Life

The elder brother of Sir Bartholomew Shower, he was born at Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

, and baptised on 18 May 1657. His father, William, a wealthy merchant, died about 1661, leaving a widow (Dorcas, daughter of John Anthony) and four sons. Shower was educated in turn at Exeter, and at Taunton

Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

 under Matthew Warren

Matthew Warren

-Life:He was a younger son of John Warren of Otterford, Somerset. He was educated at Crewkerne grammar school, and St John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 3 July 1658. At the Restoration of 1660 he left Oxford with his tutor. After a year at Reading he returned to Otterford, and began...

.. His mother moved with him to London, and he was taught by Edward Veal and at the Newington Green

Newington Green

Newington Green is an open space in north London which straddles the border between Islington and Hackney. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington with Green Lanes-Matthias Road...

 academy by Charles Morton

Charles Morton (educator)

Charles Morton was a Cornish nonconformist minister and founder of an early dissenting academy, later in life associated in New England with Harvard College.-Life:...

.

In 1677, before he was twenty, he began to preach, on the advice of Morton and Thomas Manton

Thomas Manton

Thomas Manton was an English Puritan clergyman.-Life:Thomas Manton was baptized March 31, 1620 at Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset, a remote southwestern portion of England. His grammar school education was possibly at Blundell's School, in Tiverton, Devon...

 Next year, in the period of the Popish Plot

Popish Plot

The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that gripped England, Wales and Scotland in Anti-Catholic hysteria between 1678 and 1681. Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led to the execution of at...

, a merchant's lecture was begun in the large room of a coffee-house in Exchange Alley. Four young preachers were chosen as evening lecturers, among them being Shower (with Theophilus Dorrington, Thomas Goodwin the younger and James Lambert). Shower was ordained on 24 December 1679 by five ejected ministers, headed by Richard Adams. He at once became (still retaining his lectureship) assistant to Vincent Alsop

Vincent Alsop

Vincent Alsop was an English Nonconformist clergyman.-Life:Alsop came from Northamptonshire and was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He received deacon's orders from a bishop, and settled as assistant-master in the free school of Oakham, Rutland. The Rev. Benjamin King took him under his...

 in Tothill Street, Westminster, and held this post till 1683, when Sir Samuel Barnardiston

Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet

Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet was an English Whig Member of Parliament and deputy governor of the East India Company, defendant in some high-profile legal cases and involved in a highly contentious parliamentary election.-Life:...

 sent him abroad with two other young ministers as companions of his nephew, Samuel Barnardiston

Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 2nd Baronet

Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 2nd Bt. was an English MP and Barrister. He lived at Brightwell, Suffolk.Barnardiston was admitted to Gray's Inn on 10 February 1679. He was M.P...

. They made the Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Rhine. At Amsterdam, in July 1684, they parted.

Shower remained in Holland till 1686. Returning to London, he resumed his lecture at Exchange Alley, but the pressure to which nonconformists were then subjected led him to return to Holland in the same year. He joined John Howe at Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

. At the end of 1687 he became evening lecturer in the English presbyterian church at Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, of which Joseph Hill

Joseph Hill (lexicographer)

Joseph Hill was an English academic and nonconformist clergyman, mostly in the Netherlands after 1662. He is known as a lexicographer.-Life:...

 was one of the pastors. He returned to London on receiving a call (19 January 1691) to succeed Daniel Williams

Daniel Williams (theologian)

The Revd. Dr. Daniel Williams was a Welsh Presbyterian benefactor, minister and theologian.-Early ministry:Williams was born in Wrexham, Denbighshire, and was a cousin of Stephen Davies, minister at Banbury...

 as assistant to Howe at Silver Street. Here he was popular, and soon received a call to the pastorate of the presbyterian congregation at Curriers' Hall, London Wall

London Wall

London Wall was the defensive wall first built by the Romans around Londinium, their strategically important port town on the River Thames in what is now the United Kingdom, and subsequently maintained until the 18th century. It is now the name of a road in the City of London running along part of...

