In this episode we speak to William Gibson and Annie Stephenson about the turbulent history of Taunton in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and how Taunton interacted with the political and religious changes of the period. We will be looking at how this history shapes religious writing in Taunton during this period, focusing particularly on material from William (Bill) Gibson’s book Religion and the Enlightenment, 1600-1800: Conflict and the Rise of Civic Humanism in Taunton (Peter Lang, 2007) and Annie Stephenson’s current PhD research on the Taunton Dissenting minister Joseph Alleine and his writings.
William (Bill) Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. He has written widely on religion in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and has written or edited several books in the field.
Annie Stephenson is a PhD student at the University of Exeter, working on the Taunton Dissenting minister Joseph Alleine and his practice of self-examination. She hosts a site on Joseph Alleine.