Silas Told was born on the 3rd April 1711 in Bristol. He spent many years at sea in the slave trade. After he abandoned the slave trade he set up business in London, but after hearing John Wesley preach, he gave up his business and ‘gathered three score boys and six girls’ and taught them under Wesley’s guidance. After 7 years he decided that his work lay with the prisoners of Newgate, and for 30 years he travelled in the cart with the condemned prisoners on their way to Tyburn.
At some point during his career Told built up the Charity School at Stapleford Tawney, by his energy and good teaching.
He later wrote an account of his life, entitled ‘An Account of the Life and Dealings of God with Silas Todd – Late Preacher of the Gospel.’ This was published in 1807.
Below is an extract from the book that relates to his time in Stapleford Tawney.
Being now in a married state and desirous to lead a regular and observant life I habituated myself to the church service but finding the churchmen living as did other people and having no Christian friend to converse with I knew not what step to take and therefore readily concluded religion was a mere farce. At the same time being subject to the weight of many temporal distresses a fresh burthen came upon me yet it pleased God to point me out in a few months a school at Staplefoot Tauney near Passingford Bridge in the county of Essex erected by a lady Luther who spared no pains in its building and also bestowed many donations towards the support and maintenance thereof.
My whole salary amounted to fourteen pounds per annum ten pounds whereof was the neat salary from the school two pounds from lady Luther and the like sum from Mr Moot a wealthy farmer with as many day scholars as I could acquire for my own account. I soon raised a considerable school and sent to London for my wife and all my goods. The lady three days in the week invited me with the curate of the parish to dine with her and every other day if I thought proper to accompany the servants at their dinner in Knave's Hall as they termed it.
I now began to be much delighted with my situation and reserved no diligence to bring the children forward in their learning indeed the success I met with caused the school to be recommended throughout the country. Here the curate of the parish frequently called upon me and decoyed me to his lodgings about three miles from the school to join him in smoaking a pipe drinking a bowl of punch with the like carousals. I was also pressed upon to sing him a sea song and was generally detained so very late at night that I could scarcely find my way home but this life did not answer my desires and therefore as the curate and myself were going from Lady Luther's over the fields to my school I took upon myself to quote some passages of Scripture relating to our immoral proceedings. My guide or pretended one laughed heartily and said told are you so great a blockhead as to believe the Scripture it is nothing but a pack of false theology the whole of it.
This surprised me much and from that period I separated myself from his company and God in his providence disunited me from those dead and barren Christians by the following simple circumstance. The wood I had bespoke for firing not coming in as I expected I acquainted farmer Mills on the opposite side of the church yard who gave me leave to send my boys into his field where they might be able to collect a quantity sufficient for my use until the bespoken fire wood came in and seeing it was on the farmer's own ground I had no conceptions of any impropriety of conduct on my part yet this through the insinuative complaint of an old woman who ever before exprest the sincerest regard for myself and wife proved the cause of my removal out of the school and country.
Sir Edward Smith then lord of the manor sent for Lady Luther and desired to know what kind of a school master she had brought into the country and whether he ever taught his children their catechism. My lady informed me that Sir Edward greatly surprised her but she answered him that I bore the best of characters and had brought the children forward in their education in an extraordinary manner and that I taught the children their catechism every Thursday. Sir Edward then asked how I came to leave out the eighth commandment therefore insisted upon my dismission from the school and departure from the town immediately nor would he hear the circumstance face to face so that I was under the necessity of hiring a waggon to carry all my goods back to London and was then at a loss what method to pursue for the maintenance of my family but in a short time a clerk's place offered at King's Wharf Beaufort's Buildings to a dealer in coals and timber.
Told died in London in 1778 and is buried in the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.