Cambridgeshire, Baptist Churches c. 1820

Cambridgeshire, Baptist Churches, c. 1820 – The following account is taken from “Statistical View of Dissenters in England and Wales,” The London Christian Instructor, or Congregational Magazine, vol. 2 (1819): 183-85; 315-17; 371-75; 437-40; 501-05; 630-32; 696-98; 759-62; 813-14; vol. 3 (1820), 57-59; 113-115; 168-72.   

A Baptist church at Dounham was organized in 1798, led by a Mr. Parker, a follower of Andrew Fuller; he was replaced by a Mr. Britton (“Statistical View,” 501).  William Blow of Whittlesford, who, along with John Rayner, sometime in the 1780s began paying £40 a year to have an itinerant preacher, sent by the Rev. John Berridge at Eversden, come to the nearby Duxford parishes and preach, eventually leading to the formation of an Independent meeting in 1794 under the care of Benjamin Pyne (ibid., 501).  In Ely there were two licensed Baptist meetings (ibid., 502).  A Baptist meeting was started in Fordham in 1769 (never organized as a church, though), and in 1794 a Robert Fyson, a local farmer, began preaching there and continued until 1804, when the group was displaced of their location.  They moved to a barn on Fyson’s property, and continued there until his death in 1817 (ibid., 502), after which it was organized as an Independent church.  Another “High Calvinist” Baptist group also met (only once a month on Sunday evenings) at Fulbourn (ibid., 503).  

     At Fulbourn and Great Wilbraham, a General Baptist meeting was formed in 1675 under John Denne; another similar society was formed at Melbourn under Benjamin Medcalf.  By 1769 Thomas Barron was essentially pastoring Baptist meetings at Fulbourn, Melbourn, Wilbraham and Walden (ibid., 503).  He hired an assistant, Christopher Payne, in 1772, and Barron continued occasional services at Fulbourn and Wilbraham until 1812, after which he confined himself to Melbourn, where he died in 1817 after a ministry of over 60 years.  He was replaced at Melbourn by William Pepper from the Stepney Academy (ibid., 696).   Others preaching in these congregations at Walden, Fulbourn and Wilbraham on a regular basis included Mr. Payne, Mr. Compton, Benjamin Flower, and Mr. Richardson (ibid., 504). From 1767-76, Barron preached at Great Wilbraham and Fulbourn alternately; Fulbourn became an Independent meeting and Barron continued with it until 1812, after which he confined himself to Melbourn  (ibid., 504).  Fulbourn was then led by Rev. B. Isaac, during which time a new Independent church was formed there.  He resigned in 1816 and was succeeded by A. C. Simpson of Hoxton Academy (ibid., 504).  A new place of worship in Fulbourn was erected and dedicated (the building then belonging to John Chaplin) on 10 November 1810 by Messrs. Ingle of Ramsby; Tall of Swavesy, and Benjamin Flower (ibid., 504); this congregation had earlier, under Barron, incorporated the General Baptist congregation at Great Wilbraham (ibid., 504).  Until 1764, Fulbourn was where the Baptists of Cambridge came to baptize; after that they used the river at Whittlesford. 

      In Foulmire a Dissenting congregation was formed in 1781, and the next year Rev. Joseph Harrison came to preach to them, but some problems in his ministry led to a group leaving and forming a Baptist meeting at Harston, which Harrison led.  Harrison’s church at Harston, formed in 1785, was Baptist, but he left in 1789 for Yorkshire and was succeeded by George Compton, who was ordained in 1791 and continued there until 1815 (ibid., 631).  After Harrison’s removal at Foulmire, the church [also designated Fulmere] called a Mr. Madgwick in 1787 as pastor.  He was replaced by Thomas Smith of Bedford, who was “distinguished for the suavity of his manners and for general knowledge, and his ministrations weere marked by correctness and propriety, and attended with success of which some evidences continue to the present day” (ibid., 504), but after five years returned to Bedford, where he died quite suddenly.  In 1801 the Rev. J. Kirkpatrick, of Nottinghamshire, came for five years before moving to Ware.  At Gamlingay, the Baptist church was led by Benjamin Morgan in 1772, and in 1792 Mr. Payne, coming from Mr. Edmond’s church at Birmingham [Guilsborough], came as pastor and stayed for about 10 years; he was a High Calvinist, but still active.  After he left, a Mr. Capes came and stayed until 1812, when he removed to Loughborough in Leicestershire and a Mr. Manning came and was ordained in 1818 (ibid., 630).  

