Stepney Folk

Recusancy

Heavy fines and sometimes the loss of property was the penalty for being a religious dissenter.

On 6 December 1609 Elizabeth Thacher and her husband William Thacher, gentleman, and James Thacher, gentleman, all of Stepney, appear as recusants (one who had been absent from services at their parish church) on the Middlesex Sessions Rolls. James was discharged on 17 January but the others were not so fortunate.

On 17 January 1609/10 Thomas Ollyver, gentleman, Katherine White, spinster, Edward White, gentleman, Robert Roper, gentleman and his wife (unnamed), Mary White, spinster, Edward White, gentleman, his wife Ann White and Alexander Amcottes, all of Stepney were also proclaimed as recusants.

Despite the activity of the parish worthies who served on the Vestry non-conformity was taking hold and the first English Baptist church was built in Wapping in 1633.

Elder Sylvestor Hassell made the following statement concerning the origin of Particular Baptists. "In 1633, September the 12th, the first Particular Baptist, or Calvinist, or Predestinarian English Baptist Church was founded in London, under the pastoral care of John Spilsbury, from those members of an Independent Church who rejected infant baptism; it was called Bond Street Church, and was in the parish of Wapping, London." Elder Hassell provides no further information as to the origin of this church so far as succession is concerned.

John Spilsbury, pastor of the Calvanistic Baptist church which met in Broad Street, Wapping signed the 'Confession of Faith' published in 1646.

Hercules Collins was installed as pastor of the Wapping church on 23 March, 1676/77, this able minister was the author of several important devotional and practical works, including An Orthodox Catechism (1680) which is a Baptist recension of the Heidelberg Catechism. He signed The London Baptist Confession of 1689. He was held in high esteem by his colleagues, and played an important part in the establishment of Particular Baptist Churches in London and the country. He died 4 October 1702. John Piggot said of him in a funeral sermon, "his doctrine was agreeable to the Sentiments of the Reformed Churches in all Fundamental Articles of Faith, and [his example] did adorn the Doctrine of God our Saviour". His presence at all of the London General Assemblies must be noted.

Other Stepney signatories to The London Baptist Confession of 1689: Leonard Harrison a pastor at Limehouse and George Barret a pastor at Mile End Green.

As the years passed religious tolerance allowed the Quakers to meet in houses at Mile End Green and Spitalfields in the 1680's.

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