Unitarian – velvethummingbee

Posted on February 7, 2024February 7, 2024 by David Steers

Rev John Johns (1801-1847)

John Johns, the first Minister to the Poor in Liverpool – the first minister of the Liverpool Domestic Mission – died more than half a century before Ullet Road Church was built. Yet his memorial can be found there. In fact it is one of many memorials. When Ullet Road Church was built in 1899, purpose-built cloisters were added to house the many memorials which had covered the walls of their former Chapel on Renshaw Street.

But John John’s memorial wasn’t added with those from Renshaw Street. His memorial originally was placed in the Domestic Mission, and it was only after it was demolished in the 1970s that it was it removed to Ullet Road and kept in store for some years before being fixed in one of the entrances to the church.

Portrait of John Johns aged 18, held in Ullet Road Church and taken from ‘Liverpool Unitarians’

Using some of the memorials, including that of the Rev John Hamilton Thom, one of the founders of the Domestic Mission, this video tells the story of John Johns and his work as the first ‘minister to the poor’: ‘a medium of kind and Christian connection’, as Joseph Tuckerman put it. In this case a connection between the wealthy congregation of Renshaw Street/Ullet Road and the growing numbers of poor living in the same city.

Click on the video below to see the story of Rev John Johns, first minister to the poor in Liverpool:

Rev John Johns (1801-1847). First minister to the poor in Liverpool

Posted on April 10, 2023April 7, 2023 by David Steers

Killyleagh and the Hincks family

Click on the video to follow the story

Killyleagh, county Down is a town remarkable for its history, much of this related to the Non-Subscribing tradition in Irish Presbyterianism. In this video we look at some of this history, including Sir Hans Sloane and local rector Rev Edward Hincks, Egyptologist and son of Rev Thomas Dix Hincks who is buried in the parsh graveyard.

Thomas Dix Hincks was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin and the dissenting academy of Hackney New College, London. He became minister of the Old Presbyterian Church, Princes Street, Cork in 1790 and the following year married Anne Boult. In Cork he kept a school and helped to establish the Royal Cork Institution. He later moved to Fermoy where he ran the Fermoy Academy before coming to Belfast as Professor of Oriental Languages at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution which was then also a training college for ministers as well as a school. A pioneering educationalist and teacher he published widely over the years, he was awarded the degree of LLD in 1834 by Glasgow University and was a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

He and his wife are buried in Killyleagh alongside their eldest son but together they established a significant Unitarian/Non-Subscribing dynasty which was influential in England, Ireland and Canada.

The grave of Thomas Dix Hincks and Anne Hincks in Killyleagh

They had seven children, two girls and five boys:

Hannah Hincks (d.c1873)

Anne Hincks (d.1877)

Rev Edward Hincks (1792-1866)

Rev William Hincks c.1793-1871

Rev Thomas Hincks (1796-1882)

Rev John Hincks (1804-1831)

Sir Francis Hincks (1807-1885)

Two of the brothers became ministers of Renshaw Street Chapel in Liverpool, amongst other things.

To hear the full story and hear more about Killyleagh click on the video at the top of the page.

Memorial window to Thomas Dix Hincks, Anne Hincks and Hannah Hincks in the First Presbyterian Church, Rosemary Street, Belfast.

A previous video explores something of the life of Rev Thoms Hincks (1818-1899) the son of Rev William Hincks (c.1793-1871). It can be seen here:

Posted on December 6, 2020December 5, 2020 by David Steers

Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society December 2020

An additional special issue of the Transactions is now on its way to subscribers (new subscribers are also very welcome, if you would like to join go to the Unitarian Historical Society website here).

