TEMPLE, WILLIAM (1790-1873)

TEMPLE, WILLIAM, Methodist minister, Miramichi circuit, late 1830s; b. London, England, 29 Mar 1790 (bap. 22 Apr 1790), s/o Thomas Temple and Mary Landon; m. 1817, Sarah A. - , also a native of London; d. Dorchester, N.B., 19 May 1873.

William Temple's parents were Independents (i.e., Congregationalists) but he joined the Methodists and was active in that ministry starting in 1812. In 1816 he was turned down for the Nova Scotia mission field because of lameness, but he was accepted for service in New Brunswick in 1820 and sent to Saint John. By the time he came to the Miramichi circuit, around 1837, he was one of the leading Methodist ministers in the Maritimes. He was also an accomplished writer and acted for a time as editor of the religion section of the Philanthropist of Halifax. He had as an assistant on the Miramichi the probationer Samuel D. Rice, who was subsequently a well-known Christian educator in Ontario and one of the leaders of the Methodist church in Canada. The existing records are in conflict concerning the exact dates of Temple's term at Chatham, however, and as to which other ministers may have spent time on the Miramichi circuit in the late 1830s.

In July 1840, as chairman of the New Brunswick conference of the church, Temple officiated at the laying of the cornerstone of the Wesleyan Academy at Sackville. He served as a trustee of the academy and was a significant figure in the early history of Mount Allison. In the course of his ministry he occupied some of the principal pulpits of the Methodist church in New Brunswick, at Woodstock, Fredericton, Sackville, Saint John, and elsewhere. He retired in Saint John in 1859 but later moved to Dorchester. A son, R. Alder Temple, was also a leading Methodist minister.