In 1865 C H Spurgeon (1834-1892) and two London ministerial friends, William Brock and William Landels (1823-1899), met in Brock's parlour, 24 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, in order to establish The London Baptist Association. The primary purpose of what Spurgeon later called “a holy union, which has been of more service to the ministers united in it than can be easily estimated” was sharing and promoting the gospel. They aimed to plant a new Baptist church every year in London and the home counties and in the first 11 years saw some 62 new churches founded.
Spurgeon's name continues to be familiar, at least in Baptist and Reformed circles, but those of Brock and the Arminian Landels are largely forgotten. Brock's name at least should be better known.
George M'Cree (1822-1892), one of two biographers (the other was Charles M Birrell 1811-1880) described him as
a tall broad-shouldered, massive man, with a large square head, an abundance of flaxen hair, a rather rugged face, capable, however, of becoming radiant with love and hope; … wide mouth and full lips … small hands … of bluff address and a farmer-look about him, redolent of life, full of humour, sympathetic, helpful, tender, noble, good; … devout, heroic, impulsive, true to his country, his friends, and his God …
He was one of the first to enunciate the view that “the Bible and The Times newspaper are the best materials for the preacher”. M'Cree quotes a journalist describing him as “a plain, unadorned Englishman” and “ a man of the people” who hated cant and delighted in plain speaking, “a Baptist, yet a true catholic”. M'Cree says, cryptically, that while he thought the Evangelical Alliance a fiasco, he was an evangelical alliance in and of himself. Fellow minister, William Barker (1824-1891) of Hastings, said “He was a man who felt he had power, and knew his own usefulness.”
We can divide Brock's life into four unequal parts – his early days growing up in Devon; his time as a watchmaker and then training for the ministry, mainly in the south east; his first pastorate in Norwich and, finally, his ministry as first pastor of Bloomsbury Chapel, London, followed by his death three years after retiring.
Early days growing up in Devon 1807-1827
Born February 14, 1807, at Honiton, Devon, Brock was the eldest of three surviving children. His father, a brazier and ironmonger, appears to have been of Protestant Dutch descent. His mother, Ann, of English Puritan stock, was the daughter of Benjamin Thomas Alsop (b 1821), pastor of Prescott Baptist church, Culmstock, about 12 miles from Tiverton. Both were strong Baptists, although his mother was not baptised until a time when her son was old enough to witness the event. The father became a Calvinist following a trip up to London. A Sunday School teacher and colporteur, he sold Christian literature from door to door. His own small library included a three volume edition of the commentary by Thomas Scott (1747-1821), which he loved to consult.
In 1811, when Brock was still very young, his father became an invalid and soon died, leaving the family dependent on the charity of others. As a dissenter, Brock's father was buried on the outskirts of the parish churchyard. The surviving family struggled to make ends meet.
Brock was educated first by a Mrs Patrick at a Dame School, then as a boarder in Culmstock. He was only seven years old when he went, by donkey, the 10 miles to his grandmother's home there. She had married Benjamin Thomas (1761-1835), her first husband's successor. Brock found him rather stern and not a great teacher. Shortly after he became a free scholar at Honiton Grammar School. This was a disaster. Almost nothing was taught but Latin and Greek and the regime was violent and mercilessly strict. Most of the seventy boys were much older than Brock and he was bullied for his lowly roots and dissenting religion.
At the age of 11, interest from a small legacy enabled him to attend the academy of William Cox Trenow (1773-1835) in Honiton for six happy months, and his desire for learning was rekindled. In 1819 he spent a blissful term under the guidance of Baptist minister Charles Sharp (1775-1851) at a place near Culmstock called Bradninch. Then the money ran out and his formal schooling ended.
In September 1820, aged 13, Brock began a seven year apprenticeship with a watchmaker ten miles south in the seaside town of Sidmouth. His mother was about to re-marry and he was glad to be leaving home. However, in his own words, his master was illiterate and profane, his wife ill-bred, ill-mannered and ill-disposed and his fellow apprentices ignorant, boisterous and debased. For years he had no room but slept on the landing of his master's house.
He attended Marsh Chapel, a Congregational church pastored by a Daniel Spencer Ward (d 1843) who later ministered in Newfoundland, Canada. Brock was helped not only by the preaching but also by a bed-ridden believer he used to visit. His master and fellow apprentices tried to dissuade him from attendance, dubbing him “Parson Brock” when he persisted. Despite his church attendance, Sunday School teaching and eager keeping up of personal devotions despite opposition, he had come to no personal convictions with regard to the gospel.
