Kettering, Northamptonshire, Baptists

Kettering, Northamptonshire, Baptist Church -- The following account is taken from Gladys M. Barrett, A Brief History of Fuller Church, Kettering (St. Albans: Parker Brothers, 1946).

John Brown was the minister from c. 1751-71, but he left over a disagreement about a friendly society, despite the efforts of J. C. Ryland to heal the rift (Brown had been one of the six founding ministers of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association in 1764). Brown helped get a new church in town, but George Moreton succeeded him in November 1771. Brown started a second meeting in Kettering that lasted until 1786. Moreton resigned due to his health in 1779. Fuller was at Soham at the time in Cambridgeshire and the Kettering church made overtures to him at that time. He initially turned them down, but finally he accepted and in October 1782, he moved to Kettering and was ordained there one year later by Robert Hall of Arnsby and John Ryland, Jr. of Northampton (5-6). By 1786 the church needed to be enlarged, provided by a subscription and £45 from Beeby Wallis. The building was enlarged again in 1805. By 1792 the membership was 88 and by the time of Fuller’s death it had reached 174 (7). In 1786 ten members were given leave to start a work at Gratton (7). It was in the Beeby Wallis home (he was dead then, but the widow allowed the ministers to use her front parlour) that the BMS was established on 2 October 1792. Barrett mentions here a little book of Fuller’s titled “Families who attend at the Meeting, August, 1788,” with a short account of each member. Barrett notes that at Fuller’s death on 7 May 1815, in a town of 3200 inhabitants, with a large Independent meeting and one Methodist chapel, Fuller drew as many as a 1000 hearers to his services. His funeral was attended by some 2000 people (10).  He was succeeded John Keen Hall. A rupture in the church occurred in 1824 between Keen and the supporters of another member turned preacher, John Jenkinson. A new church was formed of his followers but it was abandoned in 1841. Upon Keen Hall’s death in 1829, William Robinson took over and remained for 22 years.