The Hump of the Camel

Another week’s break between posts here, and once more it’s not because of sunning myself on the Jurassic Coast, nor even our upcoming Golden Wedding Anniversary this weekend (“…and it don’t seem a day too long…”), but because of further digging into the highly interesting history of my own Baptist Church. I spent a morning at the Exeter records office photographing the Church proceedings book we kept from 1653 until 1795, when it was borrowed by John Rippon, of hymn-collecting fame, and not returned for over a century. I spent most of the last week transcribing the archaic handwriting and spelling, correcting the chronological order, all garbled for several contingent reasons. Who would have thought, for example, that the word “Popain” in a list of local settlements where members lived actually refers to “Pope Hayne,” an old farm just down the hill from us?

My lack of recent posting is largely explained by research for a project on the Particular (ie Reformed) Baptist founders of my church, which is celebrating its official 370th anniversary next Sunday, from when its records began, though it is probably closer to 378 years old. Two of the main founders, William Allen and John Vernon, have a bigger documentary footprint than I’d realised, and were somewhat significant figures in the Parliamentary army during Britain’s Civil War. Allen became Cromwell’s Adjutant-General in Ireland, and Vernon his Quartermaster-General.