Caleb Evans Birt

Caleb Evans Birt (1795-1854) was the son of Isaiah Birt (see entry below). C. E. Birt studied law at Cambridge but did not graduate (due to his dissenting status and refusal to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles). In 1813, he was baptized by his brother, John Birt, at that time the Baptist minister at Hull. Shortly thereafter he entered Bristol Academy, and later (1816) completed an A.M. in theology at Edinburgh University. He served as pastor of the Baptist congregation at Agard Street, Derby, for the next ten years before removing to the church in Meeting-house Alley, Portsea, Hampshire, where he ministered from 1827 to 1837. He was President of the Baptist Union in 1836 and in 1837 became pastor at Broadmead, Bristol, where he remained until 1844. His final ministry was at Wantage in Berkshire, 1844-1854.