Destination
We’re taking you to Moulton, near Northampton, where you will walk the same streets as William Carey, shoe mender, school teacher, preacher, biologist, social campaigner, linguist and pioneer missionary.
This outing to Carey's chapel and cottage is part of The Carey Experience which includes several sites related to this amazing person (See website for more details). You can visit any of these sites and view them from outside, but for access please use the contact details below giving at least one week's notice. The Carey Experience will try to find somebody available to let you in.
Further Information
To visit any of the Carey Experience sites please contact: Margaret Williams
Telephone: +44 (0)1604 719187
Email: info@thecareyexperience.co.uk
Groups and coach parties are welcome, but pre-booking is essential.
Travel
By car: From M1 Junction 15, head east on the A45, then take the A43 northwards, through Weston Favell. The village of Moulton is to the west of the A43, look out for a turning sign posted to Moulton.
By bus
Catch a no 10 bus from Northampton bus station to Moulton.
This outing could be combined with a visit to Wicksteed Park, Sywell airfield or Brixworth Country Park.
William Carey
William Carey was born in 1761 in Piddington, a village between Northampton and Newport Pagnell, and spent much of his childhood in Paulerspury. He was very interested in Botany and wanted to become a gardener but had to give up because his skin was too sensitive to be in the open all day.
Instead he became apprenticed to a shoemaker in Hackleton. One of his fellow apprentices took him to the Baptist chapel. After a time of searching, he decided to follow Jesus and was baptized as a believer (in the River Nene at 6am in October!)
He fell in love with Dorothy, the daughter of one of the leaders of the church in Hackleton. She was five years older than he was and while he was very studious she never learned to read and write. They got married and eventually moved to Moulton, where William plied his trade as a shoemender and also set up a school for village children in his home. By now he was preaching regularly in churches in the surrounding district and the congregation of Moulton Baptist church invited him to be their pastor.
William became interested in the travels of Captain Cook and through this was challenged by Jesus's command to his disciples to go to all the world making disciples of all nations. He concluded that the church was simply not obeying Jesus’ instruction. In 1792 he wrote a book with the catchy title of An enquiry into the obligation of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen. In the same year he preached a sermon at the Baptist Assembly in Nottingham, challenging his hearers to "expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God".
Together with a friend, Andrew Fuller, the minister of a Baptist church in Kettering, William devised a plan to create a society for "the propagation of the gospel among the heathen". In October a meeting of Baptist ministers from the Midlands took place in Kettering, in the home of a widow called Martha Wallis. They decided to form a society and took a collection to start it off and raised £13/2s/6d.
The big question was, who would be the first person to go to spread the gospel among the heathen? Eventually William Carey said, "I'll go.” He set off, foor India, taking with him Dorothy and their ten children, along with Dorothy's sister.
Initially they had difficulty in finding a suitable place to live and work. One of their children became ill and died. Dorothy became mentally ill. But after a while they settled in a Danish colony called Serampore and other missionaries joined him to form a community there.
William's strategy was simple: to learn the language, translate the Bible into that language, teach people to read and let the Bible do its own work. William also indulged his passion for botany by studying the local flora and he translated some Indian literature into English. In the process he contributed much to the nation of India. It was seven long years before the first Indian person converted to follow Jesus Christ. The society William founded is now known as BMS World mission. In the years that followed other missionary societies were formed and the greatest ever expansion of the Christian church took place.