Rev Thomas Spencer – velvethummingbee

The solid and imposing structure of Canning Street Presbyterian Church was a feature of that corner of Canning Street and Bedford Street for about 120 years.

I’ve mentioned this church before and used its image as it appears in an aerial view of Liverpool painted from a hot air balloon by John R. Isaac in 1859 and published in New York. (This can be viewed on the Library of Congress site. You can also read the original post by clicking on this link – Seven Churches in Liverpool in 1859 viewed from the air). Below Canning Street Presbyterian Church can be seen in the centre of this section of the picture:

Detail from Liverpool, 1859, part of Birkenhead, the docks, and Cheshire coast Library of Congress

In fact of the seven churches mentioned in that post I have blogged about most of them at one time or another (Hope Street Unitarian Church, the Catholic Apostolic Church and Myrtle Street Baptist Church can all also be seen in this image) but recently I acquired a press photograph of Canning Street Presbyterian Church taken in 1931:

The picture is a bit dark but it shows the edifice built in 1846 and finally demolished in the 1960s. It was built by a denomination of exiled Scots, members of the Free Church of Scotland, which became the Presbyterian Church in England. Later this body united with the United Presbyterian Church (at a ceremony in Liverpool in 1876) to form the Presbyterian Church of England. In 1896 the minister, the Rev Simeon Ross Macphail observed that fifty years previously increasing numbers of Scottish emigrants to Liverpool were not inclined to join the local churches which called themselves Presbyterian but were by then Unitarian in theology. This would be true by the 1840s, although it was not the case a couple of generations before when Scots newly arrived in the city, perhaps influenced by the theological moderatism of the Church of Scotland, were often happy to make common cause with the dissenters.

Canning Street, in its prime location in the wealthiest part of the city flourished for decades until it followed the trend to move out of the by then less fashionable Georgian area of the city to the suburbs. In 1931 they sold up and built a new church in Allerton (now Allerton United Reformed Church). It was at this point that this photo was taken as it was sold to the German Church in Liverpool who moved their location from the very centre of town to Canning Street.

A German-speaking Lutheran congregation had existed in Liverpool since at least 1846. Meeting in various places over the years they had sufficient capital in 1871 to purchase what had been known as Newington Chapel. This had been founded originally as a break away from the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth. Unhappy with the appointment of an Arian (or Unitarian) minister in 1775, a group of Congregationalists built their own chapel on Renshaw Street. From 1811, with the appointment of Rev Thomas Spencer, this congregation grew rapidly and built Great George Street Chapel as a suitable base for his oratorical powers. Unfortunately, Thomas Spencer never took up his place in Great George Street Chapel, when he drowned in a swimming accident in the Mersey, but the congregation moved nevertheless and continued to flourish under the leadership of Rev Dr Thomas Raffles. In the best tradition of non-conformist awkwardness a small minority of the congregation refused to move and stayed in Newington Chapel, stayed, in fact, until 1871 when the German Evangelical/Lutheran Church was able to buy the meeting-house from them.

This congregation remained here until 1931 when the Cheshire Lines Railway Company purchased the site from them for £14,000. That was a good price and more than enough to buy Canning Street Church for just £4,000 in that year, the building being formally opened for Lutheran worship on 25th October 1931.

The site of the church today

Canning Street Church – Deutsche Kirche Liverpool

The German congregation has worshipped on that site ever since but in the 1960s they demolished the old church and replaced it with a rather plain building which doesn’t really catch the eye.

A view of the corner of Canning Street and Bedford Street today. The German Church is opposite the viewer, the site of the one-time Catholic Apostolic Church can be seen on the far left.

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Great George Street Chapel is one of the most impressive buildings in Liverpool although it may not be as appreciated as it ought to be. Of course, it is not called ‘Great George Street Chapel’ today and has not been so designated for more than half a century. After closure as a chapel it became an arts centre known originally as the Blackie (the building was then stained black by decades of industrial and domestic pollution) subsequently renamed in more recent times the Black-E. This has proved to be a long-lasting and effective institution which has ensured the survival of this building. It’s much altered on the inside but the exterior is much as it always has been.

It’s remarkably imposing and is now set off against the architectural additions that have been made to Liverpool’s Chinatown including the arch and the lions that line the street.

The congregation that built the chapel liked to claim descent from the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth. In the 1770s a new Independent Chapel was founded nearer the town centre, on Newington, including members who had left the Ancient Chapel because of the direction of the theology of its minister and leading members. Without being spectacular this church appears to have flourished for some decades until they called the Rev Thomas Spencer in February 1811. Then aged just 20 years old he had a resounding impact gathering a massive congregation of up to 2,000 hearers. His successor Thomas Raffles described his impact as in this way:

“The chapel soon became thronged to excess, and not alone the thoughtless and the gay, whom the charms of a persuasive eloquence and an engaging manner might attract, but pious and experienced Christians sat at his feet with deep attention and delight. There seemed to be, indeed, a shaking amongst the dry bones. A divine unction evidently attended his ministry, and such were the effects produced that every beholder with astonishment and admiration cried What hath God wrought?”

They needed a bigger church and so built anew on Great George Street in 1811.

A contemporary engraving of the church of 1840

But just four months after laying the foundation stone tragedy struck when Thomas Spencer drowned while swimming in the Mersey near the Herculaneum Potteries. But this did not deter the new church which soon called the formidable figure of Rev Thomas Raffles. In the best traditions of non-conformity not all the members of Newington left for the new church, a congregation stayed behind for decades to come but Thomas Raffles ministered at Great George Street for 49 years and when the new building burnt down in 1840 they built the striking edifice that remains to this day.

It cost £13,922 in 1840 and could seat 1,800 hearers. The architect was Joseph Franklin, the Corporation Surveyor, and the massive columns around the circular entrance are said to have come from a quarry in Park Road, Toxteth. Remembered also as a pioneering architect of railway buildings Joseph Franklin succeeded John Foster junior, the architect of Rodney Street Church of Scotland, as the Corporation Surveyor. As with that building this is a significant and impressive structure.

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Tag: Rev Thomas Spencer

Canning Street Presbyterian Church, Liverpool: Then and Now

Great George Street Chapel, Liverpool