Henry Ware (Unitarian)

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Henry Ware Sr. by Charles Osgood

This article is about the American Unitarian preacher. For his son, and for the bishop of Chichester, see Henry Ware (disambiguation).

Henry Ware (April 1, 1764 – July 12, 1845) was a preacher and theologian influential in the formation of Unitarianism in the United States.

Born in Sherborn, Massachusetts, Ware was educated at Harvard College, earning his A.B. in 1785. He was from 1787 to 1805 the minister of the First Parish in Hingham, Massachusetts. In 1805 he was elected Hollis Professor at Harvard, precipitating a controversy between Unitarians and more conservative Calvinists. He took part in the formation of the Harvard Divinity School and the establishment of Unitarianism there in the following decades, publishing his debates with eminent Calvinists in the 1820s. His son, Henry Ware, Jr., followed his father as a Harvard Divinity professor and Unitarian theologian.