Local author Adrian Gray launches new book: ‘Restless Souls, Pilgrim Roots’ at the Freedom & Tolerance Forum

Posted on by Bassetlaw Christian Heritage

A Thousand Years of Faith, Hope and Rebellion

Date: Saturday 7th March 2020 – 10am-1pm

Venue: The Well, Hospital Road, Retford, DN22 7BD – free event, all welcome

An epic history of the people who laid the foundations of the Christian faith in a Viking-ravaged land, then rebelled against what they saw as corruption of their Faith and Church. Adrian Gray’s latest book covers the two counties of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire showing how their peoples interconnected and spread ideas.

Running from the early 7th Century until 1660, Adrian Gray places great and intriguing figures in the context of their times and in an unfolding story of spiritual change, rebellion and sometimes death. Figures such as Saint Hugh of Lincoln, Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Church of England, George Fox from Mansfield who formed the Quakers, the Mayflower Pilgrims and the first leaders of the Baptist Church are included. A range of characters stretching from Guthlac, whose supernatural experiences in the Fens became the first English biography, to Elizabeth Hooton, the Nottinghamshire Quaker who travelled the world and escaped death many times are also there.

The story also has its fair share of ‘villains’ including corrupt and venal bishops, despotic leaders who sent those who disagreed with them to the stake or the gallows, on both sides of the Atlantic, and one of Elizabethan England’s most sinister torturers.

ADRIAN GRAY has an MA in History from Cambridge University and is the author of over twenty books. He is well-known as the historical adviser to Pilgrims & Prophets Christian Heritage Tours and Bassetlaw Christian Heritage, which promote interest in the Christian heritage of the two counties of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

Author Adrian Gray

Freedom and Tolerance is as important today as it was 400 years ago – in the anniversary year of the Mayflower Pilgrims, see what history can teach us about journeys, rebellion, and things we take for granted.

Speakers at the Freedom and Tolerance Forum this year include:

  • Lord Beith – Member of the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the size of the House. MP for Berwick upon Tweed, 1973-2015. Subject: Methodist Heritage and its significance today
  • Professor Elizabeth Tingle – Professor of Early Modern European History at De Montfort University, Leicester. She taught at the Universities of Plymouth and Northampton. Subject: Irish Catholic Refugees in Europe in the early 1600s
  • Rev’d Dr Stuart Jennings – Specialist in Nottinghamshire history, Warwick University. Subject: Faith and Fighting in Nottinghamshire during the Civil War
  • Mr John Pontifex – Head of Press & Information for Aid to the Church in Need (UK). Subject: Has Religious Freedom become an Orphaned Right?

This will be the fifth annual Tolerance Forum to be held in Retford. It provides a unique opportunity for the subject to be discussed in an open forum.

Retford leads the way!

Posted on by Bassetlaw Christian Heritage

Retford’s Annual Religious Tolerance Forum provides the key to support for the Mayflower Pilgrims Commemoration in the USA 

Dr David J. Appleby
Adrian Gray
Phil Lyons MBE
John Mann, MP

There is enthusiasm in the USA for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower Pilgrims’ arrival in North America in 1620, however there is concern about its impact on the First Nations people who were already there.

By focusing on the theme of religious freedom and tolerance and looking forward through heritage rather than backwards as history, this will provide an approach, based on shared values, which should be acceptable to everyone. The fact that Retford has established an annual event focused on this subject, based on the thinking of its local puritans, some of whom were Mayflower Pilgrims, is of major interest to partners in the USA.

At this year’s Religious Tolerance Forum, held on Saturday 10th March 2018 at the The Well in Retford, Bassetlaw MP John Mann, who had just returned from a visit to Boston (USA), was able to share this exciting information arising from his trip. John Mann MP is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Mayflower Pilgrims.

Also at the Religious Tolerance Forum, Adrian Gray, local historian and author of the book From Here We Changed The World, told the story of the roots of religious tolerance in Bassetlaw and Gainsborough. The Forum in Retford is an annual event, started in 2015 to commemorate the death of local puritan, Thomas Helwys, who was the author of the first document advocating religious freedom, not only between Christian denominations but also with Jews, Muslims and those without any faith. He also claimed that there should be no connection between state and religion, meaning each individual should be free to believe what they want.

Dr David Appleby, Lecturer in Early Modern British History at the University of Nottingham, focused on the subject of tolerance in the aftermath of the English Civil War, which proportionally had a greater casualty impact on the population than the First World War. He examined how the political environment was shaped and modified by the views and opinions of the people and how the leaders of the day responded, with the resulting persecutions and unlikely collaborations.

Phil Lyons MBE gave an extensive view of the National Holocaust Centre with its elements of the exhibition, The Journey, telling a refugee story from the perspective of a young boy, collections including 700 historical items, and The Forever Project which provides interactive survivor interviewing. Virtual reality applications are also being created enabling immersive experiences to be taken out to schools. This is currently the only museum of its type in the UK.

Rev Richard Warren interviewed representatives of Release International and Open Doors who seek to provide evidence of, and argue against, persecutions happening today around the world.

The event was completed by a video of an interview between Rick Brand, Chair of Bassetlaw Christian Heritage and Dr Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Next year’s event will be held on Saturday March 9th, 2019 – save the date!

What’s the background to this event?

The main Separatists and Mayflower Pilgrims came from the area around Retford, in Bassetlaw, North Nottinghamshire; Bradford from Austerfield, and Brewster from Scrooby. Although not travelling to North America on the Mayflower, Clifton, from Babworth, Turvin from Retford, Bernard from Worksop, Smith and Robinson from Sturton le Steeple along with Helwys from Broxtowe were all part of the local puritan movement.

Roger Williams (from Essex) married Mary Bernard, daughter of Richard Bernard of Worksop Priory, and together they travelled to North America, where they befriended the local tribes and learned their languages, ultimately setting up Rhode Island State as a beacon of religious tolerance, separation of state and religion, and rejection of slavery.