Nottinghamshire's Separatists

William Bradford

William Bradford was born in 1590 in the small farming community of Austerfield, Yorkshire. His father died when he was one year old. Orphaned from his parents and grandparents, from the age of seven William and his older sister Alice were raised by their uncle Robert Bradford.

William was a sickly boy and by the age of 12 had taken to reading the Bible intensely. As a teenager, he became involved with the ministry of Richard Clyfton and John Smyth, around which the Separatist churches of the region would eventually form. When he was about 18 years old, Bradford fled England with his mentor William Brewster and the Scrooby Congregation. Once in Leiden, he took up the trade of a serge weaver and he was able to recover some of the estate in England that had been left to him by his father.

By 1620, Bradford and his wife Dorothy joined the Mayflower venture. While the ship was anchored off Provincetown Harbor at the tip of Cape Cod, and with many of the Pilgrim men out exploring, Dorothy Bradford inexplicably fell overboard and drowned.

After the death of John Carver in April 1621, Bradford was elected Governor of the Plymouth colony. He was re-elected nearly every year after. As Governor, the head of the government of Plymouth, Bradford oversaw the courts, the colony's finances, correspondence with investors and other settlements. As he also formulated policy with regards to foreigners, Indians and the law, he had a very active role in the running of the Colony as a whole. Beginning in 1630, Bradford started writing a history of the Plymouth Colony, which is now published under the title Of Plymouth Plantation. A number of his letters, poems, conferences, and other writings have also survived.

On 8 May 1657 following a long illness, William Bradford told his friends and family that he was going to die. He died the next day, aged sixty-eight.

William Brewster

William Brewster was born around 1566, the son of William Brewster, the postmaster of Scrooby. He was educated in both Greek and Latin and attended Cambridge University, although he did not complete his degree.

Brewster entered the service of William Davison, then Secretary of State, during which time he first travelled to the Netherlands. After Davison's fall from grace, Brewster returned to Nottinghamshire and eventually took up his father's position. This included maintaining Scrooby Manor. Brewster was instrumental in establishing the small Separatist church with Richard Clyfton, and they often held meetings in the Manor House.

Fearing persecution and prosecution, Brewster and the others from Nottinghamshire fled the country in autumn 1607. They reached Amsterdam in spring 1608 and moved on to Leiden, Holland in 1609 where Brewster became the church's Elder.
In 1620 when the Pastor John Robinson decided to remain behind in Leiden, the small expeditionary group venturing out on the Mayflower wanted the next highest ranking church official, Elder Brewster, go with them. He took his wife Mary and two youngest children, Love and Wrestling, with him.

Brewster continued his work as Church Elder throughout his life at the Plymouth Colony. He died in 1644, aged almost eighty.

Richard Clyfton

Richard Clyfton was among the hundreds of dissenting clergy who refused to conform with new laws requiring strict obedience to the bishops. After his expulsion from his living at Babworth, he preached without license at Bawtry and became pastor to the Scrooby congregation.

Clyfton fled with them to Amsterdam but he was against the later move to Leiden. Instead he was ordained as Teacher of the Ancient Church in Amsterdam. He died in 1616, some say a disappointed man.

John Robinson

John Robinson was born at Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire and graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1595. He was elected a Fellow two years later, becoming Dean of his college in 1600.
 
But he was compelled to resign his fellowship after choosing to marry Bridget White, also of Sturton-le-Steeple, in 1604. Married men weren't allowed to hold that position and instead, the couple moved to Norwich. His first appointment was at a church where his outspoken sermons attracted the attention of the authorities. He was soon to be amongst the 100 clergy sacked for non-compliance of James I rules.

Robinson was converted to Separatism on hearing sermons at Cambridge by Puritan professors Lawrence Chaderton and Paul Baynes. A friend of the charismatic John Smyth, Robinson fled to Holland with the Scrooby congregation in 1608.

When they moved to Leiden, he was chosen Pastor. In 1620, when the "Mayflower" took the first settlers to New England, he stayed with the larger group still in Leiden, expecting to accompany them to New England later. Before that could happen, he died in Leiden in 1625. Several of his books and other writings have survived.

John Smyth

As the Separatist movement had gathered momentum, John Smyth became the Pastor of his own Gainsborough congregation.

For a while, William Brewster and a number of others from Scrooby travelled to worship at Gainsborough Old Hall. However, the difficult journey in bad weather may have added to decision to split this congregation into two churches – the smaller one being based at Brewster's Scrooby Manor.

Smyth was a brilliant preacher and an able scholar. However, he was apt to cause rifts with his ever increasing radical views, including his self baptism. After settling in Holland, Smyth was ex-communicated from his own church. He then left the church with some followers.

He died in 1612 from tuberculosis. Some of his remaining followers joined the Waterlander Mennonite Church. Others returned to London with Thomas Helwys to form the first Baptist Church in England.