This issue features:

WILLIAM HAZLITT, JOSEPH PRIESTLEY AND THE ORIGINS OF UNITARIANISM
IN AMERICA
by STEPHEN BURLEY

The “dark, cracked, dusty and unframed” portrait of the Rev William Hazlitt (1737-1820) painted by his son in 1805. (Image and quote from ‘The Day-Star of Liberty William Hazlitt’s Radical Style’ by Tom Paulin)

Rev Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). Portrait by Ellen Sharples (Source: Wikipedia)

Dr Stephen Burley’s paper is a radical reassessment of the role of William Hazlitt in the development of Unitarianism in the United States. A difficult man, Hazlitt was a fervent propagandist for Unitarianism whose contribution has frequently been overlooked or downplayed. This article adds a great deal to our understanding of him.

Rev William Hazlitt, from a miniature portrait by his son John (Source: Wikipedia)

‘STEADFAST THROUGH TROUBLES’: MOUNTPOTTINGER AND THE LAWRENCES
by SANDRA GILPIN

Ellen Mary Lawrence, from a portrait in Mountpottinger Church. (Photo: Adrian Moir)

Plaque in the schoolroom in Mountpottinger Church in memory of Ellen Mary Lawrence (Photo: Adrian Moir)

Sandra Gilpin tells a story that weaves together Unitarian life in London, Wales and Belfast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the lens of the Lawrence family. Its main focus is Ellen Mary Lawrence who was born in London and who married the Rev William Jenkin Davies. She died at a tragically young age and her memorial forms part of Mountpottinger NSP Church in east Belfast.

Mountpottinger Church before the extension was added in memory of Ellen Mary Lawrence and probably featuring Rev William Jenkin Davies standing in the centre. To read more about the building of Mountpottinger click on the above image.

HELEN K. WATTS – A UNITARIAN SUFFRAGETTE
by ALAN RUSTON

The daughter of an Anglican vicar, Helen K. Watts became a Unitarian in Nottingham (Picture: Alan Ruston. From a booklet by Rowena Edlin-White, Nottingham Women’s History Group, Piecemeal Pamphlets, £2)

Plaque unveiled in Nottingham on 14 December 2018 in memory of Helen K. Watts *(Picture: Alan Ruston. From a booklet by Rowena Edlin-White, Nottingham Women’s History Group, Piecemeal Pamphlets)*

Alan Ruston brings together two sides of the life of Helen K. Watts. A ‘stalwart’ Unitarian, well-known in London and Sussex up until her death in 1972. She was also an active suffragette between 1907 to 1911 who was arrested for her campaigning and threatened with force feeding. This remarkable aspect of her life seems to have been forgotten in Unitarian circles and Alan paints a full picture of her life and achievements.

*(Picture: Alan Ruston. From a booklet by Rowena Edlin-White, Nottingham Women’s History Group, Piecemeal Pamphlets)*

In our Record Section Derek McAuley has used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover hitherto unknown aspects of the life of the Rev Gábor Kereki (1914-1995) who fled Hungary for Britain at the start of the Cold War in 1947. Throughout the rest of his life he made a great contribution to the Unitarian ministry in Britain and this will continue thanks to a substantial legacy left by his wife in 2016. She has established the ‘Gábor Kereki Trust’ to benefit ministers and students of the Hungarian Unitarian Church and enable them to study in the UK.

In our Reviews Derek McAuley begins what must be a long-overdue examination of the role Unitarians played in slavery prior to its abolition in 1833 with his review of Kate Donnington’s brand new book on the Hibbert family. Alan Ruston reviews the important Lindsey Press book Unitarian Women A Legacy of Dissent, edited by Ann Peart, and Andrew Hill reviews a new publication of the diaries of James Losh, a Newcastle Unitarian who observed and recorded detailed changes in nature, the environment and weather in his local area between 1803 and 1833.

Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society

Volume 27 Number 3 December 2020
Edited by David Steers

is now available. An annual subscription costs £10. Contact the treasurer via our website to join: https://www.unitarianhistory.org.uk/hsmembership4.html

Posted on October 3, 2019October 3, 2019 by David Steers · 2 Comments

James Martineau’s carte de visite

I have a small but growing and (to me at least) very interesting collection of cartes de visite of Victorian clergymen. I have only written about one of these so far – Hugh Stowell Brown’s carte de visite – you can click on the link to read about it. That particular very rare, possibly unique, card, was reproduced (with my permission) in Wayne Clarke’s excellent new biography A Ready Man, Hugh Stowell Brown, preacher, activist, friend of the poor. It is a very characterful and impressive image.

