Introduction

Biography

William was the son of farm­er Wil­liam Hurn and Mary Bul­lock, and hus­band of Sa­rah Whar­rie (mar­ried May 7, 1789, Ho­ly Tri­ni­ty, Hull).

Hurn was ap­point­ed as a class­ic­al tu­tor at Rev. Dr. Tho­mas Grim­wood’s Free Gram­mar School, Ded­ham, Es­sex, in 1777.

He joined the ar­my in 1779, and dur­ing the Am­eri­can re­vo­lu­tion, served as a lieu­ten­ant in the West­ern Bat­tal­ion of the West Suf­folk Mi­li­tia. He re­signed his com­mis­sion in 1780.

Bishop Young of Nor­wich or­dained him De­cem­ber 21, 1781.

Af­ter hold­ing va­ri­ous cu­ra­cies, in­clud­ing Beigh­ton, Nor­folk; Broome, and Stow­mar­ket, he be­came vi­car of De­ben­ham, Suf­folk, in 1790. He re­signed this post in Oc­to­ber 1822, and in Ap­ril 1823, be­came pas­tor of the Con­gre­ga­tion­al cha­pel at Wood­bridge, where he served the rest of his life.

Works

• Health Hill: A De­scrip­tive Po­em, in Four Can­tos (Col­ches­ter/Lon­don: pub­lished for the au­thor, 1777)
• Laughter in Death, ap­pend­ed to the ser­mon Pre­pa­ra­tion for Death, 1792
• The Bless­ings of Peace, and Guilt of War, a Lyr­ic Po­em (Lon­don: John­son, 1784)
• Psalms and Hymns, the Great­er Part Orig­in­al; and the Se­lect­ed Com­po­si­tions Al­tered (Ip­swich & Lon­don: J. Raw and J. Hat­chard & L. B. See­ley, 1813)
• Hymns and Spir­it­ual Songs, with Me­tri­cal Ver­sions from the Psalms, 2nd edi­tion of his 1813 work (Lon­don/Wood­bridge: for the au­thor by T. Ha­mil­ton and J. Nes­bit/R. Smith, 1824)
• Hymns and Spi­rit­ual Songs, with Me­tri­cal Ver­sions from the Psalms, 3rd edi­tion (Lon­don: Simp­kin and Mar­shall, 1833)