Mare Street, Hackney, Baptist Church

Mare Street, Hackney, Baptist Church – Officially opened as a Baptist chapel in 1798, with John Rance (1748-1807) as the first minister (9).  He was moved by the preaching of William Romaine toward spiritual concerns, then after Romaine’s death joined the Baptist church in Blackfriar’s Road c. 1796, where James Upton was the pastor, and who encouraged him to become a pastor as well (11).  Some of Abraham Booth’s people came to Mare Street in the beginning to help form the new church.  Booth of Goodman’s Fields and William Button of Dean Street, Southwark, were at the foundation service on 13 May 1798 (19).  Founding members included a Thomas Burford, and a D. and M. Marsom (21). Rance was ordained on 3 October 1798, with Dr. Jenkins of Walworth, as well as Booth and Upton, participating (27-28).  This service took place in the Independent Meeting House in Mare Street, where Samuel Palmer was pastor, for the Shore Place meetinghouse was too small.  They had no baptistry, so they used that of the General Baptist meeting under Dan Taylor (31). After Rance’s death, the next minister of note is F. A. Cox, who came in late 1811, and the chapel moved to Mare Street in 1812 (48).  John Clayton, Jr., preached at the dedication service, along with several others (48). See John E. Bennett, Chronicles of the Baptist Church at Mare Street, Hackney, 1798-1898 (London, 1898).