9th September 2026

If spared and the Lord tarry, Merry and I will be in Littleover in Derby in a month’s time for a special Centenary. The Baptist church there (founded 1813) provided me with my first pastorate, as it has done for a number of other ministers over the years. Its claim to fame in our denominational history is that in 1926 it called the first ever college trained female minister, the Revd Violet Hedger. If there are still far too many of our churches resolutely opposed to women in ministry, think how much harder it would have been to be accepted in the 1920s! Violet was initially turned down by Spurgeon’s College, and even some of those who eventually trained her at Regent’s Park College – then still in London – weren’t always supportive of her.

I met Violet a couple of times at Baptist Assemblies, and once when she came to preach at Littleover in my early days. Somewhat irreverently, I thought her then ‘a lovely old girl’, but looking back I realise she would have been the same age I am now! The Littleover folk always referred to her as ‘Miss Hedger’, and she was held in great affection. A lifelong pacifist, her gentle warmth and open manner disguised the inner toughness she must have had to draw upon many times during her working life, not least when later seriously injured during a WW2 air raid while pastoring at Chatham.

BU General Secretary Lynn Green (yes, a woman!) will be leading next month’s centenary commemoration of the coming together of a remarkable lady and a church welcoming of her God-given gifts.

Ken Stewart