Early life

Furneaux was born in December 1726 at Totnes

Totnes

Totnes is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

. At the grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 there he formed a life-long friendship with Benjamin Kennicott

Benjamin Kennicott

Benjamin Kennicott was an English churchman and Hebrew scholar.He was born at Totnes, Devon. He succeeded his father as master of a charity school, but the generosity of some friends enabled him to go to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1744, and he distinguished himself in Hebrew and divinity...

. In 1742 or 1743 he came to London to study for the dissenting ministry under David Jennings

David Jennings (tutor)

David Jennings was an English Dissenting minister and tutor, known also as the author of Jewish Antiquities.-Life:He was the younger son of the ejected minister John Jennings , whose ministry to the independent congregation at Kibworth was continued by his elder brother John...

, at the dissenting academy in Wellclose Square

Wellclose Square

Wellclose Square lies in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, between Cable Street to the north and The Highway to the south.The western edge, now called Ensign Street, was previously called Well Street. The southern edge was called Neptune street. On the north side is Graces Alley, home to...

. He appears to have remained at the academy till 1749, probably assisting Jennings, whose Hebrew Antiquities he later edited (1766).

After ordination he became (1749) assistant to Henry Read, minister of the presbyterian congregation at St. Thomas's, Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

. On the resignation of Roger Pickering, around 1752, he became in addition one of the two preachers of the Sunday evening lecture at Salters' Hall. Retaining this lectureship, in 1753 he succeeded Moses Lowman

Moses Lowman

Moses Lowman was an English nonconformist minister, known as a Biblical commentator.-Life:Born in London, he became a student at the Middle Temple in 1697, but a year later abandoned law for divinity. On 17 September 1698 he entered the university of Leyden, and studied theology at Utrecht under...

 in the pastorate of the independent congregation at Clapham

Clapham

Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...

. Despite hesitant delivery in preaching, he drew a large congregation.

He received the degree of D.D. on 3 August 1767, from Marischal College, Aberdeen. From October 1769 to January 1775 he was relieved of the afternoon service on his lecture evenings by Samuel Morton Savage

Samuel Morton Savage

-Life:He was born in London on 19 July 1721. His grandfather, John Savage, was pastor of the seventh-day baptist church, Mill Yard, Goodman's Fields. Savage was related to Hugh Boulter....

, D.D. As a member of the Coward Trust he had much to do with the revised plan of education adopted by the trustees on Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge

Philip Doddridge DD was an English Nonconformist leader, educator, and hymnwriter.-Early life:...

's death. He was also from 1766 to 1778 a trustee of Daniel Williams

Daniel Williams

Sir Daniel Charles Williams, GCMG was a Governor-General of Grenada, from August 8, 1996 until November 18, 2008. He was formally appointed by Queen Elizabeth II on August 9, 1996 after having been nominated by Prime Minister Keith Mitchell.In 1997, he was Knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth...

's foundations.

Activist

Furneaux was known for his work on behalf of the rights of nonconformists. His name is associated with the progress of the ‘sheriff's case,’ a legal case before the courts in the period 1754 to 1767. It arose out of an expedient adopted in 1748 by the Corporation of London

Corporation of London

The City of London Corporation is the municipal governing body of the City of London. It exercises control only over the City , and not over Greater London...

 to raise money for building the Mansion House

Mansion House

Mansion House may refer to:* the official residences of the Mayor or Lord Mayor of various towns and cities in Great Britain and Ireland:** Mansion House, Dublin** Mansion House, London***See also Mansion House tube station on the London Underground...

, by fining nonconformists who declined to qualify for the office of Sheriff of London in accordance with the Sacramental Test Act. In 1754, three nonconformists resisted this imposition. The case reached the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 in 1767, and in February of that year was decided in favour of the nonconformists; and it was on this occasion that Lord Mansfield delivered the speech in which occurs the remark that the ‘dissenters' way of worship’ is not only lawful but ‘established.’ This speech was reported, without notes, by Furneaux with assistance from another hearer, Samuel Wilton, D.D., independent minister of the Weighhouse, Eastcheap

Eastcheap

Eastcheap is a street in the City of London. Its name derives from cheap, market, with the prefix "East" distinguishing it from the other former City of London market of Westcheap . In medieval times Eastcheap was the City's main meat market, with butchers' stalls lining both sides of the street...

. Mansfield, who revised the report, found in it only ta few small errors.

In 1769 appeared the fourth volume of William Blackstone

William Blackstone

Sir William Blackstone KC SL was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke...

's Commentaries on the Laws of England

Commentaries on the Laws of England

The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765–1769...

in which, under the head of ‘Offences against God and Religion,’ nonconformity is treated as a crime. Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

 was the first to attack this opinion; Blackstone replied in a pamphlet (2 September 1769). In the following year Furneaux published his ‘Letters to Mr. Justice Blackstone,’ with a moral argument against enforcing religious truths by civil penalties.

Furneaux was present on 6 February 1772 in the gallery of the House of Commons

House of Commons of Great Britain

The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of the Parliament of Scotland, as one of the most significant...

 with Edward Pickard

Edward Pickard

Rev. Dr Edward Pickard was a dissenting minister who founded the Orphan Working School in 1758. The Orphan school would eventually become a school in Reigate in Surrey. He also led a group who tried to change the law restricting the rights of dissenting ministers.-Biography:Pickard was born in...

, presbyterian minister of Carter Lane, when the clerical petition for relief from subscription, known as the ‘Feathers' petition,’ was under discussion. The speeches of Sir William Meredith and Sir George Savile in favour of the petition were reported by Furneaux from memory. In the course of the debate the remark was made by Lord North, who opposed the petition, that if similar relief were asked by the dissenting clergy there would be no reasonable objection to it. Acting on this hint Furneaux and Pickard called a meeting of nonconformist ministers of the three denominations, who adopted an application to Parliament (prepared by Furneaux) for relief from doctrinal subscription. A relief bill passed the Commons on 3 April 1772 without a division; on 18 May it was rejected in the Lords. In support of a second bill to the same effect Furneaux published his ‘Essay on Toleration’ (1773). Relief was at length granted (1779), but not, as Furneaux desired, without a test. In the new subscription, the Holy Scriptures were substituted for the Thirty-Nine Articles

Thirty-Nine Articles

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...

.

Later life

In 1777 he was seized with hereditary insanity, and remained under this affliction till his death on 27 November 1783. A fund was raised for his support, which became a charity supporting Unitarian institutions, Manchester New College and the Ministers' Benevolent Society.

Works

He published:

• ‘Letters to the Honourable Mr. Justice Blackstone concerning his Exposition of the Act of Toleration,' &c., 1770; the 2nd edition, 1771, has additions, and Mansfield's speech as appendix; reprinted, Philadelphia, 1773.
• 'An Essay on Toleration,' &c., 1773.

Other works were: a sermon on education (1755), a fast sermon (1758), funeral sermon for Henry Miles

Henry Miles

Henry Miles, FRS was an English Dissenting minister and scientific writer, a Fellow of the Royal Society known for experiments on electricity.-Life:...

, D.D. (1763), sermon at ordination of Samuel Wilton (1766), ordination charge to George Waters and William Youat (1769), and sermon to the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in the Highlands (1775).

In 1771 Furneaux was engaged in transcribing and editing the biblical annotations of Samuel Chandler

Samuel Chandler

Samuel Chandler was an English Nonconformist minister.-Life:He was born at Hungerford in Berkshire, where his father was a minister. He was sent to school at Gloucester, where he began a lifelong friendship with Bishop Butler and Archbishop Secker; and he afterwards studied at Leiden...

, but the work was never published.