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Dissenting Churches in Kent before 1700

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Geoffrey F. Nuttall
Geoffrey F. Nuttall
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Church History, New College, University of London
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Extract

Out of an approximate total of four hundred, the number of livings in Kent from which clergy are known to have been ejected under the Act for Confirming and Restoring of Ministers of 13 September 1660 and the Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayers of 19 May 1662 is sixty-five. For comparative purposes it may be observed that the number of Kentish benefices known to have been under sequestration during the period between 1643 and 1660 was one hundred and twenty, i.e. almost double. These figures follow fairly closely the pattern for England in general: the proportion of sequestrations (30 per cent.) is almost identical, the proportion of ejections a little lower in Kent (16 per cent.) than in the country as a whole. Since thirty-six parishes in Kent were affected by both sequestration and ejection, the number of parishes unaffected by either was even larger than is suggested at first sight by the figures given above. Dr. Whiteman's conclusion from her consideration of the statistics for sequestrations throughout the country would certainly seem to be true of the situation in Kent: ‘continuity was much greater … than used to be thought’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , October 1963 , pp. 175 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

page 175 note 1 Whiteman, Anne, ‘The Restoration of the Church of England’, in From Uniformity to Unity 1662–1962, ed. Nuttall, G. F. and Chadwick, O., London 1962, 35Google Scholar, in a critical comparison of the statistics in Walker Revised, ed. Matthews, A. G., Oxford 1948Google Scholar, (henceforth W. R.), and in Bosher, R. S., The Making of the Restoration Settlement, London 1951Google Scholar.

page 175 note 2 The reason why this figure is two less than the figure for livings is that Barham and Bishopsbourne were held in plurality, as also were Monkton and Birchington. The reason why it is one more than the figure given in the statistical table in Calamy Revised, ed. Matthews, A. G., Oxford 1934, xiiGoogle Scholar, is that one minister ejected in Kent (Thomas Dawson) was later also ejected in Suffolk and is included by Mr. Matthews in the figure for Suffolk. Calamy Revised (henceforth C.R.) is usually the source of statements and quotations for which no further reference is given.

page 175 note 3 See especially his The Quakers Folly (1659), in which he states that he was persuaded to discourse with the Quakers by the example of ‘so Reverend and Learned a person’ (2nd ed., 1659, 51) as Richard Baxter, and his Synopsis of Quakerism (1668), which includes a careful examination of theological terms used by the Quakers in an ‘interior’ sense peculiar to themselves. Danson's copy of The Quakers proved Deceivers (1660), by John Home, who was ejected from the benefice of All Hallows, South Lynn, Norfolk, is preserved in the Library of the Society of Friends in London.

page 176 note 1 The normal reference to D.N.B. is omitted by inadvertence in C.R. after Durant's name.

page 176 note 2 The 1672 licences are transcribed, and then arranged by counties, by Turner, G. Lyon, Original Records of Nonconformity under Persecution and Indulgence, London 1911Google Scholar (henceforth O.R.); for the licences for Kent, see ii. 991–1009.

page 176 note 3 In c. 1668 it was reported that Northbourne was ‘full of Anabaptists and Quakers’ (Congregational Historical Society Transactions, v. 127 (henceforth C.H.S.T.); but no licence for nonconformist worship was sought for this parish in 1672.

page 177 note 1 Register-Booke of the Fourth Classis, ed. Surman, C. E. (Camden Soc, lxxxii–lxxxiii), London 1953, 110–12, 116–19Google Scholar. At the Restoration Crump, Petter and Webber were ejected, though Webber became Master of the Free School at Sandwich; Peake conformed.

page 177 note 2 These 1669 ‘episcopal returns’ also are in O.R.: for the returns for the diocese of Canterbury, see i. 13–20.

page 177 note 3 For the congregation here, see below.

page 178 note 1 This ‘Review’ is printed and annotated by Gordon, Alexander in Freedom after Ejection, Manchester 1917Google Scholar (henceforth F.a.E.); for the information concerning Kent, see 55–7.

page 178 note 2 Edmund Calamy, Account of the Ministers … Ejected [=vol. n of Abridgement of Mr. Baxter's History, 2nd edn.] 1713, 379–80 (henceforth Account).

page 178 note 3 Edmund Calamy, Continuation of the Account, 1727, i. 551 (henceforth Continuation).

page 178 note 4 1668 is an error for 1669.

page 178 note 5 Continuation, i. 551–2. The continuing collaboration between these ministers is seen in the fact that at his death in 1679 Beake left £10 each to his ‘honored friends’ Ventress and Taylor. Thoroughgood had left Canterbury for Rochester.

page 178 note 6 Account, 377.

