The Wapping Baptists: The Varied Location of a Unified People

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 27; pp. 99 - 122
• Main Author: Sherman, Nathan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2023
• Subjects: 17th century; Baptist churches; Interpersonal relations; Religion; Religious congregations; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0954-0970

Because of the transitory nature of urban life and work - not only due to the number of villagers migrating to the city, but also Londoners moving to other parts of the city in search of better work - forming stable relationships would have been increasingly difficult for people in the capital. 'Community', Keith Wrightson explains, 'after all, is not a thing; it is a quality' that binds people together, and religion can be one of the most powerful community-building agents.4 While others have previously argued for the social value of the parish church, Dissenting bodies of the seventeenth century also became important looms for the weaving of social meaning.5 Church members may not have forged permanent intra-personal relationships, but these voluntary congregations became valuable 'emotional communities' which could provide important social context for 'making contact' and 'keeping contact'.6 A People of Varying Location Over the thirty-five-year span of the Wapping Baptist church book, seventy-two members were received into membership by recommendation - that is, they were already baptised members of other Baptist churches before joining the Wapping congregation. In 1693, the church book notes that Guilmore, 'who was formerly cutt of from the church of christ att newcastle for her sin in marrying & liueing with another womans husband though she was forewarned by the church to the contrary', was taken into membership in Wapping after 'her greatt repentance and many years humbling herself'.10 Was it the 'pull' of financial betterment in London, the 'push' of marital and societal turmoil in Newcastle - or some combination of both - which precipitated Guilmore's move to the capital? The church book also describes the discipline case of the deacon John Newman and Abigail Long, who were both cut off from the church after it was discovered that Long's first husband was still alive and well in Jamaica.15 The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were years of tremendous migratory upheavals from which tremors could be felt among congregational bodies in East London all the way to the Caribbean islands.