Dan Taylor was the founder of the New Connexion movement amongst the General Baptists. He was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1738. At 5 he was working beside his father in a coal mine and had no schooling until the age of 20, but in his teenage years had developed a taste for reading. By 15 he had joined the Methodists, and in September 1761 he preached for them for the first time at Hipperholme in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

In 1762 he ceased mining, and, in studying the case against infant baptism was persuaded towards the Baptists. He was baptised in the River Trent at Gamston, Nottinghamshire, by Joseph Jefferey on 16th February, 1763. He became a member of the Lincolnshire association and by the following autumn was ordained as a Baptist pastor at Wadsworth, Yorkshire.

In 1765 and 1767 he represented the Lincolnshire Association at the General Assembly in London, at a time when the antitrinitarian views of southern congregations were causing doctrinal differences. The Lincolnshire Association held a meeting in September 1769 at which it was decided to form the New Connexion and on 16th June, 1770, 16 churches gathered at the Meeting House of John Brittain, Church Lane, Whitechapel, London, for their first assembly. In 1891 the Connexion was dissolved when its congregations joined the Baptist Union. Taylor did not leave the association until 1803.

At Halifax, where he had preached since 1772, a church was formed in 1782. He became its pastor in 1783. In June 1785 he joined Brittain at Chapel Lane, Whitechapel, London, and on Brittain's death, in 1794, became the sole pastor. This is why he is described in the Derby records as a 'London' pastor.

He devoted much time to evangelising in the north and on 31st May, 1789, preached in the open air at Willow Row, Derby, the sermon that was to lead to the foundation of the General Baptist Chapel on Brook Street. He took as his text Luke 2:10 'Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy'. His younger son, James Taylor (1774-1845), became the first pastor at the Brook Street Chapel in 1799.

Whilst still a pastor at Chapel Lane he became the first theological tutor at the General Baptist Evangelical Academy at Mile End, London ­ a post he retained until 1813. He frequently presided over meetings of the 'three denominations' in London. He died in November 1816

Taylor was a short man of strong physique and great natural ability. By his first marriage he had 13 children, of whom a son and 4 daughters survived him. He was married 4 times.

Sources: 'Dictionary of National Biography' London, 1889; 'Records of the First General Baptist Church in Derby', S Taylor Hall, 1944; and in 'The History of Derby Free Churches', B.A.M. Alger, 1901.

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