John Collett Ryland

John Collett Ryland (1723-1792) was raised in Bourton-on-the-Water and baptized into the Baptist congregation there by Benjamin Beddome. Ryland received his pastoral training at Bristol Academy, 1744-1745. He then spent the next thirteen years as minister of a Baptist congregation at Warwick. In 1759, he moved to Northampton, serving both as pastor of the Baptist church at College Lane and headmaster of the academy. Ryland left Northampton in 1786, turning the church and school over to his son, John Ryland, Jr., and taking up residence in Enfield, where he operated another dissenting academy until his death in 1792. Ryland authored numerous publications during his years in Northampton and Enfield, both in religion and education, including Essay on the Dignity and Usefulness of Human Learning, Addressed to the Youth of the British Empire in Europe and America (1769), Contemplations on the Beauties of Creation (1777), The Character of the Rev. James Hervey, A. M. late rector of Weston Favel in Northamptonshire (1790), A Body of Divinity in Miniature, Designed for the Use of the Youth of Great Britain and France  (1790), and An Address to the Ingenuous Youth of Great-Britain (1792). For more on J. C. Ryland, see Samuel Bagster, Samuel Bagster of London 1772-1851: An Autobiography (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1972); William Newman, Rylandiana: Reminiscences Relating to the Rev. John Ryland, A.M. of Northampton (London: G. Wightman, 1835); Stephen Albert Swaine, Faithful Men; or, Memorials of Bristol Baptist College, and Some of Its Most Distinguished Alumni (London: Alexander and Shepheard, 1884); Culross, The Three Rylands; W. T. Whitley, “J. C. Ryland as Schoolmaster,” Baptist Quarterly 5 (1930-1931), 141-144; Peter Naylor, “John Collett Ryland (1723-1792),” in The British Particular Baptists, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin, 5 vols (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 1998-2019), 1:185-201.