Author: Philip
Doddridge
Philip Doddgeridge was born in London on June 26, 1702.
His father was a merchant. His mother, who is considered to
have been the greater influence on him was the daughter of
the Rev. John Bauman, a Lutheran clergyman who had fled from
Prague to escape religious persecution. Before Philip could
read, his mother began to teach him the history of the Old
and New Testament from blue Dutch chimney-tiles. Philip Doddridge
declined offers which would have led him into the Anglican
ministry. Instead he chose to enter the liberal academy for
Nonconformists or Dissenters at Kibworth in Leicestershire.
In 1723 at a general meeting of Nonconformist ministers, Philip
Doddridge was chosen to lead the academy which was newly established
at Market Harborough. In the same year, he received an invitation
to be pastor to an independent congregation at Northampton,
which he also accepted. Throughout the 1730s and 1740s Philip
Dodderidge continued his academic and pastoral work. He stimulated
independent religious thinkers and writers. He wrote books
and hymns. His health, which had never been good, broke down
in 1751, and he sailed for Lisbon on September 30 of that
year; but the change proved irreversible, and he died there
on October 26, 1751, at age 49.
Philip Doddridge
1702 - 1751
