Edward Tyrrel Channing was a professor at Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

, brother to the noted Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 preacher William Ellery Channing

William Ellery Channing

Dr. William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton, one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. He was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker...

 and physician Walter Channing

Walter Channing (physician)

Walter Channing was an American physician and professor of medicine.Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Channing entered Harvard in 1804, but left in 1807 on account of the “rebellion” of that year, and afterward received his degree out of course...

, and cousin of author Richard Henry Dana, Sr.

Richard Henry Dana, Sr.

Richard Henry Dana, Sr. was an American poet, critic and lawyer. His son, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., also became a lawyer and author.-Biography:...

Biography

Channing was born in Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, the son of William and Lucy (Ellery) Channing. In 1807 he graduated from Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

, and began the practice of law in Boston, but devoted his attention chiefly to literature. From 1818-1819 he was the second editor of the North American Review

North American Review

The North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...

 after William Tudor (1779-1830)

William Tudor (1779-1830)

William Tudor was a leading citizen of Boston, sometime literary man, and cofounder of the North American Review and the Boston Athenaeum. It was Tudor who christened Boston The Athens of America in an 1819 letter...

, and remained a regular contributor through much of his life.

From 1819-1850 he taught at Harvard as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, the position held by John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...

 from 1806-1809. (Joseph McKean had served as the second Boylston Professor.) His students included the noted authors and speakers Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

, Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism...

, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...

, James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...

, Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...

, Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...

, and Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

.

Channing married Henrietta Ellery in 1826 and died in Cambridge. A memorial volume of his lectures was published in 1856 with memoir by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Richard Henry Dana Jr. was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of an eminent colonial family who gained renown as the author of the American classic, the memoir Two Years Before the Mast...

Selected works

• An oration, delivered July 4, 1817, at the request of the selectmen of the town of Boston, in commemoration of the anniversary of American independence, Boston: printed by Joseph T. Buckingham, Congress-Street, 1817.
• Lives of William Pinkney, William Ellery, and Cotton Mather, Boston : Hilliard, Gray; London : R. J. Kennett, 1836.
• Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1856.
• "Life of William Ellery," in The Library of American Biography, edited by Jared Sparks, vol. 6 New York: Harper & Brothers, 1848. 89-159.
• Lectures Read to the Seniors in Harvard College, Boston, 1856. Facsimile ed., introd. Charlotte Downey, 1997, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 978-0-8201-1502-3.