Clipston Baptist Church

Clipston, Baptist Church -- Thomas Skinner came in 1779 and moved to Towcester in 1783 where he met William Carey, then at Hackleton.  While at Towcester Skinner helped form the church at Bugbrooke.  He eventually moved on to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he died in 1795 (7-8). In 1785 John Webster Morris came to Clipstone from Worsted in Norfolk, already a journeyman printer.  He would remain there for the next 20 years.  Morris was added to the BMS committee in the spring of 1793, and served as Fuller’s assistant for many years.  Morris was the fourth major player on that committee, along with Fuller, Ryland, and Sutcliff.  John Chamberlain, born at Welton, had been baptized at Guilsborough, but was associating with Clipston, for he was working as bailiff to the Manor Farm of John Haddon, a deacon in the church at Clipston (10).  Catherine Plackett, who had traveled to India with her sister, Mrs. Carey, met and married Charles Short of the East India Company while there.  He became a friend to the BMS but he died after just seven years of marriage.  She returned to Clipston and is buried there (11).  Morris resigned in 1803 and went to Dunstable, taking John Haddon jun with him to work with him in his printing business.  Morris left Dunstable in 1809, and for the last 25 years of his life wrote, printed, and preached occasionally (12).  John Evans was the minister to a group of Baptist followers in Foxton during the 1760 and ‘70s, but he retired to Northampton in 1782 (12).  See Ernest A. Payne and A Rattray Allan, Clipston Baptist Church (Northampton:  Billingham and sons, 1932) (page numbers above are from this work).