Thomas Langdon, Leeds, to John Fawcett, Jr., Halifax, 7 August 1818.

My dear Friend,

         The inclosed is as nearly as I can recollect what I said at the Missionary meeting. If you think it proper to publish it with your memoirs, it is quite at your service. And if you wish to have it inserted in the Baptist Magazine, I have not the least objection, if you would get it transcribed, and send it to the editors. On the other side you will find the memorandums you requested, respecting the Dr’s preaching at Leeds, &c.

         I have only time to add that Mrs Langdon and Mary  unite in kind respects to you and Mrs Fawcett, and to our dear young friends, with 

                                             Your affectionate Friend

                                                               Thos Langdon

Leeds

Jany 13, 1818.

         For the year 1779, a few persons at Leeds, of the Baptist denomination, hired a part of the Old Assembly rooms; and requested the Rev. Dr Fawcett, and the Rev. John Parker, of Barnoldswick, to preach on the occasion of its being opened for public worship. The Dr delivered a very ingenious sermon, which was greatly admired, from Neh. 4. 2 “What do these feeble Jews?” This may be considered as the commencement of the Baptist interest in Leeds. And in 1781 he delivered a judicious and solemn discourse, on occasion of opening the present Baptist Chapel in that town, from Gen. 28.17. “How dreadful in this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

         In 1792, after the death of Dr Caleb Evans, Dr Fawcett was invited, by the Bristol Education Society, to become the President of the Bristol Academy; and Alderman Harris, and Thomas Ransford Esqr were delegated by the Society to wait on him with the invitation.

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), p. 184 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 379, fol. 1182, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Langdon’s daughter, Mary, published her father’s Memoir in 1837. Reference above is to An Account of the Life, Ministry, and Writings of the Late Rev. John Fawcett, D.D. (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1818) by John Fawcett, Jr. John Parker (1725-93) was the Baptist minister at Barnoldswick, 1763-90. John Harris, Esq. (1727?-1801) was a deacon at Broadmead for more than forty years and mayor of Bristol in 1790. Edward Ransford (1738-1813) also served as a deacon in the Broadmead church for the last 23 years of his life.