John Follett

John Follett (1743-1826) was born at Ilfracombe and educated at Daventry Academy, that during the 1780s and ‘90s, when he had such a doctrinal mixture in the church, he had almost no church meetings (Authers, Tiverton 27). He pastored the Steps Meeting (Independent) in Tiverton from 1765 to 1815, the church Benjamin Flower attended during his time in Tiverton. Follett allowed such wide doctrinal divisions within the church that he had few church meetings and little discipline, enduring numerous disputes among the people and several between his assistant pastor, Mr. Vowles, and himself. According to the church’s historian, “In a difficult and doubting period, [Follett] lacked strength of conviction with which to lead and sustain his people in their uncertainties and divisions” (25).  Nevertheless, Follett established the first Sunday school in Devon (25-28).  One obituary noted that his view of “Calvinism, (if such it was to be called,) was moderated, particularly in later life, as much by the course of his reflections as by the benevolence of his disposition” (Monthly Review  [1826], 241-42). See W. P. Authers, The Tiverton Congregational Church 1660-1960: A History (Tiverton, 1960).