J. M. Cramp (1796–1881)

Baptist minister, author, and teacher.

John Mockett Cramp was the son of a Baptist minister and was baptized and received into his father’s church in September 1812. He was educated at Canterbury and then, for three years, at Stepney Theological Institute in London. On 7 May 1818 he was ordained minister and took charge of Dean Street Baptist Church, Southwark (now part of London); until 1844 he held pastorates in several parts of England. Cramp, however, was by inclination more the scholar than the pastor. His reading was both catholic and voluminous and was reflected in his writings. His first sermon was published in 1819 and he wrote extensively for most of the rest of his life – sermons, church history, biography, theological works, and hundreds of newspaper articles. From 1825 to 1828 he edited the Baptist Magazine and he became a partner in a publishing business, a venture that ended in financial disaster.

His growing reputation as a Baptist scholar led in 1844 to the offer of the presidency of the Canada Baptist College in Montreal, operated by the Canada Baptist Missionary Society.

He became pastor in 1842 of the Baptist church at Hastings, Sussex. He was chosen president of Acadia College, Nova Scotia, in 1851; and reappointed principal of the theological department in 1858, which he retained until 1860, when he was reappointed president. He retired in 1S69.