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ABSTRACT
The Wapping Baptist church has often been referred to as the oldest Baptist church in London. Historians have confidently placed its origins as early as 1633 when a small group of those adopting believer’s baptism departed from the semi-separatist Jacob-Lathrop-Jessey church, then soon to be pastored by the influential John Spilsbery. However, there is no primary source evidence connecting those of this early exodus to the later Wapping Baptists, and similarly, there is no evidence to suggest that Spilsbery was ever at Wapping (the first suggestion not appearing until 1808). This article will not, unfortunately, clarify the Wapping church origins – they remain murky and obscure – however, it will raise doubt surrounding the traditional narrative.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Ernest Kevan, London’s Oldest Baptist Church: Wapping 1633—Walthamstow 1933 (London: Kingsgate Press, 1933). It is unclear if by his title, Kevan meant London’s Oldest [Particular] Baptist Church, or – more likely – London’s Oldest [Surviving] Baptist Church, but in either case, he did not acknowledge the existence of the earlier General Baptist church of the 1620s pastored by Thomas Helwys and John Murton at Bell Alley, Spitalfields.
2 While the spelling of Spilsbery’s surname appears in many different forms across both primary and secondary sources – including Spilsbery, Spilsbury, Spilsberie, Spilsbey, Spilbury, and Spillberry – I will follow Larry Kreitzer in using Spilsbery, as this is how Spilsbery himself signed his name in the two surviving documents bearing his signature. Larry J. Kreitzer, William Kiffen and His World, Part 3, (Oxford: Regents Park College, 2018), 195.
3 Murray Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London, 1616–1649 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 24.
4 John Spilsbery, A Treatise Concerning the Lawfull Subject of Baptisme (London, 1643); John Spilsbery, God’s Ordinance, the Saints Privilege: Discovered and Proved in Two Treatises (London, 1646); William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1969), 145.
5 Richard L. Greaves and Robert Zaller, “Spilsbury (or Spilsbery), John (1593-c. 1668),” in Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century, Vol 2 (Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1983), 194.
6 Nuttall, “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): The Case of John Norcott,” in Pilgrim Pathways: Essays in Baptist History in Honour of B. R. White, eds. William H. Brackney, John H. Y. Briggs, and Paul S. Fiddes (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999), 185. The church book notes that ‘it was agreed that the Church would raise twenty shillings for printing Bro Norcotts booke of baptism into Welch to be collected next Lords day’, Wapping Church Book, 1677–1711, ‘21 Aug 1694’, 64.
7 Benjamin Stinton, A Repository of Divers Historical Matters relating to English Antipedobaptists (1712), 6–7. The Jacob-Lathrop (or Lathorp)-Jessey church of Southwark (or heretofore, ‘JLJ’ church) is named after its first three semi-Separatist pastors: Henry Jacob, John Lathrop, and Henry Jessey.
8 Stinton, A Repository, 7; John Taylor, A Swarme of Sectaries (London, 1641), 8.
9 Wm. Loyd Allen, “Baptist Baptism and the Turn toward Believer’s Baptism by Immersion: 1642,” in Turning Points in Baptist History: A Festschrift in Honor of Harry Leon McBeth, eds. Michael E. Williams, Sr., and Walter B. Shurden (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2008), 37. Following B. R. White, Stephen Wright has effectively shown that while Spilsbery had adopted an early form of separatist baptism by affusion in 1630s, he – and his followers – did not adopt fully adopt believer’s baptism by immersion until 1638. B. R. White, “Baptist Beginnings and the Kiffin MSS” Baptist History & Heritage (1967): 27–37; Stephen Wright, The Early English Baptists, 1603–49 (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006), 77–8, 92, 106–9. For a complete summary and evaluation of the timeline options, see Jason G. Duesing, “Counted Worthy: The Life and Thought of Henry Jessey, 1601–1663. Puritan Chaplain, Independent and Baptist Pastor, Millenarian Politician and Prophet” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008), 123–9.
10 For further claims that Spilsbery was pastoring at Wapping in the 1630s, see Garry Stephen Weaver, Jr., “Hercules Collins: Orthodox, Puritan, Baptist” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2013), 22; James M. Renihan, “John Spilsbury (1593-ca.1662/1668),” in The British Particular Baptists, vol. 1, eds. Michael A. G. Haykin and Terry Wolever (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2019), 19; Michael A. Thompson, Outside the Camp: John Spilsbury, the Pioneer of English Particular Baptists (Kingwood, TX: Charis Publications, 2011), 46.
11 Kreitzer, William Kiffen and His World, Part 3, 207.
12 A. C. Underwood, A History of the English Baptists (London: The Kingsgate Press, 1947), 60. Underwood wrongly attributed the letter to John Thurloe.
13 Wright, The Early English Baptists, 92; Kreitzer, William Kiffen and His World, Part 3, 203–4.
14 Wright, The Early English Baptists, 92–3.
15 Champlin Burrage, The Early English Dissenters In the Light of Recent Research (1550–1641), vol. 1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), 326–7. Tredwell also appeared before the Court of High Commission alongside Magdalen Spilsbery, almost certainly John Spilsbery’s wife. See also Wright, The Early English Baptists, 92.
