Charles Southwell was born in London, the youngest of 33 children in a poor family. His father, William, was a piano maker who had married three times. His mother, Fanny (William's third wife), was William's ex-servant, and at least three decades younger than him. Charles was Fanny's only child. A difficult pupil,[1] but well-read, Southwell left school at the age of twelve (his father died in 1825 or 1826[2]) and got work in a piano factory. It was while working at Broadwood and Sons that Southwell, encouraged by a Christian colleague, read the Sermons of Timothy Dwight and began thinking seriously about religion, only to reject it (as had his father).
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