Nicholas Ferrar

1592–1637

Nicholas Ferrar was a complex man of many parts: an early investor in the Virginia Company, he rose to high office; then, on the threshold of a great public career, left Court and Parliament to found the Christian community of Little Gidding. His achievements, celebrated in his lifetime, raise more difficult questions today. 

Ferrar was a bright but sickly child, raised in a strict and pious family. He entered Clare aged just 13, and became a Fellow in 1610. Due to ill health, he left the damp and cold of Cambridge, and in 1619 joined his father and brothers at the Virginia Company. He evidently had a nose for business and rose through the ranks, becoming Company deputy in 1622. While the Company did not transport enslaved people, it did oversee the sale of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619. Ferrar himself was directly involved in the enforced conversion of Indigenous Americans to Anglicanism, as well as the often-violent imposition of colonial authority. 

After the Virginia Company lost its Charter (and Ferrar much of his fortune), he turned increasingly to religion. He purchased a manor in the Huntingdonshire village of Little Gidding and, after being ordained a deacon in 1626, worked to establish there a community of worship. He taught local children, encouraged regular sermons, and gave money for the relief of the poor. His family’s residence in the village revived the locality, and Ferrar remained at Little Gidding until his death.