Beeby Wallis

Beeby Wallis (1735-1792) was a deacon in the Kettering church for twenty-four years, serving as interim minister for five years at one point. He was baptized by John Brown in 1768 and would later serve as treasurer of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association Fund. As J. W. Morris writes in his biography of Andrew Fuller, Beeby Wallis’s father “was a respectable member of the same community.  His grandfather, Thomas Wallis, was pastor at the time the learned Dr. Gill and Mr. Brine were members of the church, and were called to the ministry during his presidency. His great-grandfather, Mr. William Wallis, was the first minister and founder of the church at Kettering, in the year 1696. His grandfather, Thomas Wallis (d. 1726), succeeded his father as pastor, during which time both John Brine and John Gill were called to the ministry from the Kettering church. Mr. Beeby Wallis died without issue, and only collateral branches of his family exist. . . . About six months after the death of this valuable man, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed under the roof of his hospitable mansion, and warmly patronised by his pious widow.” See “Mr. Beeby Wallis, A Deacon of the Church at Kettering,” Baptist Annual Register, vol. 1 (1790-93), pp. 488-491; Andrew Fuller, The Blessedness of the Dead, Who Die in the Lord. A Sermon Delivered at Kettering, in Northamptonshire, at the Funeral of Mr. Beeby Wallis (London: Collis, 1792); J. W. Morris, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, 2nd ed. (London: Wightman and Cramp, 1826), 45-46; W. T. Whitley, “The Wallis House, 1792,” Baptist Quarterly 1 (1922-1923): 167.