Born in 1702, Philip Doddridge was thought to be stillborn at birth. He was the twentieth child of Monica Doddridge, who has already lost 18 children in infancy. The midwife was just about to set the still baby aside when she noticed a slight flutter in his chest. She began to slap the infant in an effort to wake him to life, and, sure enough, soon the tiny baby gave out a large cry as if he had the lungs of a robust healthy child. Such was the nigh tragic birth of Philip Doddridge, son of oil merchant Daniel Doddridge, who, rather than walk in his father's footsteps, was to combine the professions and callings of both his grandfathers. John Doddridge was a well-to-do minister of the Established Church who found himself without a parish as a result of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. He subsequently became pastor of a Dissenting church in Twickenham where he gained a reputation for being "an ingenious man and a scholar; an acceptable preacher, and a very peaceable divine." John died in 1689, so did not live to see his illustrious grandson. Philip's maternal grandfather John Bauman was a Hussite Protestant of great academic ability and qualifications who had to flee from Bohemia in disguise, hunted by the Roman Catholic forces who had ejected Frederick the Protestant Elector. He eventually arrived in England via Germany, accompanied by his leather-bound Luther Bible, which became the treasured possession of his grandson. Bauman founded a grammar school at Kingston-upon-Thames and died in 1668, leaving behind his teenaged daughter Monica. The Doddridges provided a private tutor for Philip but the lessons he remembered best were those taught by his mother. The large fireplace in the sitting-room was framed with Delft tiles illustrating the history of the Bible. Monica would sit Philip on her knee and go through the Lord's dealings with His people tile by tile so that her son might grow up to understand the ways of God with man. Doddridge's book, "Rise and Progress of Religion," which was widely published and read in his day, was credited with having a strong spiritual impact on such men as Charles Spurgeon, Joseph Bates, and Wilbur Wilberforce.