William Blow

William Blow lived at Whittlesford, just outside of Cambridge. Blow was one of the ones who contributed to the £40 a year in the 1780s to have an itinerant preacher, sent by the Rev. John Berridge at Eversden, to preach in the nearby Duxford parishes, an endeavor that eventually led to the formation in 1794 of an Independent meeting under the care of Benjamin Pyne (“Statistical View” 501). Blow apparently had connections with the Baptists at St. Andrew’s Street in Cambridge as well, for he was among the subscribers to the Baptist Missionary Society in 1799-1800 (Periodical Accounts 2.94). William Blow’s wife died on 15 August 1796; her “truly respectable and Christian character render her sincerely lamented by her numerous family and friends,” Benjamin Flower wrote in the Cambridge Intelligencer the following week. Blow’s son, James, also of Whittlesford, married a Miss Speed, of Ware, in June 1796 (Cambridge Intelligencer 11 June 1796). William Blow’s second daughter, Maria, married William Burton of London (formerly of Cambridge) in 1798, who later published some controversial tracts.