On 8 January 1846, he married Sarah Frances Bunyon of a Highgate family, whose head was involved in commerce in the city. Her family secured Colenso a country living as a priest of Forncett St Mary in Norfolk, where he carried on tutoring mathematics as well as editing a religious journal.[1]
A further extract from a letter written in the following March is interesting as showing that Sarah Frances Bunyon—for this was his wife's maiden name —was at this time meditating giving some of her life to good works; a resolution of which Mr. Colenso only too readily approved. He says—** I think that you have exactly pointed to your want, when you said that you believed it would be well for you to be employed in the labour of active love for others... With mind and disposition thus constituted, there was every guarantee that their marriage, which took place in January 1846, would prove a mutual bless- ing, and be the source of that happiness which so materially helped to alleviate the anxiety that he underwent by reason of the intolerance in this country with respect to his Biblical criticisms. By a curious coincidence, too, each during their en- gagement suffered from a heavy blow in pecuniary matters. While mathematical tutor at Harrow, a fire entirely destroyed his house — newly built and scarcely completed. The depressed state of the school, too, which sank very low in general repute under the management of Dr. Wordsworth, after- wards Bishop of Lincoln, left him heavily in debt. In the same interval. Miss Bunyon's father lost a considerable sum of money, partly by mines, so that at the time of their marriage they were neither blessed with superfluous wealth.[2]
In 1842 he met Sarah Frances Bunyon, two years younger than himself and the daughter of a London insurance broker. They quickly became engaged and were eventually married in January 1846, by which time Colenso had accepted appointment as Rector of the parish of Forncett St Mary’s in Norfolk. Frances (as Sarah Frances Bunyon was commonly called) was not only to be a deeply committed partner to Colenso during the rest of his life, eventually outliving him by ten years, but was also an intriguing figure in her own right. Moreover, she was a crucial influence in the development of Colenso’s religious beliefs, faith and theology. Also brought up an evangelical, by her mid-twenties Frances Bunyon had rejected evangelicalism, finding the basis of her sub¬ sequent faith in the writings and thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and F. D. Maurice. Within months of meeting Colenso, Frances had introduced him to the writings and ideas of both Coleridge and Maurice. Through family contacts, she was also instrumental in introducing Colenso to Maurice himself. John Colenso and Frances Bunyon thus became members of Maurice’s theological circle in the early 1840s and Colenso and Maurice struck up a close friendship. Maurice in due course conducted the marriage of john Colenso and Frances Bunyon in 1846... For Colenso, the introduction to the religious and theological ideas of Coleridge and Maurice was fundamental, both for his own faith and for his subsequent career.[3] It was a charge which haunted Colenso’s reputation both during his life and after his death — and it was a charge which drew repeated protests from Frances Colenso.[3]
- ^ Storey, Nicholas (2012). Great British adventurers. Internet Archive. Barnsley, South Yorkshire : Remember When. ISBN 978-1-78303-223-5.
- ^ Dyer, T. F. Thiselton (Thomas Firminger Thiselton) (1890). The loves and marriages of some eminent persons. Harvard University. London, Ward and Downey.
- ^ a b Religion in Victorian Britain. Manchester University Press. Manchester : Manchester University Press in association with the Open University. 1997. ISBN 978-0-7190-5184-5.
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