, which he accepted on 8 May 1691. In this charge he remained till death, having been ‘married’ to his flock by Matthew Mead

Matthew Mead (minister)

Matthew Mead or Meade was an English Independent minister.-Early life:The second son of Richard Mead of Mursley, Buckinghamshire, by his wife Joane, he was born about 1630 at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. In 1648 he was elected scholar, and on 6 August 1649 admitted a Fellow of King's College,...

, as Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy (historian)

Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...

 puts it. Twice he moved the congregation to larger meeting-houses, in Jewin Street (1692) and Old Jewry

Old Jewry

Old Jewry is the name of a street in the City of London, in Coleman Street Ward, linking Gresham Street with The Poultry.William the Conqueror encouraged Jews to come to England soon after the Norman Conquest; some settled in cities throughout his new domain, including in London. According to Rev....

 (1701), having successively as assistants Timothy Rogers (1658–1728) and Joseph Bennet.

Shower was a member of a club of ministers which, for some years from 1692, held weekly meetings at the house of Dr. Upton in Warwick Lane, Calamy being the leading spirit. He succeeded (1697) Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley was a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor, best known for the sermons he collected as the series of Morning Exercises.-Life:...

 as one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall. A fever, in May 1706, left his health permanently impaired. John Fox

John Fox (biographer)

John Fox , was an English biographer.Fox was born at Plymouth on 10 May 1693. His father, a zealous presbyterian, ‘devoted’ him ‘to the ministry, from an infant.’ His mother was the daughter of a Plymouth tradesman named Brett. After an education at Tavistock Grammar School, and under ‘old Mr...

, who visited him in 1712, was impressed by his ‘state and pride.’ On 14 September 1713 he had a paralytic stroke at Epping

Epping

Epping is a small market town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of the County of Essex, England. It is located north-east of Loughton, south of Harlow and north-west of Brentwood....

. He was able to preach again, but retired from active duty on 27 March 1715. He died at Stoke Newington

Stoke Newington

Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...

 on 28 June 1715, and was buried at Highgate

Highgate

Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....

. His funeral sermon was preached on 10 July by William Tong

William Tong (minister)

William Tong was an English Presbyterian minister, at the heart of the subscription debate of 1718.-Life:He was born on 24 June 1662, probably at Eccles near Manchester, where his father was buried. His mother was early left a widow with three children...

.

Works

He published twenty-one single sermons, including funeral sermons for Anne Barnardiston (1682), Richard Walter (1692), Queen Mary (1695), Nathaniel Oldfield (1696), Jane Papillon (1698), Nathaniel Taylor (1702), Nehemiah Grew

Nehemiah Grew

Nehemiah Grew was an English plant anatomist and physiologist, very famously known as the "Father of Plant Physiology"...

, and an exhortation at the ordination of Thomas Bradbury

Thomas Bradbury

-Life:Bradbury was born in Yorkshire, and was educated for the congregational ministry Attercliffe Academy; Oliver Heywood gave him books. He preached his first sermon on 14 June 1696, and went to reside as assistant and domestic tutor with Thomas Whitaker, minister of the independent congregation,...

; also

• ‘Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica,’ 1693.
• ‘The Day of Grace … Four Sermons,’ 1694.
• ‘Family Religion, in Three Letters,’ 1694.
• ‘Some Account of the … Life … of Mr. Henry Gearing,’ 1694.
• ‘The Mourner's Companion,’ 1699 (2 parts).
• ‘God's Thoughts and Ways,’ 1699.
• ‘Heaven and Hell,’ 1700.
• ‘Sacramental Discourses,’ 1702 (2 parts).
• ‘Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity,’ 5th ed. 1707.

Family

He married, first, on 24 September 1687, at Utrecht, Elizabeth Falkener (died 1691), niece of Thomas Papillon; secondly, on 29 December 1692, Constance White (died 18 July 1701), by whom three children survived him.