In the early seventeenth century, Clapham was just another small village outside London but from 1630 it became home to a group of radical Puritan merchants. Their influence was far reaching; they financed the Mayflower, ran the Navy, and helped start both the slave trade and the first missionary society to New England. After the Restoration, Clapham continued as a centre for Nonconformist merchants, so much so that it was described as a 'Whig Warren'. The First Clapham Saints explains why they chose Clapham and gives an absorbing picture of the village community, the relationships within it, and the part its inhabitants played in the major events of the time, the City of London, and the development of Nonconformism.