Sidrach Simpson was an English Independent minister, one of the leaders of the Independent faction in the Westminster Assembly

Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...

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Life

Sidrach Simpson came from Lincolnshire. He was educated as a sizar

Sizar

At Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar is a student who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in return for doing a defined job....

 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

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After losing his Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 status under William Laud

William Laud

William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...

, he spent time as a minister in the Netherlands. In the Westminster Assembly

Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...

 he was one of the five Independents putting their names to the Apologeticall Narration of 1644, thus becoming identified as the Five Dissenting Brethren. The others in the group were William Bridge

William Bridge

William Bridge was a leading English Independent minister, preacher, and religious and political writer.-Life:A native of Cambridgeshire, the Rev. William Bridge was probably born in or around the year 1600. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, receiving an M.A...

, Jeremiah Burroughs

Jeremiah Burroughs

Jeremiah Burroughs was an English Congregationalist and a well-known Puritan preacher.-Biography:...

, Thomas Goodwin

Thomas Goodwin

Thomas Goodwin , known as 'the Elder', was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was imposed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1650...

 and Philip Nye

Philip Nye

Philip Nye was a leading English Independent theologian.-Life:He graduated with an M.A. from Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1622. He spent the years 1633 to 1640 in exile, in Holland.....

, all with a comparable Dutch background as ministers (Burroughs and Simpson both in Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

), and united in a form of Congregationalism

Congregationalist polity

Congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of church governance in which every local church congregation is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous"...

 He was also in the group of ten, dominated by Independents, condemning in 1652 the Racovian Catechism

Racovian Catechism

The Racovian Catechism is a nontrinitarian statement of faith from the 16th century. The title Racovian comes from the publishers, the Polish Brethren, who had founded a sizeable town in Raków, Kielce County, where the Racovian Academy and printing press was founded by Jakub Sienieński in...

, with Nye and Bridge, six further Independents,John Dury

John Dury

John Dury was a Scottish Calvinist minister and a significant intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this...

, and Adoniram Byfield

Adoniram Byfield

Adoniram Byfield or Bifield was an English clergyman, one of the scribes to the Westminster Assembly. The surviving minutes of the Assembly, which according to a project to have them published "arguably constitute the most important unpublished religious text of seventeenth-century Britain", run...

.

He became Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge in 1650, but was drifting in his last years to the outer extremes in his positions. He was preoccupied by his concurrent post as rector in London, at St Mary Abchurch

St Mary Abchurch

St Mary Abchurch is a Church of England church on Cannon Street in the City of London. Dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is first mentioned in 1198-99.-History:The church dates back to the twelfth century...

, and then from 1653 at St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange

St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange

St. Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange was a church in the City of London located on Bartholomew Lane, off Threadneedle Street. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, then rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. The rebuilt church was demolished in...

. Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

had him imprisoned for aggressive preaching.