John Canne

John Canne (d. 1667?) was an English Independent minister and printer.

The London separatist congregation of John Hubbard, who had moved with them to Ireland around 1621, on Hubbard’s death came back to London and chose Canne as minister. After a year or two he went to Amsterdam, and there became the successor of Henry Ainsworth as pastor of the congregation of English independents there. Canne retained his position for seventeen years, preaching and writing, and working as a printer.

In 1640 Canne visited England, and the Broadmead congregation of baptists having been formed he was called upon to preach to them. He preached both in church and on the green, and debated with Mr. Fowler, the father of Edward Fowler. Canne returned to Amsterdam in the same year. It is supposed that Canne remained at Amsterdam until 1647. In 1650 he was at Kingston-upon-Hull, and acted as chaplain to the governor, Colonel Robert Overton, whose book, Man's Mortalitie, he had printed at Amsterdam in 1643. Canne was in favour with the soldiers as a preacher but he had a rival in John Shawe. Canne's friends obtained a grant for him from the council of state as his chaplain's salary. His stay in Hull was not long, but in 1653, when he published at London A Voice from the Temple to the Higher Powers, he denounced Shawe as 'a most corrupt man and hitherto countenanced by men as corrupt and rotten as himself.' Shawe himself had a low opinion of Canne, at this time credited with the possession of great influence with the council of state.

His daughter, whose name was Deliverance, was buried on 18 December 1656, and his wife, 'Agnees,' was buried on 20 January 1657, at the same place, Holy Trinity Church, Hull. He now appears to have adopted some of the principles of the fifth-monarchy men, a dangerous association, and in 1657 he published at London The Time of the End. Christopher Feake and John Rogers both supplied prefaces. These persons with others were denounced to the government as meeting in London at Mr. Daforme's house in Bartholomew Lane, near the Royal Exchange, and professing themselves ready for insurrection. This was only two months after the crushing of Thomas Venner's attempted rising in the interest of the fifth monarchy.

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