Baptist autographs in the john rylands library, Manchester, 1741-1907

Within the holdings of The University of Manchester's John Rylands Library is a remarkable collection of 337 letters to and from Baptist ministers and laypersons written between 1741 and 1907. Nearly half (165) can be found among the autograph collections of Thomas Raffles (1788-1863), Liverpool Congregationalist minister and educator, with another 103 letters belonging to the collections of the Methodist Archives. John Sutcliff (1752-1814), Baptist minister at Olney and an early leader within the Baptist Missionary Society, was the recipient of more than seventy of these letters. Among the correspondents are the leading Baptist and Congregationalist ministers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although largely unknown today, these letters provide important insights into British Baptist history between 1740 and 1900, establishing the John Rylands Library as a valuable resource for Baptist historians.