Edward Ind

Edward Ind (1764-1821?) was originally from St. Ives in Huntingdonshire. Ind was apprenticed at fifteen in the counting-house of Richard Foster (1733?-90), a Cambridge merchant and deacon at St. Andrew’s Street in Cambridge (Church Book: St. Andrew’s Street 34-36, 62).  Ind left Foster’s business after a few years and became a clerk for Thomas Hyde, a brewer.  Eventually he became a partner in the business, resulting in considerable financial success, which enabled him to devote much of his time to literary and civic endeavors. Thomas Mott, a Cambridge poet, in his brief biography of Ind, notes that Ind was a poet whose works “exhibit a classic merit far superior to what might have been expected from one who was not gifted with a scholastic education.” He was also devoted to benevolence work, as evidenced by his involvement for many years with the Cambridge Benevolent Society.  “To the poor, he was always a willing, and steady benefactor,” writes Mott, “and, to the last hour of his existence, he remained a faithful and devout supporter, and servant, of his religion and his God” (v).  Though always an Anglican, Ind was active in the reform movement of the 1790s, developing close friendships with both Flower and Robert Hall. Olinthus Gregory records an interesting anecdote about Ind in his Memoir of Robert Hall.  In describing the origins of Hall’s Apology for the Freedom of the Press in December 1792, Gregory writes:

The evening after the event occurred, to which he alludes in the 'Apology,' he attended a periodical meeting of a Book-society, constituted principally of members of his own congregation and of Mr. Simeon's, and usually denominated Alderman Ind's Club, that distinguished ornament of Mr. Simeon's congregation being the treasurer.  Every person present expressed himself in terms of the strongest indignation at the insult offered to Mr. Musgrave; every one thought it highly desirable that some man of talent at Cambridge should advocate the principles maintained by the friends of liberty, especially of those who avowed evangelical sentiments, and the    nec­essity for their united activity, in the present state of the country and of Europe.  Mr. Hall spoke as decidedly as any of them with regard to the urgent necessities of the case; when they all, having brought him precisely into the position at which they were aiming, exclaimed, that it was he to whom alone they could look in this exigency.  “Alderman Ind, you know, Sir, (said he,) was an excellent man; pure as a seraph, and gentle as a lamb.  I thought that if he felt roused, if he could join with the rest in urging me, I might bring all hesitation to a truce; and so, in an evil hour, I yielded to their entreaties.  I went home to my lodgings, and began to write immed­iately; sat up all night; and, wonderful for me, kept up the intellectual ferment for almost a month; and then the thing was done.”   See Olinthus Gregory, ed., The Works of Robert Hall, A. M.  6 vols.  (London:  Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 6.33.