In a brief obituary for Brock, Spurgeon says that talking to him shortly before his death he enquired as to the truth of an amusing story he had heard from this period about John Angell James (1785-1859) of Birmingham, whose mother lived in Sidmouth. Brock confirmed its truth. Spurgeon wrote how James once remarked that
… the longest sermon he had ever preached was in a town in Devonshire, where he had held forth for more than two hours, but he added, “I never could make out how it was, for I had no intention of being so long; it seemed as if the time would not go, and yet, when I came to look at my watch, it had gone, and I had actually preached two hours.” Dr. Brock remarked [when they met many years later] that he could explain the riddle, for, being a lad at the time mentioned, and wishing to hear as much as possible of the good divine, he had taken a key with him, and sitting at the back of the clock had managed to stop it every now and then, and so decrease the speed of time, and lengthen the sermon. “Ah, William Brock,” said Mr. James “you were full of fun, then, and I fear it is not all gone out of you now. I dare say you would do the same again if you had the opportunity.” The company were not a little amused when William Brock replied most decidedly that he would do nothing of the kind; that the production of a long sermon was the act of his youth and inexperience, and that now with the key in his hand he would be far more likely to put on the hand and cut the sermon. We pay honour to the men concerned in the matter, but chief of all we ascribe glory to God.
Perhaps we can add here that Spurgeon and Brock became good friends. Brock preached when the Spurgeons' twin sons were baptised. Spurgeon noted how Brock “was above all things genial and warm-hearted”.
He looked like a man of war from his youth, but there was no war in his heart; his face and head of late used to remind us of a weather-beaten old bluff, but forth from that craggy rock were hurled no bolts of fiery wrath. Many who heard his bold, decided utterances may have supposed force to have been his characteristic, but we have not found it so; obstinacy was not in him, nor any preponderance of the sterner qualities; he was a companionable man, almost too fearful of offending, and ready at all times rather to side with you than against you.
He adds that once when they had a disagreement Brock said to him
Don’t you go home with the idea that I love you any the less. For the most part what you have said was quite right, and where you were too hard upon me I am sure you honestly said what you thought, so give me your hand.
The two shook hands with hearty affection, and “never once” says Spurgeon “did Mr Brock show the slightest sign of lessened love or esteem; on the contrary, from that hour we were far more intimate than we had ever been before.”
His time of training mainly in the south east, 1827-1833
After completing his apprenticeship, Brock moved to Hertford to work with a Mr Field. He came by stage to London where he was met by a cousin, Jerom Murch (1807-1895) eventually Mayor of Bath. He also made contact with his mother's sister, a widow who had married the pastor of the Baptist Church in Southwood Lane, Highgate, Edward Lewis. Highgate was then a village on London's outskirts, of course.
For the next two years, he worked daily from 6 am – 8 pm as a journeyman watchmaker. Again he attended an Independent Chapel. The pastor was Isaac Anthony (d 1848). He came to know a Mr Nicholas, a dealer in lace and other fine goods, who also pastored the Baptist cause six miles away in Collier's End, near Ware. Brock lodged with Nicholas who introduced him to the writings of the Puritans, Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) and other good writers. They loved to discuss theology and it was during this period that he came to faith for himself and began to preach, first in Colliers End then in Highgate.
In April, 1829, he was baptised by his uncle, at the Baptist Church in Highgate. He later wrote of “Mr Lewis accepting my profession of faith, burying me with Christ in baptism and raising me up again to newness of life”. In 1830, he joined this church and it was they who formally called him to the Christian ministry shortly after.
His desire to give himself to preaching growing, Brock applied to one of the leading Baptist colleges of the day, Stepney College. The principal at the time was Dr William Harris Murch (1784-1859), also born in Honiton and a friend of Brock's late father. Having endured the interview and trial sermon, alongside future BMS secretary, Charles James Middleditch (1808-1871), Brock was required to spend six months preparing himself under Norwich born Baptist minister William Hawkins (1790-1853) who was then at Derby. It is worth noting, in anticipation of later remarks, that Hawkins admired Joseph Kinghorn (1766-1832) but unlike him advocated open communion. Brock studied with Middleditch, James Griffiths (d 1831) the short-lived missionary to Jamaica, William Payne (1809-1875) later of Chesham and James Cubitt (1808-1863), father of the architect. Brock later wrote
... I left Derby more thankful than I was able to tell to Mr Hawkins as my tutor, my pastor and my friend. He had evinced great wisdom, great patience, great faithfulness, and great Christian love.
