In April 1793 he sought employment in London; he finally left Lymington in 1794 for Portsea, Hampshire.

Early in 1803 he was recognised as a minister, and settled as assistant to Robert Lovegrove at Wallingford, Berkshire.

He was chosen pastor of the Particular Baptist church, Eagle Street, Holborn in London, on 21 October 1804, and was ordained on 16 January 1805.

Other related biographies were those by William Carpenter, Cyrus Edmonds and Edwin Paxton Hood.

[3] Ralph Waldo Emerson's view of Milton matched quite closely what he read in Ivimey, as well as American patriotic comment of the time.

[4] In writing a lecture of 1835 on Milton, Emerson drew closely on Ivimey and the biography by Charles Symmons.

[5] Ivimey's Appendix of Animadversions on Samuel Johnson's view of Milton ended by calling him "the contracted Tory pensioner, dictionary compiler, high-church bigot, and semi-popish reviler".

[1] Ivimey married, first, on 7 July 1795, Sarah Bramble (died 1806), by whom he had two sons and four daughters: a son and daughter survived him; secondly, on 7 January 1808, Anne Price (died 2 January 1820), a widow (whose maiden name was Spence) with three children; by her he had no issue.