Alvery Jackson

Alvery Jackson (1700-1763) was converted through the ministry of Thomas Dewhurst and baptized at Sutton-in-Craven in 1715. He later attended Baptist churches at Heaton and Rawdon. In 1718 he began ministering at Barnoldswick, where he was an early advocate of hymn singing. During his years at Barnoldswick, three men were called into the ministry:  Abraham Greenwood, John Tommas, and Richard Smith. He gained some notoriety for his involvement in a pamphlet war between some “evangelical” Calvinists and High Calvinists, 1737-1753. Participants in this debate (what was termed by them “The Modern Question”) included Matthias Maurice, Abraham Taylor, and Jackson, all promoting an evangelical emphasis within their Calvinism; John Brine and John Gill led the High Calvinists. Jackson’s contribution was The Question Answered (1752). He remained at Barnoldswick until his death in 1763. See E. Winnard, The History of the Baptist Church, Barnoldswick, 1500-1916 (Burnley: [n. p.], 1916), 49-50; 60-61; Rogr Hayden, Continuity and Change: Evangelical Calvinism among Eighteenth-Century Baptist Ministers trained at Bristol Academy, 1690–1791 (London: Baptist Historical Society, for Roger Hayden, 2006), 186-188.