       John Hunt, son of William Hunt, had a congregation briefly at Royston, then Northampton and Newport-Pagnell (ibid., 57); he has often been called the “father of non-conformity in Sutton” (ibid., 57).  George Norman came to Sutton in 1789 and took a few remaining followers from the original group of Dissenters and formed a Baptist church, consisting of nine persons (ibid., 57).  Norman remained there until 1808, when he left and settled at Soham.  Mr. W. W. Orris came as a probationer for 17 months, and then was ordained as pastor in 1810, and was still there in 1820 (ibid., 57).  At Streatham, after much work by Berridge and some of his men, as well as some of the Countess of Huntington’s preachers, a congregation was finally established by Joseph Howlett, a member of Robert Hall’s congregation at St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge in late 1799, with the church actually forming in the spring of 1801, with fourteen members and Howlett as pastor, although the hearers were far in excess of that.  Howlett practiced open communion, but faced some difficulties with some high Calvinist elements in the church.  He was still there in 1820 (ibid., 58-59). 

        At Swavesey, about 8 miles to the north-west of Cambridge, a Baptist church was formed in 1789 on an open communion plan, with William Reynolds of Gamlingay coming as pastor in 1790.  After three years, he resigned and was succeeded by Thomas Tall, who was still there in 1820.  The church had greatly prospered and a Sunday school started (ibid., 113).  At Thorney, no work was established until 1814, led by a Mr. Everett (ibid., 113). At Tyd St. Giles’s, “a small congregation of Baptists, of recent origin, under the pastoral care of the Rev. James Smith” (ibid., 113). At Waterbeach, Berridge preached often, using a barn for a place of worship.  “While Mr. Benjamin Flower resided in Cambridge, he preached much at Waterbeach, and it was principally through his exertions that a new meeting-house was erected in 1802, which was opened by the Rev. Hugh Worthington, of London.  Since that [period a great variety of preachers have successively occupied the pulpit; but no church has been formed, nor has any minister, till within this few months, been resident in the place” (ibid., 113-14).  At Willingham, a John Rootham came from Little Staughton, in Bedfordshire, in 1789, and in 1791 became pastor of the Baptist church there, where he was still ministering in 1820 (ibid., 169). 

       At Wisbech, there were five Dissenting congregations: Presbyterian, General Baptist (in 1820 pastored by a Mr. Jarrom); Old Meeting House (in 1820 a Unitarian congregation), where Samuel Fisher, a Baptist, pastored from 1781-1803, when he died (ibid., 169).  During his pastorate the church split, with a Mr. Richard Wright taking several persons and forming a Unitarian congregation, to whom eventually Fisher surrendered the meetinghouse.   Wright became sole pastor for a while after Fisher’s death, then was employed by the Unitarians in a kind of home missionary service.  He resigned his charge to a Mr. Steward of Norfolk.  He was succeeded by Mr. Winder of Kent, and then by Mr. Walker, the minister in 1820. Baptist Churches in Cambridgeshire, c. 1820: Bottisham-Lode,  Thomas Reynolds; Cambridge,  Thomas C. Edmonds; Cottenham , John Meakin; Dounham, John Britton; Ely; Fordham; Gamlingay, James Manning; Hadenham, George Pinchard; Isleham, George Compton; Melbourn (General), William Pepper; March, Thomas Ewen; Ockington, Thomas Lathom; Over, George Pruden; Soham, George Norman; Sutton, William Orris; Streatham,  Joseph Howlett; Swavesey, Thomas Tal; Tyd St. Giles, James Smith; Willingham, J. Rootham; Wisbech (Baptist), Joseph Jerrom; Wisbech (Baptist Johnsonian), R. Dawburn and  R. Reynoldsonn (ibid., 170-71).