On 26 October 1832 Jonathan Gibbons of the parish of Lutton, some twelve miles east of Spalding, wrote to John Kaye, bishop of Lincoln, describing how ‘A great proportion of the lower orders are now supporting a sect called ranters and attending their meetings as the only resource for religious instruction.’ The reasons for this, he argued, lay with ‘lax government and want of proper attention to services and duties’ in the Church, but in addition to these problems the Church of England also had the difficult task of extending its ministrations into the scattered communities of the newly drained and cultivated south Lincolnshire fenland. In Lutton the people were left ‘open to all the evils attendant upon unrestrained ignorance’ and the voluntary religious bodies, including the Primitive Methodists or Ranters, were often quicker to respond to their needs than the Established Church.