The village of Sturton-Le-Steeple, where the Pilgrims originated

The founder of the Pilgrims, who sailed to North America in the ship called the Mayflower, was born in the village of Sturton-Le-Steeple which is located in the English East Midlands, in the county of Nottinghamshire. The name of this notable and distinguished resident of the village was John Robinson and he was born in Sturton-Le-Steeple in the year 1576. Today you can still see the house in which he was believed to have been born. Known as the Pilgrim Pastor, John Robinson provided leadership to the church of the Pilgrim Fathers.

John Robinson left the village of Sturton-Le-Steeple in the year 1592 when he was sixteen years old, to pursue his education at Cambridge University. He did very well at university. He gained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the year 1597 when he was nineteen years old. John Robinson achieved the recognition of being granted the status of Fellow of Corpus Christi College in the year 1597 when he was twenty one years old, and he took Holy Orders at the same time. He went on to achieve the qualification of Master of Arts in the year 1599 when he was twenty three years old.

Having achieved his education, John Robinson returned to the village of Sturton-Le-Steeple, and in the year 1604 when he was twenty eight years old he married a young lady from Sturton-Le-Steeple called Bridget White. He and his new wife moved to Norwich to work as a clergyman, but this did not work out as he clashed with his Bishop, who was called John Jegon, who fired him as a minister of the Church of England. This was because John Robinson did not want to follow the Puritan party as he disagreed with their principles.

Following his conscience, John Robinson moved back to his home village of Sturton-Le-Steeple with his family. He had many supporters in and around the village who shared his view that the Church of England should not be too closely allied with the Puritan party. John Robinson started to build up a large following of other clergymen who had taken Holy Orders and who agreed with him. The established church started to get worried about this growing band of dissenters, and they took steps to crush the anti-establishment group.

John Robinson and his followers had to leave Sturton-Le-Steeple and their home villages and immigrate to Holland, which is where other dissenters had fled to in the past. The Pilgrims became established out of this group, with John Robinson as Pastor and his colleague John Carver as Deacon. John Carver was married to a young lady from the village of Sturton-Le-Steeple who was the sister of the wife of John Robinson. The Pilgrims had the idea of forming a colony in North America while they were in Holland.

There is a permanent memorial of John Robinson the Pilgrim Pastor in the church at Sturton-Le-Steeple. In the Church of St Peter and St Paul there is a picture of the Mayflower ship on the north wall of the nave of the church.

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