The following article was sent in by Patrick Griggs and is taken from the handwritten copy. It seems appropriate to publish this article at this time as it is the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Wesley, who is associated with the foundation of Methodism.
John Blake was a Baker residing at the village of Great Bardfield in Essex, and having at the time my story begins [1793] a wife and five small children whom he was maintaining by dint of industry and great frugality in respectability and comfort. He is represented by those who knew him well as “Diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
The village had obtained an unenviable notoriety in the surrounding neighbourhood for the profligacy of its inhabitants and was known at a time not at all conspicuous for a high standard of public morality, as Wicked Bardfield.
The pious Baker viewed .....uncontrolled iniquity that wounded him, and desiring as far as his humble abilities would allow to raise the standard of the gospel in the village he invited some itinerant Methodist preachers to hold services in his Bake Office which was licensed for the purpose in conformity to the law.
There on Sabbath days was a little band collected to hear the words of life and seated round the Bake Office upon the binns, flour sacks or perchance on some more convenient resting place provided for the occasion. Some of the inhabitants of Wicked Bardfield listened for the first time to the invitation of mercy addressed to them by the self denying labourers who “went about doing good”, and hesitated not through evil report and cowardly maltreatment to Proclaim to sinners round.
What a dear Saviour they had found. These irregular proceedings at the Bake Office aroused the vie of the Parish Minister who considered the Methodists as poachers on his preserves and forthwith took measures to oblige the Baker to discontinue the services; he formed a Committee consisting of Two Shopkeepers, a Publican, A Farrier, who was also Churchwarden and two Farmers of the neighbourhood who entered on their work with businesslike precision and energy. The Committee in order to effect the ruin of the Baker advertised in the public newspaper for one of the same business to come and set up in opposition, and having obtained one, they supported him and a considerable expence. But the former Baker making confessedly good bread and they did not succeed according to their sanguine expectations. The Committee then attempted to engage the whole town and parish in combination not to trade with the baker. This scheme they devoutly hoped would completely starve the poor man and his family or compel him to renounce his judgement and conscience in matters of Religion. Accordingly a writing was drawn up by some persons and presented by the............. for approbation proposing at the same time that it should be copied and stamped paper the next day an signed by themselves ad many as they could prevail upon to join with them. In this nefarious Deed they covenanted for themselves and their families, not to buy anything of the poor man, under penalty of ten shillings for every offence committed by a Master tradesman or farmer and five shillings for every journeyman or labour.
It does not appear that the foregoing was ever completely carried out in effect but it was drawn up and they carried out its design as far as possible.
These means not succeeding a course of greater violence was pursued, a number of lewd fellows of the baser sort were instigated to attack the unoffending religionists and on Sunday 14th July 1793 the preachers on arriving at the Bake House at half past ten a.m. found a mob assembled round the door in a high state of excitement crying “We have a good church, you have no business here. The Gentlemen don’t like it.” One of the Preachers replied, “We don’t come here to oppose the Church. We only come to worship God according to our consciences”. This only provoked greater wrath and fiercer cries on the part of the Mob who were armed with Branches, Bludgeons and stone, and seemed determined to Murder the preachers, who on attempting to leave the house were seized by the rioters who threatened “to do for them” it was with great ........the house and bolted the Door. The Rioters remained all the afternoon and Evening and declared frequently with the most horrid imprecations that they would not leave the place till they got them out.
The Preachers finding they were in a dangerous position and no Magistrate being in the neighbourhood they forwarded a letter by two friends who managed to get clear off with it requesting assistance from Bocking. In the meantime the Mob surrounded the House pouring in through the windows in almost every direction showers of stones and some of them with such violence as to make deep indentations in the partitions opposite, The family who belonged to the House were in the greatest distress, the cries of five small children, frightened by the noise. The stones were so excessive that it was expected every moment that some of them would fall into.... The distress of the mother weeping floods of tears over her children is beyond all description. The compassionate father was driven to his wits end to contrive some method of relieving them. He could not take them into the chambers for fear of their being killed by the stones. At length he removed his children to the barn, putting the youngest in a crate of straw, and covered him up But even here the unmerciful savages disturbed them by knocking against the wall.
The mob sent frequent messages threatening to pull down or burn the house and at last a fire brand was brought for that purpose but at this crisis a Magistrates warrant arrived from Bocking directed to one of the Constables which after being delivered to him sorely against his Will, he dispersed the mob and ministers escaped under the protection of another Constable and reached the village of Weathersfield about Midnight, thanking God for their great Deliverance.
The nature and extent of this riot having made a great sensation in the neighbourhood it was determined to bring the offenders to justice and accordingly a ringleader named Cole and seventeen others were tried before the Honourable Mr Justice Lawrence at Chelmsford Assizes in the month of May 1794 and found guilty of rioting prosecutions were also established against three men and one woman for assaulting the preachers and other acts of violence and they were all found guilty and brought before the Court of Kings Bench for sentence. The judge (The Right Honourable L C Kenyon saying that the indictment should hang over their heads and that if they were ever guilty again of the like crime they would be indicted capitally and hanged. Lord Kenyon also informed the Bail that they were very much mistaken if they supposed they were authorized in encouraging these riots and that by the Toleration Act they were as much open to punishment who disturbed a congregation of Methodists or Dissenters as those who might disturb the Church of England. The recognizances were then taken in £200 each Defendant and their two...
Thus in the issue of these trials a great principle of Religion Liberty was successfully asserted John Blake lived many years a humble and consistent Nonconformist not fearing to be prosecuted for righteousness sake. Two of the five small children still survive surrounded by numerous descendants who delight to hear from their lips the history of the Persecution and Deliverance of John Blake the Baker of Great Bardfield.
L. Blake,
Great Yarmouth, October 1861.
[Note: Patrick can claim ancestry to John Blake through his maternal grandmother]