Introduction

Biography

Darby got his mid­dle name from fa­mi­ly friend Lord Nel­son (Dar­by’s uncle, Hen­ry Dar­by, com­mand­ed the Bel­le­ro­phon in the Bat­tle of the Nile un­der Ad­mi­ral Nel­son).

Darby at­tend­ed Tri­ni­ty Col­lege in Dub­lin, Ire­land, gra­du­at­ing at age 19 as a Class­ics Me­dal­ist.

Trained for a ca­reer in law, Dar­by aban­doned his prac­tice af­ter on­ly a year. Af­ter a pe­ri­od of spir­it­ual search­ing, he was or­dained an Ang­li­can dea­con in 1825.

In 1826, he be­came a priest, as­signed to Coun­ty Wick­low, Ire­land. Af­ter a cou­ple of years serv­ing this rur­al dis­trict, Dar­by be­came dis­sa­tis­fied with the Church of Eng­land. Meet­ings with like mind­ed Ang­li­cans led to the for­ma­tion of the pray­er and Bi­ble stu­dy group which would come to be known as the Ply­mouth Breth­ren (from their meet­ings in Ply­mouth, Eng­land).

As the re­form move­ment grew, Dar­by found him­self tra­vel­ing far and wide to preach its be­lief in the apos­ta­sy of the or­gan­ized church and the in­fal­li­bi­li­ty of Scrip­ture: He made trips to Ger­ma­ny, France, Swit­zer­land, It­aly, the Ne­ther­lands, Am­eri­ca, Ca­na­da, the West In­dies and New Zea­land.

Works

Darby wrote some 53 vol­umes in his life­time. Today’s Fun­da­men­tal­ist church­es owe much to his doc­trines.

His works in­clude:

• A Few Hymns and Some Spir­it­ual Songs. Se­lect­ed 1856, for the Lit­tle Flock. Re­vised 1881, with George V. Wig­ram (Lon­don: G. Mor­rish, 1881)