Staveley (Stavely), William (1743–1825), Reformed Presbyterian minister, was born at Ferniskey, near Kells, Co. Antrim, eldest child and only son among the three children of Aaron Staveley, a Church of Ireland farmer who had married the daughter of the Rev. Patrick Vance, a presbyterian minister at Ray, Co. Donegal, and become a Reformed Presbyterian. Staveley received his early education at the classical school in Antrim before entering Glasgow University (1760). He does not appear to have received a degree. After completing further theological training in Scotland at the Reformed Presbyterian divinity hall in Paisley, he was licensed to preach by the Irish Reformed Presbytery in December 1769. For two years he served as a probationer in Antrim, Londonderry, and east Donegal. In 1772 he received a call from ninety-two covenanters between the bridge of Dromore and Donaghadee, Co. Down, was ordained at Conlig, near Newtownards, Co. Down, in August 1772, and soon had charge at Newry, Co. Down, and Ballybay, Co. Monaghan. By the year of his marriage to Mary Donald (1776) he was also minister at Knockbracken, Co. Down, which became the centre of his work. His ministerial stipend of £50, the profits from a twenty-acre farm he kept near his home at Annsborough, Newtownbreda, Co. Down, and his wife's property, Marymount, Irishtown, near Antrim, Co. Antrim, meant he was affluent enough to concentrate on his pastoral work.
Between 1773 and 1776 there were only three Reformed Presbyterian ministers in Ireland, and despite the ordination of two new ministers in 1776, the Irish Reformed presbytery had collapsed by 1779. Official administration of the church was transferred to the Reformed Presbytery in Scotland in 1780; an Irish standing committee, of which Staveley was head, was appointed to take care of matters of local interest. The Irish presbytery was not reorganised until 1792, and in the intervening period the church looked to Staveley for leadership. The shortage of ministers meant that Staveley's parish extended from Co. Down to Counties Armagh, Monaghan, and Cavan. By the close of the eighteenth century he had helped to establish five congregations in the area: Drumillar and Rathfriland, Co. Down, Ballylane, Co. Armagh, and Fairview and Creevagh, Co. Monaghan. These efforts have afforded him the title of ‘the great Irish apostle’ of the Reformed Presbyterian church (Seaton Reid (1853), iii, 405).
His sermons had a strong evangelical appeal and several exist in manuscript form. His published sermons include Truth restored, or the new mode of swearing religious oaths by touching and kissing the book examined (Newry, 1775), a controversial first attempt at publication in which he argued that oaths should be sworn simply by an uplifted hand – 100 years before this became law. The political content of both his sermons and his actions also proved an inducement for some to join his church. He led the campaign to expose the inconsistency of seceders accepting the regium donum after 1783. In December 1792 the Irish Reformed presbytery was reconstituted and declared its principled refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the non-covenanted secular government of the day. In the same month (20 December 1792), as captain and secretary of his congregation's Volunteer corps, the Drumbracken Volunteers, he appeared at Drumbo as reviewing general. He had previously signed a resolution in favour of the citizen's right to bear arms (25 July 1792). In 1795 he published War proclaimed and victory ensured, or the Lamb's conquests illustrated (Belfast, 1795), a prophetic pamphlet in which he argued that the French revolution was God's instrument for toppling the monarchies of Europe. In 1794, under the auspices of the Northern Star, to which he had contributed on several occasions, he added a preface to the reprint of three millenarian tracts which predicted the end of monarchical government in Great Britain and Ireland. A year later he published Appeal to light; or, The tenets of deists examined and disapproved (Belfast, 1796), in which he commented on Thomas Paine's Age of reason (1794).
Alarmed at the church's growing politicisation, the Irish presbytery sent Staveley to consult with the Scottish presbytery for advice on their relations with the United Irish movement, and after his return issued a statement in the Northern Star (10 October 1796) disassociating themselves from anything that might endanger law and order. However, because of Staveley's reputation as a radical the government tended to view all covenanters with suspicion. Castlereagh barony, of which Knockbracken formed a townland, became a hotbed of United Irish activity in the years leading up to the 1798 rebellion. On Sunday 25 June 1797 Col. Lucius Barber brought a troop of cavalry to Knockbracken, having been informed that a quantity of arms was concealed in Staveley's meeting house, and interrupted morning worship. No arms were found but Staveley was detained in gaol until granted bail (26 August 1797) after he convinced the authorities of his innocence.
His actions after his release suggested continued sympathy for the United Irish cause. On 17 October 1797 he accompanied William Orr (qv) on his walk to the scaffold at Carrickfergus, and also walked with Daniel English, a covenanter charged with United Irish activities, from Ballymena to Connor, when he encouraged the crowds lined along the route to sing psalms to comfort the condemned man. Soldiers of the Monaghan militia, returning from the battle of Ballynahinch (13 June 1798), ransacked his house and arrested him without warrant. He was held in a prison ship in Belfast Lough, on the charge of preaching seditious doctrines. When asked to sign a proclamation offering exile in exchange for information, he refused. He stated he had never taken a United Irish oath or cooperated with Roman catholics, and would not join republicans because of their deistical beliefs. The authorities could prove nothing against him and after four months detention he was released in the autumn of 1798. However, Stavely was clearly involved with the United Irishmen: when commissioners from the Scottish presbytery interviewed him in 1802, they discovered that he had not only taken the United Irish oath but had initiated others, and as part of a baronial committee had helped plan an arms raid. Faced with this evidence, Staveley accepted the censure of presbytery.
On his release he moved to Cullybackey, Co. Antrim, to replace William Gibson (qv), who had fled to America in 1797 under government suspicion of involvement in the United Irishmen. During Staveley's time at Cullybackey the first synod of the Reformed Presbyterian church in Ireland was constituted there on 1 May 1811 with Staveley as moderator. Eighteen churches formed the synod and he had input into the establishment of at least ten of these. Under his care the church at Cloughmills, Co. Antrim, was founded and the membership of the congregation at Cullybackey increased to such an extent that it became necessary to separate into two churches, Cullybackey and Kellswater, Co. Antrim, in 1813. Both indicated a desire for his services but he accepted the call to Kellswater.
Throughout his fifty years as a minister, it is said that Staveley never missed a Sunday service unless he was in gaol. He died 7 May 1825 at his home, Marymount, and was buried at Kellswater. His wife died at Marymount 1848. He left seven daughters and a son, William John Staveley (1780–1864), who was ordained as a Reformed Presbyterian minister for Dervock and Kilraughts, Co. Antrim, 6 September 1804, was clerk of the first synod at which his father was moderator, and was moderator of the covenanting church in Ireland five times. He married Jane Adams of Chequer Hall; they had three sons and four daughters. One son, Alexander McLeod Staveley (1816–1903), became a Reformed Presbyterian minister and served in the Canadian mission field for forty-eight years.