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History pages, 1830s to 1882:                                  
                               Church origins & fifty years of growth

From left:
Rev. Dennis Morgan (1867-75);
Growth in membership;
Rev. Morgan memorial stone
EARLY HISTORY: there was generally a small element of non-Conformist worship in Burwell, with 33 'constant separatists' (of 533) reported in the Anglican church attendance survey of 1676. The Congregation Chapel was set up in the village in 1747, and various barns and houses in North Street in Burwell were used as places for Baptist worship in the early 1800s. But these efforts towards setting up Baptist worship in the village failed and in 1826 the Baptist worshippers in Burwell joined Soham Baptist Church.

Later, as the number of members from Burwell increased, a cottage was rented in North Street as a place of Baptist worship, and in 1846 the Baptist chapel was built in North Street. In January 1851, 25 Burwell people transferred their church membership from Soham Baptist Church to form the new Burwell Baptist Church.

Early Burwell pastors were WC Ellis ~1849-1851; Charles Smith 1852-56; Edward Lewis 1856-59; Mr. S. Hynard 1859-67.  These were generally local men, probably with no formal training. As the church grew, after 1867 all Burwell Baptist pastors had ministerial training, with particularly close links to C.H. Spurgeon's Pastors' College, indeed all ministers came from there in the period 1867 - 1927.

1867: five people were baptised by Mr. Morgan in Burwell Lode - on Christmas Day (which must have been cold!)
1874 : side galleries added to extend capacity from 300 to 500
1875: G.T. Bailey (shown, upper right), a student at Spurgeon's Pastor's College, wrote A Brief History of the Baptist Church, Burwell  for its 25th anniversary. (Years later he preached at Burwell, and was caricatured in the church minutes book, below right).
1882: more growth with the opening of School room; but it was the end of an era of growth....

This page updated: 17 April 2007