Broughton Baptists

Broughton, Hampshire, Baptist Church – The following notes are taken from Edward Compton, A History of the Baptist Church, Broughton, Hampshire, from the year 1653 to the present time, compiled from the old church books (Leicester: Winks and Son, 1878); also Harry Fox, Glints of Greatness: A Tercentenary Souvenir (Broughton Baptist Church, 1951).

The Broughton church began in 1653.  Ministers were Henry Steele, 1699-1739; William Steele (nephew of the above), 1739-69 (served 20 years as assistant to his uncle prior to assuming pastorate); John Kent (assistant preaching elder in the church from 1739-96, served as interim pastor from 1769-72) (died 1796, aged 89); Nathaniel Rawlings, 1772-77; Josiah Lewis, 1778-88; William Steadman 1791-96; and Hugh Russell, 1809-49. Concerning William Steele III, Compton writes: “… if he had not all the popular talents of his uncle, at least possessed his piety and solid worth.  He was a diligent student of God’s word, and his sermons were sound and eminently practical, if not brilliant.  Like his uncle, he carefully prepared his sermons, and some of his MSS. that are preserved show no great amount of originality or imagination, but are of that useful character which, with God’s blessing, must be fruitful.  Under his ministry the church continued to flourish.  Deeply regretted, he passed away to his heavenly home, on Sept. 10th, 1769, at the age of seventy-nine.  He commenced preaching when only a youth of nineteen¾assisted his uncle as co-pastor twenty years¾and was pastor of the church thirty years.  For sixty years he was engaged in preaching the gospel, and for half a century he preached to the same church.  During his ministry occurred the great religious awakening under the preaching of Whitefield and Wesley.  The name of his eldest daughter, Anne Steele, is well known as a poetess.  She has given to the church of Christ some of the sweetest hymns in our language.  Her hymns may be supposed to reflect and testify as to the soundness of her father’s theology, as well as the richness of her own personal experience.  She lived to suffer, and departed to be with Christ [17] in the year 1778, aged sixty-one.  Her Bible, which is a precious relic, is reserved in the minister’s library at Broughton, and bears the name of another lady, who is not so well known in the church, Anne Dutton, to whom it appears once to have belonged.  W. Steele, jun., son of the pastor, left house and garden for the use of the minister” (16-17).  Anne Steele joined on 9 July 1732, and her niece, Mary Steele, on 12 April 1795.

After Steele, the church appears to have declined somewhat.  As Compton notes, it showed signs of  “declining spiritual life” (17).  Nathaniel Rawlings was the first pastor chosen outside of the church’s membership, and he came in 1772, after a three-year stint by John Kent as interim (17).  Rawlings preached for five years, before giving way to Josiah Lewis, “who was a man of great learning, an able divne, and a good preacher.  In these respects he was, to all human appearances, calculated to build up the church; but all was marred by an unhappy temper, which hindered his usefulness. The church became divided: false doctrine crept in, and controversy ran high between the Hyper-Calvinists and the followers of Sandeman.  Mr Lewis was not the man to [18] deal with those who differed from him and each other, therefore he resigned the pastorate, April 22nd, 1788.  The Sandemanians withdrew, and for many years had a meeting of their own in the village.  As a sect they have long ceased to exist.  The Plymouth Brethren may be looked upon as their successors, comprising all their excellences and defects wth some others peculiarly their own” (17-18). 

The church continued to experience division.  William Steadman came and was ordained there in October 1791.  He found the church in “a cold and lifeless state. False teaching had made many Antinomians, and had paralyzed Christian activity.  He laboured without the sympathy or the help of the church, and, it need not be addd, with little success.  He had to stand alone in all his efforts to do good.  The Sunday School he started met with no encouragement. Teachers had to be paid by him to teach, and the children paid to come and be taught.  In the villages around his labours were abundant¾often pelted as he preached in the open air, and sometimes hooted out of the village where he had been preaching” (18).  [See Steadman’s diary in his Memoirs about his years at Broughton.]  He went to Plymouth Dock in 1798. 

For the next eleven years the church at Broughton remained without a pastor, “a period of spiritual barrenness and decline” (19).  Hugh Russell, from Bristol Baptist College, came in June 1809, in which he found a church comprised mostly of females of considerable age.  He built the church considerably during his years as minister and was very successful.