James Harwood

James Harwood (b. 1771) came to Bristol from Birmingham in late 1792 or early 1793, establishing himself as a linen-draper (the same profession as Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Bristol friend, Josiah Wade) in 15 Maryport Street (Matthews Bristol Directory 1794, 41). His father, John Harwood (d. 1792), was a successful grocer and chandler in Birmingham, in partnership with Thomas King (1755-1831). Both men served as deacons in the Baptist church at Cannon Street, Birmingham, where Samuel Pearce (1766-99) pastored from 1789 to 1799. After Harwood’s death in 1792, King succeeded him as proprietor of the business. The younger Harwood apparently received his legacy and removed to Bristol, where his fiance, Maria Holden (1773-1841), resided. Initially the Harwoods probably worshiped with Cottle and Wade at the Pithay church; in November 1799, however, they joined the Baptist congregation at Broadmead. They would remain in Bristol until 1814, when they would return to Birmingham, where Harwood became a prosperous haberdasher, linendraper, and tea dealer. During his first visit to Bristol in August 1794, Coleridge met another individual connected with Cottle and his Baptist friends. Referred to only as ‘Mr. Harwood’, he first appears in a letter from Coleridge to Southey on 1 September 1794, in which Coleridge sends his compliments to Shad (the servant of Southey’s aunt, Miss Tyler) as well as Josiah Wade and a Mr. and Mrs. Harwood, ‘for whom I retain high esteem & respect’. Apparently, the Harwoods had been so impressed by Coleridge’s presentation of pantisocracy that they were seriously contemplating joining the group.  On 18 September, just after his return to Cambridge, Coleridge writes again to Southey, full of enthusiasm and referring once again to Mr. Harwood and the servant boy, Shad (see E. L. Griggs, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 6 vols. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956-71], 1.100, 103). Before Coleridge left Bristol in August 1794, Harwood gave him a letter of introduction to Robert Hall. Harwood probably heard Hall preach on occasion at Cannon Street, and it may be that Hall stayed with the Harwoods on his visits to Birmingham. James’s sister, Ann (b. 1783), married Thomas Morgan, minister at Cannon Street, Birmingham, in 1802.  Another sister, Jane Harwood, married William Ransford of Bristol (he had formerly been married to a sister of Robert Hall before his marriage to Harwood).   James Harwood’s wife, Maria Holden (d. 1841, aged 68), was the sister of Adam Holden of Bristol and Peter Holden of Halifax; she was from Bristol.  Harwood’s mother, Ann Reynolds Harwood (d. 1834, aged 83), was a near relation of Sir Joshua Reynolds.  He had an older brother, John (b. 1767) and a younger brother, William (b. 1773).   James was later Secretary of the Birmingham Copper Company, supplying copper to the brass founders of Birmingham from Swansea. See Cannon Street Baptist Church Book, 1778-90, Birmingham Central Library, Birmingham, UK; Broadmead Members List R1-4; Broadmead Church Records, 1779-1817, Bd/M1/3, f. 349, Bristol Record Office; Alfred Fairfax Morgan, Kith and Kin. [The History of the Morgan Family] (Birmingham: Charles Cooper, 1896), section VII (n.p.); also Timothy Whelan, “S. T. Coleridge, Joseph Cottle, and Some Bristol Baptists, 1794-96,” in English Romantic Writers and the West Country, ed. Nick Roe (Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2010), 99-114.