James Finch

James Finch, Esq., was most likely a relation of Benjamin Flower’s Cambridge friend, Charles Finch. This would explain the former’s close association with Flower’s Cambridge acquaintances, as well as his inside knowledge of Robert Hall’s situation at St. Andrew’s Street after his mental issues in 1805. In John Audley’s will, dated 30 June 1815, he bequeathed mourning rings to Edward Randall and Ebenezer Foster, his executors, as well as rings for Newton Bosworth and James Finch (Cambridgeshire Record Office, acc. no. 132. B.70). Finch subscribed to Habakkuk Crabb’s Sermons in 1795 as well as Alice Flowerdew’s Poems, on Moral and Religious Subjects in 1803, the former and Independent (Arian) and the latter a General Baptist (Unitarian).  Finch may have been a Baptist, for he was a friend of Robert Hall and a subscriber to the Baptist Missionary Society in 1800-01 and in 1804-05. He also gave £5 to the BMS for William Carey’s work at Serampore in translating the Bible into the Eastern languages (BMS, Periodical Accounts, 2 .205; 3.142, 150).