In grateful remembrance of Thomas Hurd. One of the foundation members of this church which was established in 1640 and in whose house the earliest Baptists in Warwick met secretly for worship and communion during the bitter persecution of nonconformists in the Stuart period. The church is indebted to his generous munificence for the gift of the freehold land on which this building stands and also for a perpetual endowment for the support of the ministry. He died in 1685 and is interred near this spot.
