William Hazlitt (18 April 1737 – 16 July 1820) was a Unitarian minister and author, and the father of the Romantic essayist and social commentator of the same name. He was an important figure in eighteenth-century English and American Unitarianism, and had a major influence on his son's work. Biography Early life Hazlitt was born to Presbyterian parents at Shronell, County Tipperary, in Ireland, and was educated at a grammar school. He matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1756, where he was taught by Adam Smith, Joseph Black and James Watt. Hazlitt was exposed to a range of controversial religious and philosophical views while at university, and it is possible that he converted to Unitarianism at this time. After graduating he became a chaplain to Sir Conyers Jocelyn at Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and then worked as a minister at Wisbech. In 1766 he married Grace Loftus, before moving to Marshfield in Gloucestershire. In the same year he commenced his literary career, when Benjamin Davenport and Joseph Johnson published Hazlitt's Sermon on Human Mortality. Preaching in England and Ireland In 1770 William and Grace Hazlitt, along with their sons John and Loftus, moved to Maidstone in Kent. Soon after their arrival, their son Loftus, only two and a half years old, died. A daughter, Margaret, was born in December. During this period Hazlitt maintained ties with figures such as Joseph Priestley, Richard Price and Benjamin Franklin, and was an active writer, contributing to Priestley's Theological Repository under the pseudonyms "Philalethes" and "Rationalis", and publishing five religious volumes. His work provoked a substantial body of writing by other authors. In 1778 his son William was born. Hazlitt's writings at this time included pamphlets entitled The Methodists Vindicated (1771) and Human Authority in Matters of Faith Repugnant to Christianity (1774). Stephen Burley, who has investigated Hazlitt's authorship of these works, describes Hazlitt's position in Methodists Vindicated as follows: He sets out to subvert preconceptions about social and ecclesiastical hierarchies in a sweeping attack on the legitimacy of the Established Church and its clergy. He argues for a distinctly egalitarian faith which comprehends both men and women, rich and poor. Hazlitt was, in the words of Duncan Wu, "essentially a Socinian" in his religious beliefs. His writings criticise the persistence of Catholic doctrines in the Anglican church which, in Hazlitt's view, have no basis in scripture. As a Unitarian, he also rejected