Irish evangelical and Church of Ireland cleric up to 1803; hymn writer and founder of the Kellyites; son of Thomas Kelly (1723–1809), judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) and Frances Hickie, dg. of James Jephson Hickie of Carrick on Suir; b.at Kellyville (formerly "Derrinroe"), in Queen's County, on 13 July 1769; entered Trinity College, Dublin [TCD], 1785; gad. B.A., 1789; admitted to Middle Temple (London), 1786; influences by John Walker (1769–1833), a fellow TCD grad.; also by the views of William Romaine and the Hutchinsonians; abandoned law and ord. in Church of Ireland, 1792, as was Walker in the following year; close associates Henry Maturin and Walter Shirley similarly ordained; after Rowland Hill's visit to Dublin in 1793, Kelly began to preach on Grace in the same spirit; gave Sunday afternoon sermons at St. Luke's Church, Dublin, 1794; prohibited bu Archbishop Fowler (Dublin) on doctrinal grounds; commenced preaching in unconsecrated locations incl. Plunket Street and the Bethesda Chapel; also began to served as a minister in Athy; m. Elizabeth Tighe,, 1795 [see infra]; and moved to Blackrock where he built a chapel of ease; founded the religious sect known as the Kellyites in 1802, with half a dozen congregations, recruiting ministers from Scotland; seminary run by Robert and James Alexander Haldane moved from Glasgow to Edinburgh; broke with Church of Ireland, 1803; Walker having formed a group called the Church of God was expelled from a fellowship at TCD, 1804; Kelly died in Dublin, 14 May 1855, having acted as minister in Athy and Dublin for half a century; his congregation did not survive his death; believed to have written 765 hymns over 51 years incl. “Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious”; issued A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1802) containing 247 pieces of which 33 were by himself; his Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (1804) ran to four editions; also Hymns of Thomas Kelly, never before published (1815), running into four editions. He used unusual metres.

m. Elizabeth Tighe, 1795, dg. of William Tighe (1738–1782), of Rosanna, Co. Wicklow and MP for Athboy who was a supporter of John Wesley; his second wife Sarah Fownes was dg. of Sir William Fownes (2nd Bart.) who brought a fortune with her and with whom two dgs. Elizabeth (m. Reverend Edward Wingfield, younger son of Viscount Powerscourt), and Frances (m. Rev. Thomas Webber; their son being General Charles Edmund Webber (1838-1904) who distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny, advised the Prussians in the Austro-Prussian War, 1866, and served at the Curragh; he taught military drawing at Woolwich Academy (where he had graduated), and engaged in extensive engineering works for the Post Office, laying 3,200 miles of telegraph wires with his team; served S. Africa at the beginning of the First Boer War, 1879; later served in Egypt as director of Army Telegraphs up to 1885; became board member and director of United Bell and Edison Telephone Co., and other concerns; first president of Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1882; acted as a Dysart Trustee on the death of Frederick Tollemache, 1889; d. Margate, Kent, 1904.