Savery, William, 1750-1804

<p>William Savery (July 14, 1750 - June 19, 1804) was an American Quaker, an active preacher, an abolitionist and a defender of the rights of Native Americans.</p>
<p>In 1798, during his traveling ministry to Europe, he preached at a Quaker meeting for worship in Norwich, England, which was attended by Elizabeth Fry and he became one of the three people who inspired her to follow a deeper Quakerism working for the poor, the sick, and for radical prison reform.</p>
<p>Savery was the son of Philadelphia cabinetmaker William Savery and his wife Mary Peters, both devout Quakers. He received a Quaker education, and was apprenticed as a tanner. Following the completion of his apprenticeship his faith lapsed. Then, in 1778, following a meeting for burial at the Merion Friends Meeting House, Merion, Pennsylvania, he experienced a deep religious transformation that changed his life. He married a religious fellow-Quaker, Sarah Evans, that year and in 1781 he was acknowledged as a minister.</p>

p. 106. William Savery, son of William and Mary Savery of the city of Philadelphia, and Sarah Evans, daughter of Pennell and Margaret Evans of Robinson Township, Berks County, were married 1778-11-19.

p. 470. Born 1750 in Philadelphia; educated according to Quaker principles; apprenticed to a rural tanner at age 14; returned to Philadelphia in 1771 and fell in with "votaries of folly and vanity"; moved back toward Quaker principles after a 1778 religious experience at a burial in Merion, PA; married in 1778; first spoke in meeting in his 30th year; travelled North America in the ministry regularly 1789-1795; in 1796 traveled to Pyrmont, Germany, via England; returned in 1798 via southern France, England, Scotland, and Ireland; provided relief to neighbors in the wake of a wave of disease in 1802; contracted dropsy; after prolonged illness, died 1804-06-18

SAVERY, William (Jr.), 1750-1804. Born Sept. 14, 1750 at Philadelphia, Pa., son of William
and Mary (Peters) Savery, of Huguenot and Welsh ancestry; educated at local schools; apprenticed in the tanning industry at Goshen, Pa., about 1764; 1771 known for his gay and lively ways with a group in Phila., Pa., which included Thomas Eddy and Charles Mifflin; in 1778 at a funeral in Merion, Pa., he was much impressed and sobered; married Sarah Evans of Bradford in 1778; 1779 he spoke first in meetings and accompanied a Friend on travels to Virginia and North Carolina; 1781 acknowledged a minister; travelled much in the ministry throughout United States; 1793 was present at the signing of an Indian treaty at Detroit which proved a failure; he and Thomas Stewardson went to Virginia; 1796 went to England via Germany with 5 other ministers, and on through the Netherlands to France; met Thomas Paine in Paris; then via southern France and into England; his ministry deeply affected Elizabeth Gurney (Fry); in Ireland, subsequently he had a painful disagreementwith Abraham Shackleton at Waterford, Ireland, and encountered the effects of the rationalist thinking then in favor in Ireland; returned to America and soon fell victim to dropsy; died June 19, 1804 in Phila., Pa. in his 54th year.