The Life of William Carey
George Smith · The Shoemaker Who Became the Father of Modern Missions
About this book
The Life of William Carey by George Smith
George Smith’s The Life of William Carey is the classic Victorian biography of William Carey (1761–1834), the Northamptonshire shoemaker who became the father of modern Protestant missions. It follows Carey from his boyhood and apprenticeship in Paulerspury, through the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society, his voyage to Bengal, thirty-four years at Serampore alongside Joshua Marshman and William Ward, his work translating and printing the Scriptures into some thirty-six Indian and Asian languages, his professorship in Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi, his contributions to botany and agriculture in India, the founding of Serampore College, and his death in 1834. An appendix reproduces the Charter of Incorporation and Statutes of Serampore College and the Treaty transferring Serampore to the British Government, followed by the author’s own footnotes. This UECF.NET web edition follows the source PDF and preserves its chapter order, headings, dates, quotations, references, and wording.
- 16 Chapters
- 1 Preface
- 1 Appendix
- 152 source pages
- 142,096 words
- ≈ 646 min read
- English
Source PDF: The Life of William Carey, by George Smith (public domain; first published 1885, this text reflecting a later revised edition — the Appendix notes a College scheme “while this volume is in the press (1909)”). A note in the source: notes 7–14 are absent from the printed footnote sequence in the source PDF itself and are reproduced here exactly as found, without invented content.