Richard Gilpin

Richard Gilpin M.D. (1625–1700) was an English nonconformist minister and physician, prominent in the northern region.

The second son of Isaac Gilpin of Strickland Ketel, in the parish of Kendal, Westmorland, and Ann, daughter of Ralph Tonstall of Coatham-Mundeville, County Durham, he was born at Strickland, and baptised at Kendal on 23 October 1625. He was educated at Edinburgh University, graduating M.A. on 30 July 1646, and studying first medicine, then divinity. Neither the date nor the manner of his ordination is known.

He began his ministry at Lambeth, continued it at the Savoy as assistant to John Wilkins, and then returning to the north preached at Durham. In 1650 William Morland had been sequestered from the rectory of Greystoke, Cumberland. For about two years the living had been held by one West, a popular preacher, who died of consumption. Gilpin succeeded him in 1652 or early in 1653. In the parish of Greystoke there were four chapels, which Gilpin supplied with preachers. His parish was organised on the congregational model, having an inner circle of communicants and a staff of deacons; the presbyterian system had not been adopted in Cumberland. In August 1653 Gilpin set on foot a voluntary association of the churches of Cumberland and Westmorland, on the lines of Richard Baxter's Worcestershire 'agreement' of that year, but giving to the associated clergy somewhat larger powers. The organisation worked smoothly and gained in adherents; the terms of agreement were printed in 1656; in 1658 Gilpin preached (19 May) before the associated ministers at Keswick. His chief trouble was with the Quakers, who abounded in his district; one of his relatives at Kendal had been for a short time a Quaker.

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