16 Kreitzer, William Kiffen and His World, Part 3, 204–8.
17 B. R. White, “Baptist Beginnings in Watford,” Baptist Quarterly 26, no. 5 (1976): 205–8, 205.
18 White, “Baptist Beginnings in Watford,” f.n. 4, 207.
19 Kreitzer, William Kiffen and His World, Part 3, 207.
20 Among others, see, for example, ‘this [Baptist] order was established by John Spilsbury at Wapping in 1633’, Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists: Traced by their Vital Principles and Practices from the Time of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the Year 1886 (New York: Bryan, Taylor, & Co., 1887), 460; Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society (London: Baptist Union Publication Department, 1908), 189; Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, The History of East London from the Earliest Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (London: Macmillan and Co., 1939), 145; C. E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism From the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660–1688 (New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1968), 83; Robert W. Oliver, From John Spilsbury to Ernest Kevan: The Literary Contribution of London’s Oldest Baptist Church (London: Grace Publications Trust for The Evangelical Library, 1985), 6; Nuttall, “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): The Case of John Norcott,” 186; Michael A. G. Haykin, “Separatists and Baptists,” in The Oxford History Of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, The Post-Reformation Era, c.1559–c.1689, Vol 1, ed. John Coffey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 124.
21 For Spilsbery, see Thomas Crosby, The History of the English Baptists, from the Reformation to the Beginning of the Reign of King George I, vol. 1 (London, 1738), 103; vol. 4 (London, 1740), 75; for Wapping, see Crosby, vol. 4, 8, 327; for Collins, see Crosby, vol. 3 (London, 1740), 103, 129. Wilson was the illegitimate son of John Walter, who founded The Times, see P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens, The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 56.
22 Walter Wilson, The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark: Including the Lives of their Ministers, from the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time, vol. 1 (London: W. Button and Son, 1808), 410.
23 Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists, vol. 1 (London, 1811), 144. For references to Walter Wilson, see vol. 1 (London, 1811), 102; Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists, vol. 2 (London, 1814), xi, 336, 390; Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists, vol. 3 (London, B. J. Holdsworth, 1823), 321, 323, et al.
24 Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists, vol. 3, 294.
25 Michael Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 225–6; David J. Appleby, “Sermons and Preaching,” in The Oxford History Of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, The Post-Reformation Era, c.1559–c.1689, vol. 1, ed. John Coffey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 449–50.
26 Nuttall, “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): The Case of John Norcott,” 186.
27 Wapping Church Book, 1677–1711, “Sept 1684,” (London: The Evangelical Library), 19.
28 Benjamin Keach, A Summons to the Grave or A Necessity of A Timely Preparation for Death (London: Ben Harris, 1676), A3.
29 Keach, A Summons to the Grave, A4, A5.
30 Ibid., A5.
31 Ibid., unpaginated.
32 Ibid., C2.
33 William Kiffen, ed., Baptism Discovered Plainly and Faithfully, According to the Word of God (London, 1694).
34 Charles Haddon Spurgeon, ed., Baptism Discovered Plainly and Faithfully, According to the Word of God (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1878), vi.
35 Nuttall, “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): The Case of John Norcott,” 186.
36 Wapping Church Book, 1677–1711, “2 Jul 1702,” 98.
37 Weaver and Haykin note ‘The date of his birth can be deduced from his tombstone in Bunhill Fields, which states that, when Collins died in 1702, he was in his 56th year. For the tombstone inscription, see Additional Manuscript 28516 (British Library), folio 26 verso’. Michael A. G. Haykin and Steve Weaver, Devoted to the Service of the Temple: Piety, Persecution, and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 2.
38 Cambridgeshire Parish Registers, vol. 4, Marriages (London: Phillimore & Co, 1907), 70. John Piggott, who delivered the funeral sermon for Collins, briefly remarked that Collins ‘began to be Religious early’ but no other detail is given. John Piggott, Eleven Sermons Preach’d Upon Special Occasions (London: John Darby, 1714), 235.
39 Weaver, Jr., “Hercules Collins: Orthodox, Puritan, Baptist,” 11.
40 Lambeth Palace Library, MS639, fos 139–294, “1669 Return of Nonconformist Conventicles,” fo. 221.
41 Weaver, Jr., “Hercules Collins: Orthodox, Puritan, Baptist,” 25.
42 Wapping Church Book, 1677–1711, ‘5 Feb 1677/8’, 3; Samuel Renihan, The Petty France Church, vol. 1 (Oxford: Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, 2019), 314, 317. In addition, in his funeral elegy, Benjamin Keach called John Norcott ‘my dear brother’, Keach, A Summons to the Grave, A3.
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Nathan Sherman
Nathan Sherman is third-year doctoral candidate at the University of Leicester as a part-time, international researcher. He currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he is the pastor of, Christ Church, a Baptist church plant. His research focuses on the congregational minute book of the Wapping Baptist church (1677–1711) as both a valuable window into the social and cultural realities of this east London people but also as a significant literary artifact in and of itself.