page 179 note 1 Seventeenth-century extracts from this MS. church book are printed in C.H.S.T., vii. 183–93.

page 180 note 1 The quotations are from a seventeenth-century MS. printed by Norman Penney in The First Publishers of Truth, London 1907, 130–46 (henceforth F.P. T.); contemporary references to the visits are made in letters written by early Quakers preserved among the Swarthmore MSS. in the Library of the Society of Friends in London and calendared in my Early Quaker Letters, London 1952 (henceforth E.Q.L.): for further confirming material see also Caton's Journal, ed. A. R. Barclay, 1839.

page 181 note 1 C.R., xli; cf. G. F. Nuttall, ‘Congregational Commonwealth Incumbents’, in C.H.S.T., xiv. 155–67.

page 181 note 2 In 1651 Nichols published The hue and cry after the Priests: who wander from benefice to benefice (copy in Dr. Williams's Library); the usual indication (‘Publication’) is inadvertently omitted after his name in C.R.

page 181 note 3 For example in Beds., Cambs., Northants., and the West Country; cf. my Visible Saints: the Congregational Way 1640–1660, Oxford 1957, 108–9Google Scholar, with n. 4.

page 181 note 4 W. T. Whitley, in Baptist Historical Society Transactions, i. 172 (henceforth B.H.S. T.); ibid., n.s., ii. 374; introd. to his ed. of The Minutes of the General Assembly of the General Baptist Churches, London 1909, i. xlixGoogle Scholar.

page 182 note 1 Cf. D. B. Heriot, ‘Anabaptism in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in C.H.S.T., xii. 256–71, 312–20, using the Town Records of Sandwich and correspondence between the Dutch Church in Sandwich (formed in 1561) and the Dutch Church in Austin Friars, London, preserved in the archives of the latter.

page 182 note 2 Op. cit., i. lix-lx.

page 182 note 3 Cf. D.N.B. Laud reported to Charles I in 1638 that ‘at and about Ashford in Kent, the separatists continue to hold their conventicles’: Works, Oxford 1853, v. 347Google Scholar.

page 182 note 4 Cf. Taylor, Adam, History of English General Baptists, London 1818, i. 283Google Scholar.

page 182 note 5 See the passage by Luke Howard quoted below.

page 182 note 6 A. Taylor, loc. cit.

page 182 note 7 Underwood, A. C., A History of the English Baptists, London 1947, 46Google Scholar; W. T. Whitley, in B.H.S.T., ii. 248.

page 182 note 8 Cf. A. Taylor, op. cit., i. 282; the evidence for so early a foundation is not forthcoming: see Miller, A. C., Eythorne, London 1924Google Scholar.

page 182 note 9 Ibid., i. 288.

page 182 note 10 Ibid., i. 109–10.

page 182 note 11 Cf. Baptist Bibliography (henceforth B.B.), ed. Whitley, W. T., London 1916, i. 43, item 33–650.Google Scholar

page 182 note 12 Ibid., i. 203, addenda, item 104–646.

page 182 note 13 Cf. W. T. Whitley, in B.H.S.T., n.s., ii. 374.

page 182 note 14 Cf. A. Taylor, op. cit., i. 286–7; D.N.B.; R. F. Chambers, The Strict Baptist Chapels of England, iii (Kent), n.d., 5, with photograph of Spilsill Court facing p. 8.

page 182 note 15 W. T. Whitley, in B.H.S.T., i. 173.

page 182 note 16 F.P.T., loc. cit.; at Dover ‘one John Fitnesse … was then called their pastor’. For ‘John Feetness, a Preaching Baptist and Pastor’, cf. also Luke Howard, Love and Truth in plainness manifested, 1704, 21; he signed the letter of 25 May 1653 for the Bethersden Church.

page 183 note 1 Cf. Original Letters, ed. John Nickolls, 1743, 95–7. The spelling requires deciphering, e.g. Beddenden for Biddenden, Benningdine for Benenden, and Bedersden for Bethersden, but is sometimes pleasingly phonetic, as Rovndinge for Rolvenden and Apinton (long a) for Orpington.

page 183 note 2 F.P.T., 135.

page 183 note 3 Ambrose Rigge, Constancy in the Truth, 1710, 9; Howsigoe, here misprinted Howsigee, had earlier been rector of Brightling, Sussex: see C.R., s.v. Joseph Bennet, as Housgoe; George Fox calls him ‘an Independant preacher’: Journal, ed. Nickalls, J. L.London 1952, 209Google Scholar; he signed the letter of 1653, among ‘Freinds to the Churches’, as Thomas Howsego.

page 183 note 4 See Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, ed. Smith, Joseph, London 1867, i. 1008–9Google Scholar; Holland was vicar of Sutton Valence: see W.R., 225, s.v. Robert Smith.

