Abraham Booth (1734-1806) was born at Blackwell in Derbyshire. On reaching his 24th year, he married Elizabeth Bowmar, a farmers daughter, and soon afterwards opened a school at Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. The preaching of some Baptists drew him to a sense of religion and in 1755 he was baptised by immersion. In 1760 Booth became superintendent of the Kirby Woodhouse congregation. Up to this time he had been a convinced Arminian. But now he changed his views for the doctrines held by Particular Baptists. He composed his work The Reign of Grace (here in abridged form) in 1768. Soon after its appearance, the Particular Baptist Church in Little Prescot Street, London, invited Booth to be their pastor. He was ordained there in 1769. He died in January 1806, having been a pastor for some 35 years. During his pastorate, an academy was founded, which is now in Oxford, known as the Regents Park College for ministerial training.