Born in 1761, William Carey became a founding member and pioneer missionary of the Baptist Missionary Society.
Working as a shoemaker then pastor in Northamptonshire, Carey wrote and published a pamphlet in 1792, ‘An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens’, surveying the countries of the world and calling Christians to mission.
This led, on 2 October 1792, to the formation of the ‘Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Heathen’, later known as the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey, along with John Thomas, a doctor, volunteered to go to India as a missionary and arrived there in November 1793.
From this time until his death in India in 1834, Carey devoted himself to missionary work, Bible translation, campaigning against injustices and theological teaching. He has often been considered ‘the father of modern mission’.