William Tong (minister)

For two years he acted as chaplain in Shropshire to Thomas Corbet of Stanwardine and Rowland Hunt of Boreatton, becoming acquainted with Philip Henry.

On the deaths (22 October 1689) of Obadiah Grew, and Jarvis Bryan[1] (27 December 1689), he was called to be co-pastor with Thomas Shewell (died 19 Jan. 1693) at the Great Meeting-house, Coventry.

On the death of Nathaniel Taylor (April 1702), after overtures had been made to Josiah Chorley and Matthew Henry, Tong was elected pastor of the presbyterian congregation in Salters' Hall Court, Cannon Street, London, John Newman (1677?–1741) being retained as his assistant.

Tong was soon elected to succeed John Howe as one of the four preachers of the ‘merchants' lecture’ on Tuesday mornings at Salters' Hall.

An undated letter of March or April 1718 by Thomas Secker mentions that on a proposal in the presbyterian fund to increase the grant to Hubert Stogdon, Tong ‘was silent for some time and then went out’.

On 25 August 1718 a conference of twenty-five presbyterian and independent ministers, with Benjamin Robinson as moderator, was held at Salters' Hall.

They endorsed a letter (drafted by Tong) to John Walrond (died 1755), minister of Ottery St Mary, Devon, affirming that they would not ordain any candidates unsound on the Trinity.