Catalogue description JOHN BURGESS OF DITCHLING, GLOVER AND GENERAL BAPTIST MINISTER

This record is held by East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO)

Details of AMS5853
Reference: AMS5853
Title: JOHN BURGESS OF DITCHLING, GLOVER AND GENERAL BAPTIST MINISTER
Description:

Introduction

 

Extracts from the journal and some letters of John Burgess were first published in SAC 40.130 in 1896 by John Sawyer. In 1982 a transcript of both journal and letters was privately published by L J Maguire of Croydon. A copy is available in the search room library and should be consulted in the first instance

 

John Burgess was probably born in 1751 in the vicinity of Cross-in-Hand; as might be expected in a baptist family, his name is not included in the baptism register of either Heathfield or Waldron

 

Burgess notes in his journal that his father moved to Rumdens Farm, Rotherfield from Heathfield (where he had lived for over 40 years) in 1785 and the land tax returns of both parishes show that his name was Thomas

 

In 1766 at the age of 16, John Burgess was apprenticed to John Gosling, an elder of the church at Warbleton and a farmer with interests in the leather trade: for his surviving papers see AMSP5920. In 1775 and 1777 he attended the general baptist assembly in London as a representative of the Warbleton church

 

On 29 Oct 1776 John Burgess married Ann Edwards at Herstmonceux, at which parish his father Thomas died in 1803

 

On 24 Mar 1782 Burgess was admitted to membership of the Ditchling church by letter from Waldron and on 7 July was desired by the congregation "to serve them in the ministerial office". He lived at Ditchling, to begin with in the meeting house cottage, until he emigrated to America in 1794 and settled at Sparta in the township of Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, in a colony of baptists, many of whom had originated in Ditchling. He died and was buried at Sparta in 1825 at the age of 74

Date: 1751 - 1825
Held by: East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO), not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Immediate source of acquisition:

Documents given by Douglas Spencer Burgess, Rustington, 25 Jan 1973 (ACC 1555, AMS5853/2 and by his son Donald F Burgess, Redhill, 30 January 1987 (ACC 4783)

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