We had the last of this Autumn's lunch time lectures yesterday. We are still on zoom and for the first time that became a slight liability in that our speaker remained unseen throughout the lecture. Having said that, Dr Robert Oliver's lecture on the early Baptist Christopher Blackwood was an excellent introduction to a rather forgotten figure and his life in England, America and Ireland.He lived 1606-1670. A Cambridge graduate, he became curate of Rye, in Sussex and when he embraced Baptist principles, he became pastor of a church which met at Spillshill House, near Staplehurst, Kent. When the civil wars came along he went into the army and accompanied the army to Ireland,. He was for some time pastor of a church in Dublin, ministering quite extensively in Ireland. He appears to have returned to England about the time of the Restoration. In 1661 he went briefly to America. Shortly after his return he resumed his residence in Dublin, where he died. A learned, well read man he was a strong advocate for freedom of conscience. His first publication was The Storming of Antichrist in his two Last and Strongest Garrisons, - Compulsion of Conscience and Infants' Baptism.
The lecture was topped and tailed with a personal reference to Dr Oliver's upbringing and family background in the Weald of Kent and a further reference to the founding of the Evangelical Library which once upon a time was the Beddington Free Grace Library. Geoffrey Williams the founder was from the Strict Baptist church in Galeed, Brighton where J K Popham (1847-1937) ministered for 55 years. That church like others in Sussex finds its roots in the earlier work in Sussex of Christopher Blackwood.
