St Augustine's Agricultural College, Maidstone - Spurgeon School (1848)

Charles H Spurgeon was at this Church of England School for a year.

From the age of ten he was at a school in Colchester and then he was put in his uncle's school, St Augustine's Agricultural College, in Maidstone for a year. Spurgeon had such a talent for mathematics that his uncle asked him to prepare a set of life tables for a London insurance company that were still in use in 1903. By now he could hold his own in theological debate with experienced Christians. An Anglican minister teaching at the school challenged Charles on the fact that his father and grandfather were wrong in believing children could be baptised because they failed to take into account faith and repentance. Charles was sure they were right, but said he would check the Bible. He came back and told the clergyman that he was correct, as he could not find it in the Bible, but he also disagreed with Anglicans who accepted sponsors for the children. This put the theology of Baptism firmly into his mind and soon would lead him to become a Baptist.