John Fairfax (minister)

Fairfax dated his religious impressions from an incident which occurred in his eleventh year: ‘the (supposed) sudden death of his sister in the cradle.’ He was admitted at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1640.

From his fellowship he was ejected in 1650 or 1651, on refusing to take the engagement of 1649, promising fidelity to the Commonwealth, 'without a king or house of lords.’ He then obtained the rectory of Barking-cum-Needham, Suffolk, and held it until the 1662 Act of Uniformity.

The grand jury found a true bill against one of them (Simpson); others, including Fairfax, on 'a general suggestion' of the justices who had committed them, that they were persons dangerous to the public peace, were sent to prison by Raynsford until they should find sureties for their good behaviour.

After five months in Bury goal, they applied to the Court of Common Pleas for a writ of habeas corpus, which the judges were of opinion they could not grant, and advised a petition to the king.

He probably obtained his release at the following assize; and on the issue of the king's indulgence (15 March 1672) he took out a licence as a presbyterian teacher at the house of Margaret Rozer, Needham Market.

The independent section formed a separate congregation in 1686; on the issue of James II's 'declaration for liberty of conscience' next year (4 April), the Presbyterians under Fairfax hired a building for public worship in St. Nicholas parish.

Fairfax was succeeded at Needham by his grandnephew, John Meadows, who in his later years was assisted by Joseph Priestley; and at Ipswich by Wright, who died in November 1701, aged 42.

From his eldest son, Nathaniel (1661–1722), are descended the Kebles of Creeting, Suffolk,[2] who possessed an original painting of John Fairfax; a duplicate is in the possession of the Harwoods of Battisford, descended from his daughter Elizabeth (born 1668), who married Samuel Studd of Coddenham, Suffolk; his other children were Thomas (?)