page 183 note 5 Swarthmore MSS., 4. 272; E.Q.L., no. 557.

page 184 note 1 F.P.T., 133–4. The placing of Fisher's convincement at Folkestone (instead of at Lydd) appears to be a rare oversight left uncorrected in Braithwaite, W. C., The Beginnings of Quakerism, 2nd ed., Cambridge 1955, 187Google Scholar.

page 184 note 2 A. Rigge, op. cit., 8.

page 184 note 3 Swarthmore MSS., 4. 266 and 4. 271: E.Q.L., nos. 491 and 546.

page 184 note 4 W. C. Braithwaite, op. cit., 288. For Fisher, see D.N.B.; W.R. 209, s.v. J. Aisgill. His theology is the subject of a 1960 Birmingham B.D. thesis by Miss Edna Hall, a copy of which is available in the Library of Woodbrooke College, Birmingham.

page 184 note 5 W. C. Braithwaite, op. cit., 396. For Howard, see further D.N.B.; Hodgkin, L. V., The Shoemaker of Dover: Luke Howard 1621–1699, London 1943Google Scholar.

page 184 note 6 Luke Howard, Love and truth in plainness manifested, 1704, 5.

page 184 note 7 F.P.T., 133.

page 184 note 7 Op. cit., 2.

page 185 note 1 Op. cit, 107; in Love and truth, 34, Howard repeats that ‘My First Wife’ was ‘the First Baptised Person in Kent’.

page 185 note 2 L. Howard, Love and truth, 7–8; in A looking-glass, 112, Howard repeats that Woodman was ‘the first Baptist Preacher and Dipper reared up in this county of Kent’.

page 185 note 3 L. Howard, A looking-glass, 108.

page 185 note 4 Cornwell was presumably vicar of Marden for a brief period after the sequestration of John Wood in 1642 (see W.R., 228) and Blackwood was presumably rector of Staplehurst for a brief period after the sequestration of John Brown at some date prior to 22 March 1645 (see W.R., 212), though neither name is there included among known ‘intruders’.

page 185 note 5 V.C.H. Kent, ed. Page, William, ii (London 1926) 100Google Scholar.

page 186 note 1 Adam Taylor, op. cit., i. 283.

page 186 note 2 F.P.T., 142.

page 186 note 3 A. Taylor, op. cit., 284. From 1691 the Tenterden church had an alternative meeting-place at Headcorn: ibid., 350.

page 186 note 4 V.C.H. Kent, ii. 104.

page 186 note 5 Earlier, the church at Sandwich was ministered to for seven years by Samuel Pomfret, for whom see D.N.B. and C.R. (as in Calamy's ‘supplementary list’). In c. 1668 it was reported that ‘Presbyterians and Sectaryes much infest the towne and parish, noe surplice, nor will be endured’: C.H.S.T., v. 127.

page 187 note 1 This Deptford church may have originated in the Interregnum, for the vicar of St. Nicholas, Deptford, from 1644 till 1658, Thomas Malory, who in 1661 was ejected from a lectureship at St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London, was Congregational, as his parishioner, John Evelyn, observed: see D.N.B. (as Mallory).

page 187 note 2 Cf. Timpson, Thomas, Church History of Kent, London 1859, 307Google Scholar; C.H.S.T., vii. 188.

page 187 note 3 Baroness Nettelbladt-Roberts kindly informs me that no MSS. of this period are preserved at Glassenbury.

page 187 note 4 Calamy observes that ‘at Ramsgate’ Johnson ‘first gather'd a dissenting Meeting’. A meeting-house was erected in 1687 or earlier: ‘The Case abl the Meetinghouse at Ramsgate in Kent’ dated 5 Dec. 1727, in Ramsgate Congregational Church MSS., per Mr. J. F. Bones.

page 187 note 5 T. Timpson, op. cit., 424. For the history of this church, see Congregational Magazine, London 1838, 737 ff., and now A. G. Hurd, These three hundred years, 1962.

page 187 note 6 For the name of the minister who left Woolwich in this year, David Evans, see F.a.E., 367, s.v. N. Thoroughgood.

page 188 note 1 F.a.E., 23–4.

page 188 note 2 See Thatcher, Thomas, A brief history of the Staplehurst Congregational church, Cranbrook 1903Google Scholar, and E. H. Brine, Staplehurst Congregational church, n.p. 1947.

page 189 note 1 This paragraph is an attempt to summarise the highly confusing genealogies given by W. T. Whitley, in B.H.S.T., n.s., ii, and by A. G. Hurd, op. cit. (which has several illustrations of meeting-houses and chapels).