26th November 2020

The Local Story of the Pilgrim Fathers
a Zoom presentation by Adrian Gray

This was an excellent presentation delivered by an expert on this subject. Adrian Gray has written extensively on the local history of the East Midlands area his latest books being ‘Restless Souls Pilgrim Roots’ and ‘From Here We Changed the World’.

The focus of this talk was not the actual Mayflower voyage but the heritage of protestant religious radicalism in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire from where our Mayflower Pilgrims descended and which enabled and inspired their passion for religious freedom to worship outside of the boundaries of the Elizabethan religious settlement.

Adrian took the audience back to the time of Henry VIII, and particularly to the importance of Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the English Reformation who came from Nottinghamshire. This was already a radical area from the time of the Lollards, particularly around Boston. Cranmer maintained local East Midlands connections for life so that this local area had direct connections to radical church reform at the top. The dissolution of the monasteries in this area created a new breed of protestant land owner with vested interests in the new protestant status quo. These gentry would appoint local radical priests thus sustaining the growth of radical religious reform.

The talk expanded to involve many key East Midlands figures, connected by family, marriage and church patronage and all committed to the Protestant cause, many radical. The actual Mayflower voyage is really just a post script to this fascinating story.

There is a lot of detail explained in excellent slides in this talk, which certainly deserves to be given a second viewing. If anyone wants to see this presentation again, or for the first time, get in touch with our Chair, Pat Smedley, via the Contact Us page.

We will send it by email to you for your personal viewing.