George Birley

George Birley was raised in the General Baptist congregation at Ashford, Derbyshire. In 1765 he removed to Birchcliff, Yorkshire, to assist Dan Taylor as a tutor in his academy there. In 1768 he left Taylor’s school and became a tutor at J. C. Ryland’s academy in Northampton, although he retained his membership in Taylor’s church at Birchcliff. While at Northampton, Birley preached frequently to Baptist congregations in Moulton, Spratton, Burton-Latimer, and Stony-Stratford. The General Baptist meeting at St. Ives, which had long been without a stated minister, invited Birley to preach for them in the early 1770s, and he supplied regularly for several years before moving there in 1777, at which time he commenced regular preaching duties. Birley was not officially ordained as pastor of the congregation at St. Ive’s until 1786; Dan Taylor of London, his close friend, and Robert Robinson of Cambridge performed the service. In 1789 Birley led the congregation into membership in the New Connection of General Baptists. Birley’s wife died in 1782, with Taylor preaching her funeral sermon. Birley was still ministering at St. Ive’s in 1818, subscribing that year to Adam Taylor’s The History of the English General Baptists (2 vols; 1818). A collection of letters between Birley and Dan Taylor, composed between 1771 and 1808, resides at the Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford (D/Hus 1/6), as well as letters between Birley and the Rev. William Thompson of Boston, Leicestershire (D/Hus 1/7).