[posted] Posted(#58019, Church)

[David Price]

The Infamous Life of John Church, by Anonymous                           58019
   [Link: http://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/0/1/58019 ]
   [Files: 58019-0.txt; 58019-h.htm]


For those wishing to know: the first major pamphlet by Hay and Turner 
(published 1817) against John Church (c1780-1826?).  No doubt published 
just after the trial of John Church (for molesting a young man in London), 
it somehow pieced together much of his life (at this stage unpublished) 
and brought together a large number of cases against Church.  It starts 
with his being being found as an abandoned baby, quickly adds that he was 
turned out of the Foundling Hospital as "he was addicted to improper and 
disgusting practices", his connection with the male brothel in Vere 
Street, his love letters to a young man in London Borough, the sexual 
assaults at Banbury, then Ipswich, drunkness, abandonment of children, 
that "fawning on young men, that was his chief delight" etc. 
Interestingly it doesn't really mention the Adam Foreman case that John 
Church had been tried on and found guilty. It claims that at the time of 
the trial John Church's preaching was attended by at least a thousand 
people, and he earned 1,000 to 1,200 pounds a year.

John Church never really refuted any of the above, but his insistence that 
the whole was a plot against him by less successful preachers might go 
some way to explaining how an obscure London printer found out so much 
about Church's life, just in time to publish it at the trial.

All the best,
David,
Muggy England