Lymington Baptists

Lymington, Baptists. The following account taken from Thomas Douglas, The History of the Baptist Church, Lymington, Hants, from 1688 to 1909. [n.d.].

John Vosey was pastor from 1746 to 1764; Joshua Thomas (from Bristol College) from 24 August 1768 to his death on 6 June 1769; Isaac Stradling (also from Bristol College) from 3 June 1772 to his death on 28 March 1803; William Giles from 4 April 1809 to 2 November 1817 (he died in 1846). James Millard commenced on 24 July 1818 and resigned 20 July 1853 (died 1857); James Martin was co-pastor with Millard from 1848 to 1853 (6).  Under Stradling in 1791 a few members left and opened a new meeting (19). William Mursell was the minister, 1791-1803, and the two congregations reunited under Giles in 1803 (21). At the reunification service, Cooper of Romsey, Clare of Downton, Miall of Portsea, Saffery of Salisbury, Oliver of Southampton, all took part, along with Mursell, Giles, and Dore of Cirencester.  William Mursell, Jr., was also a leader in the church at this time (22). Giles eventually ended up at Byrom Street in Liverpool in 1842, retiring in 1846 to Ashton-under-Lyne (22). During his stay at Chatham, he taught a young Charles Dickens. Giles had previously ministered at Dartmouth before coming to Lymington; he removed to Chatham after leaving Lymington in 1817. His other son was John Eustace Giles, a leading Baptist minister. The Mursells were a leading Baptist family in Lymington. William Mursell, Sr, was born at Newport, I.W., on 8 April 1761 (26). After his marriage, he lived for a time in London, but was spirtually unsettled at this time. After a time, he returned to Newport, and came under the influence of some godly men. He joined with the Baptists at Portsea, under Joseph Horsey, there being no Particular Baptist meeting on the Island at that time (27).  Mursell began preaching at Lymington in 1791, but did not move there until 1797, taking his wife, one son, and four daughters. He was an ironmonger and set up his business in High Street, near the Baptist Chapel under Stradling. His son, William, assisted him in his business. Saffery was at Mursell’s ordination that year. His youngest son, James Phillipo Mursell, was born on 7 September 1799 (27). After the two churches in Lymington were reunited, Mursell continued to preach in surrounding villages, such as Battramsley and Beaulieu, and eventually at Downton Common, about four miles from Lymington, and near Sway. Eventually a church was formed at Sway. Mrs Mursell died in February 1826; he retired from business in 1828. His health failed in 1836 and died in 1837 (30).  His son, William Mursell, Jr, was born in 1784, and succeeded his father’s business in 1828, first with a Mr Drawbridge and then with a Mr Robert Blake until he was 80 (1864). Among Mursell senior’s ten daughters was Mary (the third Mary and the only surviving one), born in 1795 and who married George Wickenden, a brick manufacturer. Another daughter, Ann, married Mr Drawbridge of Lymington; Elizabeth married Thomas Smith of Lymington; Martha married Mr T. Nicholson of Plymouth; and Sarah married Isaac Taylor Hinton of Oxford, and later emigrated to America (30).   William Junior’s children were four daughters and two sons, and they all died. His wife died in 1821 at age 39; then in 1832, ’35, ’38, ’41, and ’42, he lost all his children of the same illness that took his wife.  In 1848 he married a second time, this one to Harriet Salter, who remained with him to his death in 1869, aged 85 (31-32). His younger brother, James Phillippo, was born in 1799 and would become a prominent Baptist minister at Leicester. Millard came from Hartley Row, Hampshire, and was the minister at Whitchurch prior to coming to Lymington (38).