Thomas Trinder

Thomas Trinder (1740-1794) came to Northampton from Gloucestershire in 1762 to work as an usher in Ryland’s academy. After joining the congregation at College Lane, however, he removed to London in April 1764, where he joined Edward Hitchin’s Independent congregation at White Row, Spitalfields. He soon returned to Northampton and in 1768 married Martha Smith, a member of the College Lane church and governess of a girl’s boarding school at Northampton, 1765-1789. Trinder did not rejoin the church at College Lane, however, until 1775, and was not baptized until 1783. In 1777, he and Joseph Dent (who married John Collett Ryland’s daughter, Elizabeth) were made deacons. Trinder died in 1794, leaving £500 to the church at Northampton to be distributed among the poor.  His spiritual autobiography appeared in the Baptist Annual Register, 2:286-303.  See also the College Street Church Book, 1781-1803, Northamptonshire Record Office, fols. 43, 190; Ernest A. Payne, College Street Church, Northampton, 1697–1947 (London: Kingsgate Press, 1947), 19; T. S. H. Elwyn, The Northamptonshire Baptist Association (London:  Carey Kingsgate, 1964), 26-27; John Rippon, ed., Baptist Annual Register, vol. 1 (1790-93), pp. 135-142.