Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntington

(b. Aug. 13, 1707, Astwell Castle, Northamptonshire – d. June 17, 1791, Spa Fields, Islington, London )

Gender: F

Selina Shirley (1707-1791) was the daughter of Washington Shirley, 2nd Earl Ferrers, and Mary Levinge. In 1728 she married Theophilus Hastings. 9th Earl of Huntingdon, and went to live at Donington Park in Leicestershire, where she gave birth to seven children in ten years. Her husband died in 1746, and she became an active member of the Methodist movement, supporting John Wesley and George Whitefield. She appointed Whitefield as her chaplain and invited him to preach to such unlikely audiences as Lord Chesterfield, Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Bolingbroke. Huntingdon founded sixty-four chapels around the country, and helped to fund others; she also founded a ministers’ training college at Trefeca in Wales, which moved to Cheshunt in Hertfordshire in 1792. In 1779 her chaplains were expelled by the Church of England and she formally declared herself a Dissenter under the Toleration Act. She had inherited slave-owning estates in Georgia and South Carolina, and became an active abolitionist. It was said that she spent £100,000 of her fortune on promoting the cause of Evangelical religion.

Also known as:

Selina Hastings
Countess of Huntington

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