Thomas Roberts

Thomas Roberts (1780-1841) attended Bristol Academy, 1798-1799. He eventually succeeded John Sharp as pastor of the Baptist congregation in the Pithay in Bristol in 1807 and remained there the rest of his life, moving the church to King Street in 1817.  He was an immensely popular preacher and a favorite of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As J. G. Fuller writes, “On Mr. Robert’s settling in Bristol, it very soon appeared that he was quite adequate to the position to which he had been called. The congregation very quickly increased, until at length it was usual for the meetinghouse to be crowded to overflowing, every standing-place even being occupied. Neither did his preaching please the majority merely. As a striking instance in proof of the contrary, it may be mentioned that the late highly-gifted and accomplished Mr. Coleridge, being repeatedly a hearer, more than once expressed the high admiration which he felt, assuring a gentleman from whom we had the fact, that Mr. Roberts was the only extemporary preacher he had ever listened to with pleasure . . .” See J. G Fuller, A Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Roberts, M.A. Pastor of the Baptist Church in King Street, Bristol: With an Enlarged History of the Church (London:  Houlston and Stoneman, 1842), 27-28.