Caleb Ashworth

Caleb Ashworth (1722-1775)  was a student of the Independent minister, Philip Doddridge, at his Northampton academy. When Doddridge died in 1751, the academy moved to Daventry, and Caleb Ashworth became the initial principal, ministering at the same time to the Independent congregation in Daventry. According to Theo F. Valentine, Caleb Ashworth was “a man of outstanding ability and it seems a great pity that the Baptists of his day did not take advantage of his scholarship.” See Theo Valentine, Concern for the Ministry: The Story of the Particular Baptist Fund 1717–1967 (Teddington: Particular Baptist Fund, 1967), 37. For a letter from Ashworth to the Baptist hymn writer, Anne Steele (1717-78), see Julia B. Griffin, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, gen. ed. Timothy Whelan, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 2.