however, they did not achieve much growth compared to North America. Between the mid-17th century and 1910, Don A. Sanford lists between five and sixteen congregations that existed in the United Kingdom: three in London, one in Colchester and Braintree and others that existed from Norfolk to Dorsetshire and Gloucestershire. The UK currently has very few Seventh Day Baptist Churches, largely the result of missionary work at the Jamaica Seventh Day Baptist Conference. United States The first immigration to the British colonies in North America occurred for political, religious, economic and social reasons. The organization of the American colonies conferred more religious freedom than in the territory of the British Isles, which provided the development and solidification of different Protestant groups and churches. The first to be recognized as a Seventh Day Baptist in the Americas was Stephen Mumford and his wife Anne, who were from the Baptist Church of Tewkesbury and observed the Sabbath. The Mumfords emigrated to the American colonies in 1664, but little is known about their lives in England. After some adamant opposition by some Baptists to the Sabbath rest of the First Baptist Church of the Colony of Rhode Island (located in Newport), five Baptists who kept the Sabbath left the church, united with the Mumford couple and instituted on January 3, 1672, Newport, Rhode Island Seventh Day Baptist Church, which was the first Seventh Day Baptist church in the Americas. The services took place in a building in Green End (address) but it grew small with the growth of the church, land was then purchased on Barney Street and the new temple built in 1730. With this, Newport became a center in which they expanded to other American colonies. A few years later two other important churches were established in the early 18th century, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Piscataway, New Jersey. By 1776, there were a few hundred members and twelve churches established in the Americas, including two governors of the Colony Rhode Island: Richard Ward and Samuel Ward. Over time, the seventh day Baptists expanded, following the development of the colonies. The course of expanding the Seventh Day Baptist churches and increasing the territorial distance between them culminated in the organization of a General Conference. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the following century, annual meetings and assemblies were taking place between some churches to share unity and