That summer he spent a month back in Devon with his mother, in Barnstaple where she was then living. Sadly, it was at this time that his only sister took ill and died.
Brock remained in Stepney until 1833. In 1832, following the death of their pastor Isaac Mann (1785-1831), Brock was student pastor at the influential Maze Pond Baptist Church, Southwark, on the old Kent Road.
His ministry in Norwich, 1833-1847
Soon Maze Pond and other churches were keen for Brock to become their minister and in 1833, his studies still incomplete, he accepted the call of St Mary's Baptist Church, Norwich, the church previously pastored for 40 years by Joseph Kinghorn. The refined Kinghorn and the big, shaggy Brock were a contrast. Early on, Brock overheard a woman in the congregation declaring that they now had a ploughman as their minister! C B Jewson (1909-1981) adds, on the other hand, that Brock was eloquent as Kinghorn never had been.
Kinghorn and Brock took different views on the communion question. Kinghorn not only taught the church to be strict in their views (only immersed believers should take communion) but had gone into print more than once on the strict communion side against Robert Hall Jr (1764-1831). Brock was part of a growing trend among Baptists of the time to open communion – communion for all believers, immersed or not. Brock was very open (!) about his views but agreed at first not to preach against strict communion. Inevitably, there was something of a struggle over the issue as he sought to bring the church over to what he felt was the right position. He even briefly resigned over the issue in 1838, only to be reappointed, a compromise position being established that involved separate communion services.
At first, Brock was unable to produce two sermons a Sunday and so relied on help from Stepney students on Sunday evenings. Having little experience of regular church life, he found church members meetings hard. Slowly, he began to adapt, however, and was a good student, willing to accept help from others.
In 1835, he became unwell with a pulmonary disease and was generously given indefinite leave by the church to recover. While convalescing in Devon he made a trip with a friend to Shortwood, Gloucestershire, where he met and was entranced by Mary Bliss (d. 1872) who he soon married. Mrs Brock was a quiet, godly woman who was a great help to him in his ministry.
It was in these early years that Brock began the habit of reading Baxter's Reformed Pastor once a year. He belonged to the Old Meeting book club, where ministers and others enjoyed one another's company and endeavoured to keep up with works in print.
Brock had a good relationship with his fellow ministers in Norwich, including the Congregationalists Dr John Alexander (1792-1868) and Andrew Reed (1817-1899) – not the better known hymn writer and philanthropist but the man who was, with Brock, joint editor of the theological magazine The Church Expositor. Brock became prominent among Norwich church leaders for his outspoken denunciations of bribery at elections, slavery, church rates (for which he nearly went to prison) and the corn laws.
He supported The Liberation Society, The Peace Society and The Baptist Missionary Society, often speaking for the BMS before and after the Norwich period. The Norwich church sent William Newbegin (1818-1850) out to Jamaica, then West Africa, where he died. Many remembered the address Brock gave to the Union Assembly in his final year, in Plymouth, giving the charge to four missionaries about to depart. Perhaps the best address he ever delivered, Spurgeon thought. M'Cree says “fathers will tell their sons of the Plymouth address … a luminous page of Christian history during many days to come”. For Spurgeon
It was grand, nay, sublime, he stood aloft upon that rostrum, and spake as a true father in Israel to the youthful heralds of the cross in words which in no case could they ever forget, but which now will sound in their ears like a voice from another world, and call them to valiant deeds, as if an angel spake. … It was an address so wise, so faithful, so full of the Spirit of God, that had he known that he should never meet his brethren again, it was such a valedictory as he might have chosen to deliver. To us it seemed all it should be, no more, no less. Characteristic, massive, ornate, rich in words too ponderous for our tongue, and in tones which would have suited none but himself; but withal homely, hearty, intense, overwhelming - as nearly perfect as can come of mortal man. It did our inmost soul good, mainly because of the soul within it ….
He was particularly interested in the work of The Anti-State Church Association and gave it his support. While a strong Nonconformist, he had several Anglican friends, including the Bishop of Norwich, Edward Stanley (1779-1849) father of Dean Stanley. He often dined with the bishop and one day was asked to give the history of his denomination, the Baptists. He went over to a table and picked up a book. He opened it and began to read from the Acts of the Apostles!
He wrote against the Tractarian movement but his wide sympathies extended beyond the evangelical world. He loved the novel Tom Brown's Schooldays and on reading the biography of the decidedly anti-evangelical Rugby headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold (1785-1842) he expressed himself as being in no doubt that Arnold was a believer.
