davejonescue
Puritan Board Freshman
Here I was ready to start making the volumes to the Puritan & Non-Conformist Index. Spent the last 2 or 3 days alphabetizing and key-coding them, thinking to myself how it should be done in 3 or 4 months. But then I had to ask right? Google: "List of English Non-Conformists.." You know, just to make sure. Results: The Surman Index with 30,000 names (only some 17th century,) and the 4 Volume "The history and antiquities of dissenting churches and meeting houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark : including the lives of their ministers, from the rise of nonconformity to the present time : with an appendix on the origin, progress, and present state of Christianity in Britain." God: Here you go, this should keep you busy for a while.....next time dont be so quick to entitle your work "A Complete." But his grace has brought me thus far, and so I tread on. Please pray for me.
The good thing about the Surman Index, is it looks like it covers a vast array of resources dealing with Non-Conformity, so I dont need to look around (unless a list can be found for Baptist Non-Conformity) the only work it says it regrets really covering, is the "antiquities of dissenting churches" which it said was not available digitally when this index was created.
The great strength of the index is Surman’s exhaustive searching of printed denominational sources (see List of Abbreviations). He noted changes in annual listings as well as abstracting details from obituaries published in the Congregational Year Books (1846-1972) and denominational periodicals, such as the Evangelical Magazine, the London Christian Instructor or Congregational Magazine, and the Christian Reformer, none of which is indexed comprehensively. He also searched denominational historical society journals, such as the Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society and the Unitarian Historical Society, as well as the many county histories of Congregationalism, such as Nightingale’s Lancashire Nonconformity, Browne’s Congregationalism in Norfolk and Suffolk, Miall’s Congregationalism in Yorkshire, Urwick’s Nonconformity in Cheshire and his later study of Hertfordshire, David’s Evangelical Nonconformity in Essex, Sibree’s Warwickshire, Coleman’s Northamptonshire, Densham and Ogle’s Dorset, and so on, many of them imperfectly indexed. A real strength of the index is the inclusion of data from the histories of individual congregations, many of them ephemeral. Surman included modern reference works such as the original Dictionary of National Biography, as well as more specialised works on religious dissent such as G. L. Turner’s Original Records, where he noted the references to ministers in the 1669 Conventicle Returns and the application for licences under Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence (1672), Alexander Gordon’s Freedom After Ejection (1917) with its biographical index, and A. G. Matthews’s indispensable Calamy Revised (1934; 1988) and Walker Revised (1948; 1988).
The good thing about the Surman Index, is it looks like it covers a vast array of resources dealing with Non-Conformity, so I dont need to look around (unless a list can be found for Baptist Non-Conformity) the only work it says it regrets really covering, is the "antiquities of dissenting churches" which it said was not available digitally when this index was created.
The great strength of the index is Surman’s exhaustive searching of printed denominational sources (see List of Abbreviations). He noted changes in annual listings as well as abstracting details from obituaries published in the Congregational Year Books (1846-1972) and denominational periodicals, such as the Evangelical Magazine, the London Christian Instructor or Congregational Magazine, and the Christian Reformer, none of which is indexed comprehensively. He also searched denominational historical society journals, such as the Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society and the Unitarian Historical Society, as well as the many county histories of Congregationalism, such as Nightingale’s Lancashire Nonconformity, Browne’s Congregationalism in Norfolk and Suffolk, Miall’s Congregationalism in Yorkshire, Urwick’s Nonconformity in Cheshire and his later study of Hertfordshire, David’s Evangelical Nonconformity in Essex, Sibree’s Warwickshire, Coleman’s Northamptonshire, Densham and Ogle’s Dorset, and so on, many of them imperfectly indexed. A real strength of the index is the inclusion of data from the histories of individual congregations, many of them ephemeral. Surman included modern reference works such as the original Dictionary of National Biography, as well as more specialised works on religious dissent such as G. L. Turner’s Original Records, where he noted the references to ministers in the 1669 Conventicle Returns and the application for licences under Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence (1672), Alexander Gordon’s Freedom After Ejection (1917) with its biographical index, and A. G. Matthews’s indispensable Calamy Revised (1934; 1988) and Walker Revised (1948; 1988).
Last edited:
