BLUNT

blunt, john henry (1823-1884), english divine, was born at chelsea in 1823, and before going to the university of durham in 1850 was for some years engaged in business as a manufacturing chemist. he was ordained in 1852 and took his m.a. degree in 1855, publishing in the same year a work on _the atonement_. he held in succession several preferments, among them the vicarage of kennington near oxford (1868), which he vacated in 1873 for the crown living of beverston in gloucestershire. he had already gained some reputation as an industrious theologian, and had published among other works an annotated edition of the prayer book (1867), a _history of the english reformation_ (1868), and a _book of church law_ (1872), as well as a useful _dictionary of doctrinal and historical theology_ (1870). the continuation of these labours was seen in a _dictionary of sects and heresies_ (1874), an _annotated bible_ (3 vols., 1878-1879), and a _cyclopaedia of religion_ (1884), and received recognition in the shape of the d.d. degree bestowed on him in 1882. he died in london on the 11th of april 1884.