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.
[1] Because of Shrubsole's infirmity, he and the Sheerness congregation agreed to appoint Charles Buck as his co-pastor.
[3] Shrubsole declined further promotion in the dockyard, on the ground that it might interfere with his preaching engagements.
[1] All the people in Sheerness experienced "a mighty movement of sorrow" when they learned of his death [4] Shrubsole is known as the author of Christian Memoirs (Rochester, 1776), an allegorical work in the style of John Bunyan, and written, as he wrote, to divert his mind after being bitten by a mad dog in 1773.
He was one of the first secretaries of the London Missionary Society, and contributed hymns to publications from 1775 to 1813; but is not connected with William Shrubsole the composer.