Gravel Pit Unitarian Congregation

Gravel Pit Unitarian Congregation, Hackney. The following account is taken from J. T. Whitehead, in A Historical Sketch of the Congregation now meeting in the New Gravel-Pit Church, Hackney, and of its successive ministers . . . (London, 1889). 

The ministers before Robert Aspland were Richard Price (1770-91), Joseph Priestley (1791-94), and Thomas Belsham (1794-1805--he replaced Lindsey at Essex Street), and Robert Aspland (1806-46).  

During his stay at Mr. [Timothy] Thomas’ [pastor of Devonshire Square Baptist congregation] before going to college [Bristol Academy], [Aspland] had helped that gentleman in the duties of his school, and had taken an especial interest in a sickly and backward pupil named Joshua Middleton, son of a wealthy London tradesman.  Tthe lad’s account of his kindness induced Mr. Middleton to seek his acquaintance, and young Aspland became a friend of the family, and soon cherished a warmer feeling for the elder daughter, Sara.  When he was now upon him which would effectually bar his success as a Baptist minister, Mr. Middleton offered him a post in his own business (that of an artist’s colourman in St. Martin’s Lone), with the ultimate prospect of a partnership.  A few months’ experience, however, proved not onlly that trade had no charms for him, bt that fror this particular trade he was especially disqualified by colour-blindness.  He had taken occasional duty at the old General Baptist chapel in Worship Street, and, on the recommendation of its minister, was heard, approved off, and elected as theiir minister by the congregation of General Baptists at Newport, Isle of Wight.  His marriage with Sara Middleton followed immediately, and at Newport they spent the first four years of their wedded life, Mr. Aspland becoming in 1803 Secretary of the Southern Unitarian Society.  In May, 1804, he was invited to th pulpit of a small chapel at Norton, in Derbyshire, of which Mr. Shore, of Meersbrook, and his son Mr. Samuel Shore of [Norton Hall, were the principal supproters, and accepted on the ground that he “should like to officiate among a congregation purely Unitarian.” (35-36)

He did not go to Derbyshire, but rather London to succeed Belsham at Old Gravel-pit.  The new chapel was built in 1810.