Their friendship led to a spiritual collaboration that completed the inspiration for "Amazing Grace," the poem Newton most likely penned around Christmas of 1772. Some 60 years later in America, the text was set to the hymn tune, "New Britain," to which it has been sung ever since.

John Newton died in December 1807, shortly after the Abolition Act passed into law. He was buried beside his wife, who had died in 1790, in the crypt of St Mary Woolnoth, but the building of Bank Underground station led to both bodies being re-interred at Olney in 1893.

'My father was then at sea (he was a commander in the Mediterranean trade at that time) : he came home the following year, and soon after married again. ' After a few years at school, John Newton began his career as a seafarer with his father, Captain John Newton.

John had 12 siblings: Joseph Newton, Anne Newton and 10 other siblings. John married Elizabeth Newton (born Larkin).