Nonconformity in Derbyshire

by Orchard, Stephen; Binfield, Clyde

• ISBN13: 9781608991617
• ISBN10: 160899161X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-01
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub

Summary

Nonconformity in Derbyshire has been little researched and what has been published about it is scattered through many sources, ancient and modern. There is no standard nineteenth-century history as there is for many other countries. Yet there is an important story to be told. Derbyshire was the birthplace of John Cotton; the minutes of its Wirksworth Classis are a rare survival from the Commonwealth period; from Duffield in Derbyshire Roger Morrice, whose significant Journal has been published, was ejected. The book England's Remembrancer (1663), published sermons by ejected 'country ministers,' as distinct from London ones, is dominated by ministers from Derbyshire or with connections there. An important Dissenting Academy was established at Findern, near Derby, and the diary of James Clegg, dissenting minister, has been published. This book provides the context of these events and tells the stories of the country families who promoted Dissent. An evaluation of Nonconformity in Derbyshire also provides a case study for a wider assessment of the impact of Dissent out of London and its eventual decline through the eighteenth century. The story concludes with the attempts of Thomas Wilson, an important founder of modern Congregationalism, to revive dissenting causes in his home county as the eighteenth century drew to a close. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Stephen Orchard is a former Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge, and President of the Cambridge Theological Federation. He has served as a local minister in the United Reformed Church, Assistant General Secretary of the British Council of Churches, General Secretary and Director of the Christian Education Movement, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church 2007-2008. He was born and grew up in Derbyshire, where he now lives.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Prologue	p. 1
The Puritan Tradition in Derbyshire	p. 4
The Puritans	p. 4
Derbyshire	p. 7
Repton	p. 9
Ashbourne	p. 11
Derby	p. 13
Other Schools	p. 14
Puritanism around the County	p. 15
The Civil War and Commonwealth	p. 17
The Gell Family	p. 17
Petitions	p. 19
The Outbreak of Hostilities	p. 22
The Committee of Sequestrators	p. 24
The Wirksworth Classis	p. 27
The Ejections of 1662	p. 34
Booth's Rising	p. 34
The Restoration of 1660	p. 35
The Act of Uniformity 1662	p. 36
The Number of Ejections	p. 37
Ejections by Parish	p. 41
The Presbyterian Gentry	p. 45
The Public Statements of the Ejected Ministers	p. 48
The Aftermath of Ejection	p. 56
The Clarendon Code	p. 56
Mute Resistance and Conformity	p. 57
The Apostle of the Peak	p. 64
Active Resistance	p. 66
Lay Supporters	p. 72
Quakers	p. 75
The Outcome	p. 76
Toleration	p. 77
Protestant Dissenters	p. 77
Derby	p. 80
Chesterfield	p. 82
Wirksworth	p. 83
Norton	p. 86
Other Meeting Houses	p. 87
Worship in the Meeting House	p. 89
The Brentnall Family	p. 90
Leading Dissenters	p. 92
The Evans List	p. 92
Findern	p. 95
The Schism Act	p. 97
Expansion	p. 99
James Clegg	p. 100
The Changing Nature of Dissent	p. 103
Ebenezer Latham	p. 103
Samuel Brentnall	p. 105
William Hutton	p. 106
The Decline of Meeting Houses	p. 108
Buxton	p. 112
Derby	p. 113
The Reshaping of Dissent	p. 115
Ordinations at the Wirksworth Classis and Subsequent Attendance	p. 118
Protestant Dissenters after 1689	p. 121
The Evans List for Derbyshire	p. 129
Derbyshire Nonconformity: A Gazeteer	p. 132
Bibliography	p. 186
General Index	p. 189
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