Wainwright family

Elizabeth (Mayhew) Wainwright (1759-1829), was the daughter of Rev. Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), the radical divine of the West Church and Elizabeth (Breame) Clarke (1733-1777) of Boston. Her mother's marriage to Mayhew in 1756 lasted until his death in 1766. In 1771 she married Mayhew's successor, the Rev. Simeon Howard (1733-1804). Elizabeth Mayhew married Peter Wainwright in 1790. Wainwright was a prosperous English tobacco merchant who had come to Boston before the American Revolution. Peter and Elizabeth returned to Liverpool, England in 1791 where their children Jonathan Mayhew, Peter Jr., and Elizabeth were born. She returned to America in 1803 and lived with her family in Boston, Hartford and New York; she died in Liverpool in 1829.

Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright (1792-1854), the son of Peter and Elizabeth Wainwright and a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born in Liverpool, England. He attended academy at Sandwich, Massachusetts, 1804-1808, graduated from Harvard in 1812 with honors, and was soon afterward appointed proctor of the university and instructor of rhetoric. Deciding not to pursue a career in law, Wainwright devoted his life to the ministry. The Rev. John S. J. Gardiner D.D. directed his theological course at a time when there were very few Episcopal clergymen in Massachusetts. In 1814, Wainwright was invited to St. John's, New Brunswick, to take charge of the academy and the parish. Having finished preparatory courses, he was admitted to the order of Deacon, by Bishop Griswold, in St. John's Church, Providence, RI, 1816. The following year he was ordained as a priest at Christ Church, Hartford, Connecticut. In August 1818, he married Amelia Maria Phelps. He was an assistant minister at Trinity Church in New York City from 1819 before he assumed the rectorship of Grace Church, New York in 1821, a post he held until 1834. The corporation of Trinity Parish of New York City consecrated Grace Church in 1809 to supply the increasing demand for church accommodation Trinity was unable to meet. During his years at Grace Church, Wainwright also served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the General Theological Seminary, received an honorary degree from Columbia College, and promoted the religious instruction of youth. His interest in education led to the advancement of Sunday school and to the establishment of a charity school designed to educate 150 boys and 150 girls. He was one of the founders of the original council of the University of the City of New York, later New York University, in 1829.

Sacred music was also dear to the minister and he collected, arranged and published a collection of church music. In 1834, Wainwright was called to take on the rectorship of Trinity Church, Boston, which had been split in controversy and was without a pastor. Showing the high value he placed on music in worship, he visited England to acquire a better organ for the Boston church. He returned to Trinity Parish, New York as assistant in charge of St. John's Chapel in 1838. In addition to his visit to England in 1836, Wainwright toured Jerusalem in 1848 and in 1852, returned to England as a delegate to the third jubilee anniversary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts at Westminster Abbey. Upon his return to New York in 1852, he was elected provisional bishop of the Diocese of New York. This occasion marked the first time in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church that an English bishop, from Montreal, united with American bishops in consecrating an American prelate.

Peter Wainwright, Jr. (1794-1878), Jonathan's brother, born in Liverpool, England, was employed at the Boston Savings Bank and later served as treasurer of the Provident Loan and Trust Company of Boston, MA. His wife was Charlotte Lambert.

Their sister, Elizabeth, also born in Liverpool, in 1794, lived with her brother Jonathan and her mother. After her mother's death, she married Dr. Walter Channing, a prominent obstetrician, in 1831. She died in 1834.

From the guide to the Wainwright family papers, 1792-1850, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)