Where did the Baptists come from? Christian History has published an excellent synopsis. Below is an excerpt for your consideration . . .
The traceable historical roots of the Baptists as we know them today are to be found in the English church of the early 17th Century.
During the tumultuous 70-year period from the Act of Supremacy in 1534 and King Henry VIII’s separation from Roman Catholicism, to the Hampton Court Conference in England in 1604 when the hopes of the Puritans were thwarted by King James I, the English church was inescapably intertwined with the shifting affairs of the state and monarchy. Intense and often violent struggles ensued as the reform movement progressed. Fundamental questions related to the nature of the church, its doctrine, polity, practice and relationship to the state were tested and debated in the crucible of a rapidly changing society.
It was the English Baptists and the European Anabaptists that would put the church and its whole self understanding to the a more severe test than any other group as they embraced a collection of doctrines and principles that shattered the old world synthesis.
The Baptists originated among the Separatist movement. The Separatists themselves had come from the Puritans. The Puritans were loyal members of the established church and sought to advance the reform movement and “purify” the church from within.
The “Separatists” became impatient with the possibility of the established church ever being purified and called for a “separation” from the state church to form congregations that would pattern themselves after New Testament teaching and practice.
From the Separatists during the reign of James I would emerge the Pilgrim fathers who went to America, and the first Baptists. The two figures who can be identified as among the earliest Baptists are John Smyth (1570–1612) and Thomas Helwys (?–1616).