Thomas Kelly (13 July 1769 – 14 May 1855) was an Irish evangelical, known as a Church of Ireland cleric to 1803, hymn writer and founder of the Kellyites.
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Life
He was the son of Thomas Kelly (1723–1809), judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) and Frances Hickie, daughter of James Jephson Hickie of Carrick on Suir, and was born at the family seat, Kellyville (formerly Derrinroe), Queen's County, on 13 July 1769. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1785, graduating B.A. in 1789. He was admitted to London's Middle Temple in 1786.
In Dublin, Kelly was influenced by John Walker (1769–1833), also a Trinity College undergraduate. He had been impressed with the views of William Romaine and the Hutchinsonians. Giving up on a legal career, he was ordained in the Church of Ireland in 1792; Walker was ordained too, by 1793. Two other friends were ordained at this period, Henry Maturin and Walter Shirley. Rowland Hill visited Dublin in 1793, and Kelly began to preach on grace in line with Hill's views. With others, he gave the Sunday afternoon sermons at St. Luke's Church, Dublin in early 1794. These provoked Robert Fowler, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, who inhibited them on doctrinal grounds.
Kelly reacted first by preaching in unconsecrated Dublin locations: one on Plunket Street, another the Bethesda Chapel (which for a time he was a trustee). He went on to Athy. In 1795 he married, and moved out to Blackrock, where he built himself a chapel of ease.