Several residents of Piddington and neighbouring village Hackleton were part of the dissenter church movement in the 18th century. The missionary William Carey lived in Hackleton, where he worked as an apprentice shoemaker, and later briefly in Piddington with his wife Dorothy Placket, before departing on his voyage with the Baptist Missionary Society to Bengal. The couple were married in St John the Baptist Church, Piddington in 1781. Initially Dorothy had refused to accompany William on his voyage, but with all decided and farewells written, the missionary party were denied a licence to travel on a vessel of the East India Company by the company directors. The opportunity then arose to travel in a Danish East Indiaman, and Dorothy was finally persuaded to leave Piddington and join her husband and son, Felix.