The Church in Coventry before 1723

Queen's Road Baptist Church, Coventry claims a continuous history in the city that dates from 1643 - during the English Civil War. At that time, even though Coventry's two parish churches both had Puritan ministers, some of their members wanted a more biblical style of church - made up of born-again Christian believers, covenanted together. From this, there arose the issue of baptism for believers, and also the question of the way in which ministers were to be chosen and supported. Hence, a new "Baptized Church of Christ" arose.

At that time, Coventry was the largest and most radical town in the Midlands, and already had a different sort of Baptist congregation that dated back to 1626, but died out around 1760. The church histories mentioned at the end of this page mistakenly traced the origin of Queen's Road Baptist Church to that time.

During the persecution of Nonconformists in the 1660s when Charles II regained the throne, our church was not large. For years to come, it met in homes, often under the wing of Baptist churches elsewhere in the Midlands.