William Shrubsole (minister)
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William Shrubsole (1729–1797) was an English nonconformist minister and author.
Shrubsole was born at Sandwich, Kent, on 7 April 1729. In February 1743 he was apprenticed to George Cook, a shipwright at Sheerness, whose daughter he married in 1757. After reading a work of Isaac Ambrose, he grew religious, and in 1752 was asked to conduct the devotions of a small body which met at Sheerness on Sunday afternoons. In 1763 this congregation built a meeting-house, and Shrubsole frequently acted as their minister. About 1767 he undertook regular public preaching in Sheerness and other towns in Kent.[1]
In 1773 Shrubsole was appointed master-mastmaker[2] at Woolwich, but later in the year received promotion at Sheerness. In 1784 a new chapel was built for him at Sheerness, which was enlarged in 1787.[1]
In 1793 Shrubsole had a paralytic stroke.[1] Because of Shrubsole's infirmity, he and the Sheerness congregation agreed to appoint Charles Buck as his co-pastor. Shrubsole and Buck worked together harmoniously as "father and son".[3]
Shrubsole declined further promotion in the dockyard, on the ground that it might interfere with his preaching engagements. He died at Sheerness on 7 February 1797.[1] All the people in Sheerness experienced "a mighty movement of sorrow" when they learned of his death [4]
