[1][2] After passing some months with the Grants in Edinburgh, Cunningham was ordained in 1802 to the curacy of Ripley, Surrey.
[1] Cunningham was elected in 1818 an honorary life-governor of the Church Missionary Society, and was editor of the Christian Observer from 1850 to 1858.
[1] One of his books, the Velvet Cushion, gave an account from the evangelical point of view of the parties in the church of England since the English Reformation, and was a popular success.
He also wrote:[1] On 30 July 1805 Cunningham married, firstly, Sophia, daughter of Robert Williams of Moor Park, Surrey, who died in 1821.
They had nine children together; the eldest son, Charles Thornton Cunningham, was lieutenant-governor of Saint Kitts from 1839 till his death in 1847.