Robert Aspland

Robert Aspland (13 January 1782 – 30 December 1845) was an English Unitarian minister, editor and activist. To be distinguished from his son Robert Brook Aspland (1805-1869).

Life Aspland was the son of Robert Aspland and his second wife, Hannah Brook. He was born at Wicken, Cambridgeshire, 13 January 1782. He attended Soham Grammar School where his relative John Aspland taught. In 1794, he was placed first at Islington, then at Highgate, and in August 1795 was sent to Well Street, Hackney, under John Eyre, where he stayed till summer 1797.

In April 1797 Aspland was publicly baptised at the Baptist chapel in Devonshire Square, and awarded a Ward scholarship at the Bristol Academy by the Baptist ministry. He was placed under Joseph Hughes, then residing at Battersea with a small Baptist congregation. Staying only a few months, but long enough to give his tutor reasons for doubting his views on doctrine, Aspland went home to Wicken in the summer of 1798, becoming popular there as the boy-preacher, and reached Bristol on 31 July to find himself assigned to Dr. Ryland, the theological tutor. He proceeded in due course, October 1799, to Marischal College, Aberdeen; but, his opinions becoming more and more manifest, he was excised from membership at the chapel at Devonshire Square 29 October 1800, and he quit the university and relinquished his scholarship at the same moment.

Lay preacher and editor Aspland at this juncture was offered a share in a trade. He knew a prosperous dealer in artists' colours in St. Martin's Lane, London, whose daughter, Sara Middleton, he afterwards married; and taking a part in his future father-in-law's business in the week, he devoted his Sundays to preaching for any London preacher in want of sudden help. Amongst the pulpits thus opened to him was that of the General Baptists (otherwise Unitarians) in Worship Street, City; the pastor of this church, the Rev. John Evans, recommended him to the General Baptists at Newport, Isle of Wight, then unprovided with a minister; Aspland visited them 17 April 1801, and was requested to remain. His marriage followed in May; he became secretary to the South Unitarian Society in 1803; he published a sermon, entitled ‘Divine Judgments,’ in 1804; and he left Newport February 1805 to take charge of a larger congregation at Norton, Derbyshire. Passing through London on his way there, however, he was invited to be minister at the Gravel Pit chapel, Hackney; and going to Derbyshire to be honourably released from his engagement there, he returned to Hackney for 7 July 1805, taking possession on that day of a pulpit which he retained for forty years.

Aspland established, or aided in the establishment of, several Unitarian periodicals and societies. The first of these was the Monthly Repository. This contained biographical sketches, theological disquisitions, political criticism, etc. This Aspland edited, and he had the opening number ready for February 1806. In the same month he was instrumental in establishing the Unitarian Fund, with himself as secretary.