William Carey
- Lived
- 1761–1834
- Era
- Modern
- Where
- Northamptonshire and Bengal
- Tradition
- Particular Baptist
The society that began the modern missionary movement
A cobbler and self-taught linguist who argued a reluctant meeting of Particular Baptist ministers into founding a missionary society in 1792, and sailed for Bengal the next year, where he stayed forty years without a furlough.
Why it matters
He and his colleagues translated scripture into some forty languages and dialects, compiled grammars and dictionaries for several, and set up a printing press and a college at Serampore. He campaigned for years against sati, the burning of widows, which was banned in 1829. The mission also cost his family severely: his wife Dorothy did not want to go, and lost her mind in Bengal.
In the record
-
1792–1910 AD Migration
The modern missionary movement
Argued the founding society into existence in 1792
All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.