It was while in Norwich that Brock became the friend of one of his members, entrepreneur, railway engineer and MP, Samuel Morton Peto (1809-1889). A friendship developed, unbroken when Brock led others in voting for John Humffreys Parry (1816-1880), the disestablishment candidate, instead of Peto, in 1847.
Numbers wise, Brock was successful in Norwich, with membership going from about 150 to about 400, with congregations of a thousand not being unusual. In 1839 it was necessary for the chapel to be enlarged. He moved the afternoon service to the evening, which was again well attended as he took various subjects, seeking to interest those otherwise less ready to accept Christian teaching. Perhaps unusually for the time, for these addresses he assumed no prior Bible knowledge. Birrell says “never on a single occasion did he fail to make them distinctly understand that his object was to leave them at the cross of Christ.”
His name was soon well known in Baptist circles and calls came from elsewhere. He declined invitations from influential churches in Broadmead, Bristol and Devonshire Square, London. He was also under consideration for the post of BMS secretary.
His years in London, 1848-1872
In 1847 an eye disease was diagnosed, and Brock temporarily moved to London for treatment. Eventually, he was advised to leave Norwich permanently for the sake of his health. At the same time his friend Peto, with whom Brock stayed, was building Bloomsbury Chapel and looking for a minister to fill it. The idea was to begin a new Baptist church on a main street. The name Baptist did not appear in the church's original name. Peto invited Brock to undertake the difficult task of building up this new church on open communion principles. Brock was very reluctant at first, writing a long letter full of reasons why he could not possibly accept. However, in December, 1848, he came and remained at the church for 20 years. His son commented that nothing but the merciless east winds could have driven him from Norwich.
The Baptist Encyclopedia says that
A crowded congregation was immediately gathered; conversions and accessions from various quarters continually augmented the membership; and the whole neighbourhood felt the influence of the new church, which poured forth help for all manner of benevolent and educational work. Bloomsbury chapel became the centre of a Christian evangelisation and philanthropy the like of which could not then be easily found in London.
All sorts of people came to the new chapel. M'Cree recalled
… an amusing story about a scientific man and popular author, who left a very celebrated minister for a seat in Bloomsbury Chapel. He brought a letter from Dr. H to Dr. Brock. "Before you open it, sir," said the author, "allow me to state that I am a man of science, and that I have much to do with beetles, butterflies, and spiders. Well, I get tired of them in six days, and on the seventh, the Sabbath, I don't want to hear anything about them. But our good, genial minister is also a man of science, and he will talk about scientific topics in the pulpit to illustrate the Word. Well, last night, the Sabbath, you know, he gave us a sermon full of spiders! I could not stand it any longer, so I went into the vestry, and said, 'Doctor, that sermon on spiders has finished me; give me a letter to Dr. Brock.'" "So," said the pastor, laughing, "he came to us because he knew I didn't preach about spiders."
In July, 1849, the church was constituted with 52 members. Until that time communion was held at Brock's home.
Brock was an energetic preacher and organiser. He spoke later of the object of the work being “the service of the generation”. He presided over the various agencies of the church, including a mission work to the notorious St Giles-in-the-Fields area near the chapel. He loved to be involved in preaching to young men and also instituted the popular midsummer morning sermons for young men and women (collected and published 1872). These early morning sermons were originally only for young men but from 1856 men and maidens were welcome.
Unusually for the time, it was Brock's practice to greet his congregation with a handshake following the afternoon communion (a weekly event alternating morning and evening). When it became a large church he would alternate, greeting those on one side one month, those on the other the next. Having an excellent memory for names and faces helped. It was a very popular gesture.
Services were at 11 am and 7 pm with a Monday night prayer meeting and a midweek message Thursday mornings. There were also all sorts of other meetings of an educational and social nature.
Brock lectured widely in London. In 1859 he delivered a sermon in the three thousand seater Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, when the movement for theatre preaching was still very young. Although a member of the Peace Society, Brock published a hastily assembled memoir of the life of the Baptist general and national hero Sir Henry Havelock (1795-1857) in the year of his death. This work had an enormous circulation. Brock endured some bitter criticism from within and without the denomination for his portrayal of the ‘Christian soldier’.
M'Cree, sympathetic himself to the temperance movement, as was Brock's son, tells us that Brock, like Spurgeon, was slow to identify with it. On the other hand, unlike Spurgeon, he had no time for smoking and stood out firmly against the filthy habit.
In 1854, a portrait was painted. The anonymous work hangs in Regents Park College, Oxford. In 1859 Harvard College conferred on him an honorary DD, a title he only began to use later at the church's insistence.
