Before entering the 20th century, we must now glance at the developments in Baptist history that had taken place elsewhere in England. Reference has already been made to the General Baptists of the New Connexion, formed in 1770 under the influence of the Methodist revival. The ‘Particular Baptists’ meanwhile had many churches, but it was not until the late 18th century that they also witnessed a resurgence of evangelistic zeal, as a result of the influence of Andrew Fuller (1754 - 1815) and others. The formation of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, whose first missionary, William Carey, went to India in 1793, was the most notable fruit of the renewal of Particular Baptist life. The influence of the B.M.S. led in turn to the formation in 1812-13 of the first Baptist Union amongst Particular Baptist Churches. In 1831-32, that Union was re-formed and from then on Particular Baptists and General Baptists of the New Connexion began to draw more closely together and finally in 1891 the latter amalgamated with the Baptist Union.⁸

The General Baptist Churches that had become virtually unitarian, including St. Thomas’s Street at Portsmouth and Eastgate, Chichester, did not of course join the ‘New Connexion’ and so did not become part of the Baptist Union. The ‘General Baptist Assembly’ became part of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, though retaining its entity, at least partly to continue to hold the Trusts of their chapels.

In each of the towns and villages – except Chichester – where these old General Baptist churches existed, trinitarian Baptist churches (by now usually without the prefixes ‘particular’ or ‘general’) had been established.

⁸The Baptist Union Directory, 1991-2 “Baptists in the United Kingdom.”