Background
The tenth child of John and Elizabeth Vidler, he was born at Battle, Sussex, on 4 May 1758. As a boy he was kept from school by poor health, and was apprenticed to his father, a bricklayer.
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William Vidler
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He became a Baptist under the influence of Thomas Purdy, a Baptist minister at Rye. In May 1791 Vidler undertook to travel among Baptist churches to collect funds for building a chapel. He accepted a call to assist Elhanan Winchester at Parliament Court, Artillery Lane, London, and began his duties on 9 February 1794.
Later in the year Winchester returned to America, and Vidler was appointed his successor, still giving half his time to Battle, till November 1796.
He retained his ministry at Parliament Court till 1815, and was succeeded after a short interval by William Johnson Fox. Vidler"s stipend was small, and from 1796 to 1806 he tried to increase his income as a bookseller.
In conjunction with Teulon he began in January 1797 The Universalist"s Miscellany, a monthly periodical. This brought him into connection with Richard Wright, who converted him to his Unitarian views by 1802.
In January 1802 the title of his magazine was altered to The Universal Theological Magazine.
lieutenant was run in co-operation with Robert Aspland, and continued to the end of 1805, when Aspland bought it out, and began in January 1806 the Monthly Repository. Later in life Vidler did much outreach work with the Unitarian Fund (founded 1806). He died on 23 August 1816, and was buried on 28 August in the graveyard of the Unitarian chapel, Hackney.
