Caroline and Elizabeth Dent

Caroline (b. 1815) and Elizabeth Dent [Trestrail], great-granddaughters of John Collett Ryland, were born in Milton, near Northampton, and raised in the local Baptist church. Caroline never married; her sister married John Roby (she published a biography of him) then Frederic Trestrail, Baptist minister and leader of the Baptist denomination in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1854 the two sisters jointly published Thoughts and Sketches in Verse, which included many hymns, some of which would find their way into later hymn collections used among the Baptists and other denominations. Their grandfather, Joseph Dent (see below), was baptized on the same day as their other grandfather, John Ryland, Jr. (13 September 1767). Dent later married Elizabeth Ryland, Ryland’s sister. She was described by James Culross as ‘comely in appearance and gracious in spirit’, and her husband as ‘a man of genuine piety, solidity of thought, and promptitude of action – qualities that served him well in his long diaconate’ at College Lane, which began in 1777, the same year as Thomas Trinder. Dent did not survive this illness, and succumbed on 22 September 1795. His son, also named Joseph, however, became a leading member of the church and the larger Baptist community in England. In 1812 he served on the BMS Committee. In the summer of 1825, he was instrumental in forming a Baptist church at Milton, consisting of Baptists from Northampton and Roade. See James Culross, The Three Rylands: A Hundred Years of Various Christian Service (London: Elliot Stock, 1897), 24; Ernest A. Payne, College Street Church, Northampton, 1697–1947 (London: Kingsgate Press, 1947), 15.