Simeon, Charles

(1759–1836)

   Revivalist.

   Simeon was educated at the University of Cambridge and he was ordained into the ministry of the Church of England. For the rest of his life he served a parish in Cambridge. He was an important leader of the Evangelical Revival and laid stress on personal conversion and salvation through faith in the saving death of Jesus Christ. At this period, the Anglican Church was largely sleeping the sleep of the complacent and Simeon did much to awaken the religious spirit in the university; he also worked diligently for missions abroad. He was one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society and the Church Mission to the Jews and he was an enthusiastic supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Henry martyn, the important missionary to India, was one of his curates. He also founded the Simeon Trust which tried to place like-thinking evangelical clergymen in parishes. He was a hugely influential figure, and his sermons were collected and published after his death.

   H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon (1892);

   A. Pollard, Charles Simeon (1959);

   C. Smyth, Simeon and Church Order (1940).