Bedford Baptists

Bedford Baptists – After Joshua Symonds death, a third church was formed in Bedford which became Mill Street Baptist in 1791-92, whereWilliam Smith was a prominent member until 1799 (3).  The first pastor was Thomas Ranger, who left in 1796 and was replaced by Daniel Morrell, who was ordained in May 1798, with Mr. Burkitt (pastor of the Independent chapel there) participating (5).  Samuel Kilpin, then a student at Bristol, gave out the hymns (6).  When the Bedfordshire Union began in 1797, preaching lectures where initiated in Kempston and other surrounding villages.  At that time (1797-99), there were three congregations in Bedford: the Old Meeting (Baptist), with Hillyard as minister; the Independent chapel, with Thomas Burkitt as pastor, who had come from Buckenham [Buckingham]; and the New Meeting (Baptist), with Morell as pastor [Rippon provides this information in the Baptist Annual Register, vol. 3 (London, 1801), 1-2] (6).  Rippon writes, “Hence on the Lord’s day at one or other of the meeting-houses in Bedford it is common to give out five or six notices of preaching in different villages on the following days of the week.  Nor are the exertions of these exemplary ministers confined here. Besides their own labours they avail themselves of the talents of the pious and discreet in their churches.  They have thirty gifted persons or more who are encouraged to promote Village Worship.  Some of them can lead a tune, some can decently read a sermon, and all can pray.  Two or three together, commonly one from each church, when the Lord’s day afternoon service is over, walk to the villages.  The have visited five or six--Clapham, Biddenham, Bromham, Harrowden and other places, the consequence of which is that prayer meetings and Village Readings are established and in some places increasingly attended, while in the old congregations new faces are constantly seen and multitudes are praying that gospel ministers throughout the land would lay themselves out as they might in Village Preaching and for the encouragement of Village Reading” (vol.  3, 2).  George Pincharde replaced Morrell by 1802 (7). See H. G. Tibbutt, Mill Street Baptist Church, Bedford, 1792-1963  (Bedford, 1964).