University of Kent

Introduction

Revd. Theophilus Lindsey, M.A.

The Correspondence of Theophilus Lindsey

To be published by the Church of England Record Society (The Boydell Press): Editor Professor G M Ditchfield

About Theophilus Lindsey

Theophilus Lindsey was one of the most outstanding and controversial clergymen of the eighteenth century. By his inspiration of the Feathers Tavern Petition against clerical subscription to the thirty-nine articles (1771-72) he provoked one of the most profound debates within the eighteenth-century Church of England. By his anti-trinitarian convictions and consequent resignation as Vicar of Catterick in 1773 he helped to further the emergence of Unitarianism as a separate denomination and made his chapel at Essex Street, off the Strand in central London, a focus both for theological and political radicalism. He served as a point of contact for relations between many other significant figures, both Anglican and Dissenting, notably Francis Blackburne, William Frend, Christopher Wyvill, Joseph Priestley and Richard Price.

Born at Middlewich, Cheshire, on 20 June 1723 (Old Style), Lindsey was educated at the free grammar school, Leeds, and at St John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1744 and M.A. in 1748. He was a fellow of the college from 1747 to 1755. Through his mother's connections with the family of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and through his Cambridge acquaintances, he benefited from aristocratic patronage, serving as domestic chaplain to the Duke of Somerset and as tutor to the future Duke of Northumberland. Destined for a career in the Church, he was ordained deacon in 1746 and priest a year later. He was Rector of Kirby Whiske, Yorkshire, from 1753 to 1756, Vicar of Piddletown, Dorset, from 1756 to 1763 and Vicar of Catterick, Yorkshire, from 1763 to 1773. He was expected to achieve a high ecclesiastical position, possibly a bishopric, and would probably have done so but for his increasing unease over the doctrine of the Trinity. The Gentleman's Magazine in its obituary of Lindsey declared that `He might have risen to the first stations within the pale of the Church'. Immediately after his resignation of his Anglican orders he published An Apology … on resigning the Vicarage of Catterick, a work which stimulated critical replies and within a few months reached a third edition. In April 1774 he opened the first avowedly Unitarian chapel in Britain in temporary accommodation at Essex Street, London. Four years later a permanent chapel building was opened at this site. Lindsey served as its minister from 1774 to 1793, with the Revd John Disney as his colleague from 1783. On his retirement Disney succeeded him as minister and Lindsey continued to publish theological works until 1802. He died at his house in Essex Street on 3 November 1808.

About the Project

I am currently editing Lindsey's letters in two volumes for the Church of England Record Society (The Boydell Press). The first volume, which will include the letters from c.1748 to c.1784, is due for completion in 2004 and for publication in 2005. I am grateful to the British Academy for financial support for this project. Lindsey was a prolific correspondent. At least 650 of his letters are known to have survived and further discoveries are continually adding to this total. They cover the period from 1748 until his stroke in 1803, and even after the latter date his wife continued to write on his behalf. The correspondence forms a vital source for the subscription controversy of the 1770s, providing evidence of the state of latitudinarian opinion as well as first-hand accounts of debates in the House of Commons. After his resignation from the Church, moreover, Lindsey gave much material and intellectual support to fledgling Unitarian congregations in several parts of England and Scotland. His letters provide a detailed commentary on the major theological and political controversies of his day. As the author of nineteen separate works, some of which provoked critical replies, Lindsey was deeply involved in theological controversy. He was also a leading proponent of religious reform and his correspondence reveals the full extent of co-operation between Dissenters and Anglican latitudinarians over campaigns such as that for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1787-90). Lindsey was immersed in the politics of parliamentary reform and the opposition to the war against revolutionary France (1793-1801); he had much to say about the treason trials of the 1790s. The peers and Members of Parliament who attended his chapel gave him access to the inner circles of the Whig party led by Charles James Fox. Lindsey's letters offer some of the firmest evidence for the existence of a connection between religious and political critiques of the established order in church and state, and of the broader political implications of theological heterodoxy.

Lindsey has been the subject of considerable academic attention since the publication of the first biography of him, by his friend and fellow-Unitarian minister Thomas Belsham, under the title Memoirs of the late Reverend Theophilus Lindsey, in 1812. Further information about his career may be found in G.M. Ditchfield, Theophilus Lindsey. From Anglican to Unitarian (Dr Williams's Trust, 1998) and in two articles by the same author: `The subscription issue in British parliamentary politics, 1772-1779', Parliamentary History, vol. 7 (1988) and `Anti-trinitarianism and toleration in late eighteenth-century British politics: the Unitarian Petition of 1792', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 42 (1991). The historical importance of Lindsey and the body of opinion which he represented is evident in works such as J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1660-1832. Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime (2000) and Brian Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England (1998), as well as in the work of D.O. Thomas and Martin Fitzpatrick, whose editorship of Enlightenment and Dissent has stimulated further interest in the themes with which Lindsey was associated.

Some letters of Lindsey have been published, although not always in full and not always with complete accuracy. Thomas Belsham included many short quotations (often without the identification of the original manuscript) in his Memoirs of the … Reverend Theophilus Lindsey. Dr H. McLachlan's slim volume Letters of Theophilus Lindsey (Manchester, 1920) printed extracts from some of the letters of Lindsey which are now deposited at Dr Williams's Library and at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Other letters have appeared in Notes and Queries (1942), and in the volumes of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society and of Enlightenment and Dissent. Extracts from some of Joseph Priestley's letters to Lindsey feature in J.T. Rutt's Memoir of Priestley, which is prefixed to the collected edition of the latter's works (1831-32). The Unitarian Herald of 1862 printed extracts from 32 letters from Lindsey to William Alexander of Great Yarmouth, but without indicating the location of the original manuscripts.

However, most of Lindsey's letters remain unpublished and my edition has the objective of presenting all of them, unpublished and published either in whole or in part. My article `The Manuscripts of the Revd. Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808)', published in Archives. The Journal of the British Records Association, vol. XXII, no. 96 (April 1997), listed those of his letters of which I was then aware. Since that article was written, in August 1996, more of Lindsey's letters have come to light. It may be expected that further information, especially with relation to letters which are privately owned, will emerge. Two particular gaps in Lindsey's correspondence are his letters to his father-in-law Archdeacon Francis Blackburne (1705-87), Rector of Richmond (Yorkshire) and a prominent latitudinarian; and to Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), perhaps Lindsey's closest theological and personal associate. Letters from Blackburne and from Priestley to Lindsey survive in considerable numbers; Lindsey's letters to them remain (to date) undiscovered.

The vigilance of an editor always needs to be supplemented by the knowledge, experience and advice of others. I would be very grateful for any information as to the existence and whereabouts of any letters written by or to Theophilus Lindsey, whether those letters are unpublished, or published in whole or in part.

Contribute to the Project

The Correspondence of Theophilus Lindsey

To be published by the Church of England Record Society (The Boydell Press): Editor Professor G.M. Ditchfield.

Those reading this website are warmly encouraged to communicate to the address below any information concerning the whereabouts of Lindsey's letters; full acknowledgement will be given.

Prof. G M Ditchfield
The Theophilus Lindsey Project
School of History
University of Kent at Canterbury
Canterbury
Kent
CT2 7NX
United Kingdom