The small town of Wainfleet has a cemetery on its north side at Northolme which includes the site of what was once the manorial chapel of St Thomas, which until the Reformation belonged to Kyme Priory. This is a very significant early Baptist site linked to an important early Baptist, Thomas Grantham.
Thomas Grantham was probably born at Halton Holgate near Spilsby in 1633. He joined an Independent congregation who were persecuted but their reforms did not go far enough for Grantham on baptism – by 1651 there were but four people with him in believing that immersion was the Biblical method.
Grantham wanted to be baptised by immersion and in about 1653 this was done at Boston. By 1656 he was pastor of his own Baptist church at Northolme near Wainfleet; this congregation had been granted use of the old chapel that formerly belonged to Kyme Priory. This congregation became known as the South Marsh church which in 1695 had assemblies at Alford, Walmsgate and Croft.
Wainfleet had also hosted another future Baptist leader in Hanserd Knollys, who was ‘silenced’ as a Church of England minister there in 1636 – then arrested in nearby Boston; he was not, though, a Baptist at that stage.
This was a difficult time to be a Baptist and Grantham saw persecution over the next few years. In July 1660 Grantham signed a ‘Brief Confession or Declaration of Faith’ which was presented to Charles II. The early Baptists clearly felt their status with the restored monarchy was perilous, and in 1661 Grantham was again involved with the Lincolnshire Baptists in sending a ‘Second Humble Addresse’ to the king after the failed Venner Rising in London threatened to taint all nonconformists. However, Grantham was one of eight who next petitioned the king in a third address from Lincoln gaol. A 1661 publication, Sion’s Groans for the Distressed, listed William Reynolds as a persecuted Baptist in Lincolnshire.
Grantham was arrested again in Boston in 1662, soldiers entering Boston Baptist to arrest him, and spent 15 months in gaol. The passing of the Conventicle Act in 1664 did not help – he was arrested by some soldiers, abused, and spent six months in gaol in Louth. However, an attempt to sue him for £100 for baptising a man’s wife without permission failed.
In 1666 Grantham was elected a ‘messenger’ to travel around and support Baptist congregations which he did in Lincolnshire and Norfolk, where he was active in Norwich and Great Yarmouth. However, he could not prevent the continued split of the Baptists into groups such as the General, Particular and Seventh Day Baptists.
The Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 allowed the licensing of preachers although many Baptists rejected the inference that the preaching of the Lord’s Word required ‘authorising’ by a lesser authority. However, Grantham was registered. Thus, he could be called upon to defend the small congregation at Blyton, which was being harassed by Rev William Fort; Grantham had rather the better of the debate in September 1673.
In 1678 he published his magnum opus, Christianismus Primitivus, a title reflecting his desire to return to the principles of the ancient church. This is one of the main reasons for him being such an important early Baptist.
In 1691 Grantham was accused by John Willet, the rector of Tattershall (but called ‘a wandering priest’ by Hooke), of having been put in the pillory at Louth for sheep-stealing. Grantham fought back, and Willet confessed to lying at Norwich – ‘over and over with crying and on bended knees, and wringing of his hands….’ Willet was fined for false accusation – and as he couldn’t pay the fine, he was put in prison; Grantham paid the fine so he could be released. Grantham died in 1692, having made a significant contribution to holding together the General Baptists albeit with a conservative theology.
In fact Grantham was subjected to regular slander:
‘Some said he was a drunkard, some said he was a whoremonger, some said he was a Jesuit, and some said he was a thief and stole sheep and hurdles.’
The Northolme chapel has entirely vanished, though it has been claimed that its stonework was used to build a nearby cottage and that stones from it were regularly dug up by gravediggers. We do not know how long Baptists survived at Wainfleet, but one conversion was of John Watts, a Cambridge educated clergyman, who then became a Baptist pastor and held meetings at his house.