As noted, in 1865 he was a founder member of the London Baptist Association, being elected its first president. In the following year he visited the United States for 14 weeks, where he gave lectures. On his return he entered into the ritualist controversy. In 1869 he was elected President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
Family
The Brocks had two sons and two daughters. All four came to faith. He once said that no family was “as happy as ours at Gower Street”. He thought it was religion that made it so. His elder son, also William Brock (1836–1919) recalled him as the most genial person a boy could wish for. Brock Junior became pastor of Heath Street, Hampstead. His father believed all ministers should have experience in a secular calling before training for the ministry. That is what happened with his son who went to London University and worked in commerce before studying in Edinburgh for the ministry. It was also the case with F B Meyer (1847-1929), whose early years were spent under Brock's ministry in the 1850s. Ian Randall (BQ) has written of Brock as a boyhood 'model' for Meyer, who felt called to the ministry when only 16.
Brock wrote to his elder son at one point
How well I understand your difficulties about election. I knew them at your age - I have known them ever since - I know them now. But there they are; and if you give up all belief in election there will be other difficulties of equal intricacy and force.
Writer
Brock authored several books and published many sermons and lectures. None of his output appears to be in print today. First was The unity of the Spirit (1836). The best known of some more than 20 items are: Sacramental Religion Subversive of Vital Christianity (1850); Three Sermons about the Sabbath (1853); The Wrong and the Right Place of Christian Baptism (1866). He also published six lectures given to the YMCA at various times including The common origin of the human race (1849) The Apostle Paul (1850) Daniel a model for young men (1851) Young men of the age (1853) Mercantile morality (1856).
Besides his biography of Havelock he contributed a piece on Bunyan for a new edition of his Works. He also contributed to various magazines including The altar of the household. His final book, following the Reform Act of 1867, was The Christian Citizen's Duty in the Forthcoming Election (1868). The 1868 election saw the Liberal W E Gladstone (1809-1898) returned for the first of four times, replacing Disraeli and his Tory government. How much direct influence Brock's little book had we do not know.
Abolitionist
On the subject of slavery, from August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system finally abolished in 1838. Throughout those years Brock worked tirelessly on behalf of slaves in the West Indies. He met and corresponded with Baptist missionary to Jamaica, William Knibb (1803-1845).
From the1840s through to the 1860s there are frequent references to his name in accounts of meetings held in support of the abolition of slavery in the USA. He often pressed for abolition in The Patriot a Nonconformist newspaper published by Josiah Conder (1789-1855). He appears in a painting of delegates at the world's first international anti-slavery convention in London in 1840. By B R Haydon (1786-1846) the painting now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
When Baptist preachers from the Southern USA visited London, Brock refused to allow them into his pulpit because of their implicit involvement in the whole slavery business.
Final years
In September 1872 he resigned from Bloomsbury. In his farewell sermon he said, interestingly, he had “never done a great thing.” “I may say that I have never tried … I have just done the things that were to be done as they came to hand from day to day.”
Brock's wife sadly died a few days before this farewell sermon. One of his daughters had died in childbirth in January of the same year. After three years spent in active retirement, living near his son in Hampstead in the summer and on the south coast in the winter, he died from an attack of bronchitis. He entered the Lord's immediate presence at St Leonards, Sussex, 13 November, 1875. He had preached his last sermon shortly before in the Isle of Wight. He was buried in Abney Park cemetery, Stoke Newington. Spurgeon noted that “… our denomination has lost a leader, and the church of God at large a zealous worker.”
They had last met at the Devonport home of the son of Baptist pastor Thomas Horton (1797-1877). They were there for the BU meetings in Plymouth. Spurgeon counted it a joy to listen to the two older men reminisce on how the Lord had led them
… Both viewed matters around them in the clear light of faith, and expressed themselves with cheerfulness, thankfulness, and hope. … The loving words with which they endeavoured to cheer on their younger brother, and the gratitude to God which they expressed for his past usefulness, were wonderfully hearty and fervent, and such as bring tears to our eyes as we think of them.
On Brock, Spurgeon said further
… He enjoyed the loving respect of all the London pastors, and consequently his word was with power. We shall miss his towering stature from among us, there will be a great gap in our ranks, and it will tax the energies of all of us completely to fill it. … May the Lord multiply in his church the number of such men as thou wast in thy day: so shall his hosts be led forth to victory, and his flocks be fed with discretion.
This paper was given at the Evangelical Library
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