CAREY, WILLIAM

Baptist missionary pioneer; b. Paulers Pury, North-amptonshire, England, Aug. 17, 1761; d. Serampore, India, June 9, 1834. Born in humble circumstances and baptized an Anglican, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker (1779) and during this period became a Baptist. He was ordained and supplemented a meager income as a pastor by making shoes and teaching school. Impressed with the importance of giving the gospel to the non-Christian world, he stimulated the organization of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792). Under its appointment he went to India (1793), where he became eminent as a missioner, linguist, translator, educator, and scientist. To make a living and to avoid deportation by the East India Company, then opposed to missions, he was for a time manager of an indigo plantation. Gaining a foothold in Serampore, at that time a Danish possession, he and two colleagues translated the Bible in whole or in part into 44 Indian languages and dialects. By means of a press, which they established at Serampore, copies were manufactured and distributed. Carey also translated some of the Sanskrit classics into English. He and his colleagues established schools and capped them with a degree-granting college. As recreation he developed a botanical garden and won fame in India and Europe as a naturalist.

Bibliography: e. carey, Memoir of William Carey, D.D. (2d ed. London, 1837). m. drewery, William Carey: Shoemaker and Missionary (London, 1978). g. smith, The Life of William Carey—Shoemaker and Missionary (London, 1885). f. d. walker, William Carey (London 1926).

[k. s. latourette]