Wesleyan Reformer, born either in Great Yarmouth or Yarmouth, IOW., the son of a sea captain. He joined the Wesleyans in 1800 and entered the WM ministry after a career at sea, which included 18 months as a prisoner-of-war. He gained an MA at Glasgow University in 1818 and an LLD in 1825. In 1806 he married Anne Williams of the Gresford family. Their three sons, Samuel, Richard and Henry, all went to Kingswood School. The Warren family grave is at Wesley's Chapel, City Road.

In 1827 he published a two-volume history of WM. His scholarship and abilities soon earned him an influential position and he was stationed in some of the leading towns. In 1833 he was on a committee, along with Jabez Bunting, to formulate plans for the education of young ministers. Unfortunately the committee went beyond its brief and nominated Bunting, despite his existing offices, as President of the Hoxton Theological Institution.

Warren consequently attacked the scheme in his Remarks on the Theological Institution, which went through several editions and led to an immense pamphlet warfare. He was suspended from his superintendency of the Manchester, Oldham Street, Circuit, took the matter to court and lost, but in the course of this discovered that certain resolutions of Conference had not been entered in the official record. He was expelled and in 1835 formed the Wesleyan Methodist Association. He did not approve of the constitution proposed at its first Conference in 1836 (over which he presided), sought unsuccessfully to make it more democratic by a union with the MNC, before resigning in October 1837. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood and served in the slum parish of All Souls, Ancoats until his death at Ardwick, Manchester on 23 May 1862.

His oldest son, Samuel Warren Jnr (1807-1877), lawyer and novelist, was born near Wrexham on 23 May 1807. He was educated at *Kingswood School, 1817-1821, and then studied medicine at Edinburgh. Called to the Inner Temple, as a QC, he was Recorder of Hull, 1854-1874, Conservative MP for Midhurst, 1856-1859,and Master in Lunacy.1859-1877. He wrote several novels, including two serialised in Blackwood's Magazine and is said to have influenced Dickens.

Entry written by: OAB
Category: Person
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