62. His ministry here was one of great usefulness and his position for a half a century a commanding one. He was one of the founders of Blackburn Academy for the education of Independent ministers, removed afterward to Manchester as the Lancashire Independent College. He published Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of Thomas Spencer (Liverpool, 1813; 7th ed., 1836); and Lectures on Practical Religion (1820). He contributed eight selections of his own to Hymns by W. B. Collyer (London, 1812), and arranged a Supplement to Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns (1853), including those and thirty-eight others, one of which was "High in yonder realms of light."

Bibliography: T. S. Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of . . . T. Raffles, London, 1864 (by his son); J. B. Brown, T. Raffles, . . . a Sketch, ib. 1863; S. W. Duffield , English Hymns, pp. 561–562, New York, 1886; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 948–949.