Nonconformist Beginnings East Anglia and the East Midlands took to the Reformation and the new ideas of religion very easily; perhaps their proximity to the printing presses of The Hague and the rest of Northern Europe was a contributing factor. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the Puritan faction was well established in the

The official opening of the John Newton Center took place on 11 January 2003, attended by Elizabeth and Charles Knight representing the Museum. A full report of this event will appear in the next issue of the Bulletin. Tom Martin, one of the founders of the Center, has kindly provided the following account of the

Two years ago Nigel Pond introduced me to John Langlois, a senior elected member of the government in Guernsey, Channel Islands, and his wife Pat at the Cowper & Newton Museum’s Cowper Bicentenary Service. Now, a comparatively short time later, The John Newton Project is being established as a Christian charity under John’s chairmanship, with

People often ask me: ‘What does the title “Lord of the Manor” actually mean?’ Lordships of the Manor pre-date the Norman Conquest, and Olney was in the possession of Burgred, a powerful Saxon noble, prior to 1066. A Manor is defined as an area of land that formed a selfcontained unit granted by the king.

This paper was delivered in Leicester as an invited lecture at the annual conference of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 23 July 2002. It has been revised for publication. Thanks are due to the Hymn Society for their kind permission for the text to appear in this journal. On 13 October 1928,

Morley Unwin, the second son of Thomas and Martha, was baptised on 31 July 1704 at Saint Peter Cornhill, London. Thomas Unwin was a goldsmith. Morley’s parents were married as soon as Thomas completed his apprenticeship. Their firstborn son, another Thomas, is listed as being baptised in 1702 followed by Morley, four more sons and

This delightful engraving was something of a mystery to me until recently, when I stumbled upon its original source. I was familiar with elements of it, especially the three hares, which appear on a snuffbox in the museum, and the whole design, or parts of it, have been used from time to time to illustrate

Slaves bound by chains, the sounds of creaking ship masts, and the barter of human flesh all seem alien to our impressions of eighteenth-century Buckinghamshire. Yet Christians of Olney played an important role in the long campaign to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Though they sometimes made their most dramatic impact upon English laws and

‘How are anyone’s interests served if Privy Councillors can openly flout the Official Secrets Act? Why should anyone keep the law if ministers do not?’ I came across this in a recent editorial in one of the broadsheets in connection with Clare Short’s transgression of the normal rules of Cabinet confidentiality. It brought to mind