James Martineau

This image of James Martineau is also very characterful, although I suspect is not quite as direct a link with the great philosopher, theologian and Unitarian minister as H.S. Brown’s carte de visite was with him. A carte de visite was essentially a calling card although they became highly collectable in their day. This image of James Martineau was published by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company which specialised, as their name suggests, in stereoscopic views. Founded in London 1854 it sold stereo views and viewing equipment at the height of popular interest in 3D views of the world, as well as providing all manner of photographic and allied equipment. In the 1860s they diversified into the new craze for cartes de visite and were very successful in meeting the considerable market demand for them.

Reverse of the James Martineau carte de visite

This image of James Martineau dates from about 1873 or 1874. Born in Norwich in 1805, by this time Martineau was principal of Manchester New College, then located in Gordon Square, London. He was already a figure of some significance nationally although his fame was to increase as he got older. However, I don’t think this card would ever have been used by James Martineau, I suspect it would have been sold by the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company as a collectable celebrity image. James Martineau’s own carte de visite was published by market leaders Elliot & Fry. He seems to have had at least two cards made by them: one in the 1860s and another about a decade later in the 1870s. Examples of both of these cards are held by the National Portrait Gallery in London, amongst the dozen portraits they hold of Martineau to this day:

This picture: James Martineau by Elliott & Fry, albumen carte-de-visite, 1870s NPG x197538, © National Portrait Gallery, London (Creative Commons license)

The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company portrait resembles very closely the picture in the National Portrait Gallery. However, the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company picture is taken from a different angle and gives a different profile.

At first glance it seems certain that both pictures were taken at the same sitting. Perhaps Elliot & Fry sold some of the images they took to the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company? In both pictures Martineau is wearing an identical suit and an identically positioned watch chain. In fact everything looks the same except the button on his jacket is in a different position. But there does appear to be another subtle difference – close inspection of Martineau’s tie suggests that they are not the same piece of clothing at all. The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company photograph dates from after 1873 (when the company won the Prize Medal for Portraiture at the Vienna Exhibition as the reverse of the card shows) and before 1875 (when they won a subsequent prize medal which they added to the reverse of their cards). Martineau’s appearance on both pictures is so similar that it is impossible to imagine that they were not taken very closely together. So on the same day or in a couple of days in 1874 did James Martineau turn up for two different photographic sittings at the two studios, changing his tie between sittings? Either way there are two sources for cartes de visite associated with the great man. One is the series produced by Elliot & Fry and the other is the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company picture of which I am glad to have a specimen.

No pictures or text may be reproduced from this site without the express permission of the author.

Posted on August 17, 2019 by David Steers · 1 Comment

The Polish Brethren

At the end of July I was pleased to be part of an organised tour visiting sites connected with the Polish Brethren/Minor Reformed Church organised by the Rev Dr Jay Atkinson of Starr King School for the Ministry in California. When I was at college Arthur Long always used to quote Raymond Holt who said that the story of this little-known Polish church of the radical reformation was an illustration that it is not always the case that something good could not be destroyed by determined persecution. The Polish Brethren were totally wiped out in the counter-reformation: imprisoned, persecuted, exiled, forced to convert. But, of course, it is also true that through their publications and through the witness of those who went into exile something of them did survive and for a church that only existed from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century a surprisingly large amount of physical links with them remain.

They have attracted the attention of a number of highly able Unitarian scholars over the years, most notably, in recent times the late Rev Dr Phillip Hewett who wrote a wonderful article for me for Faith and Freedom in 2017 which can be read online here:

In search of Racovia

One of the points Dr Hewett was always keen to make was that the Transylvanian edict of Torda of 1568 (which marked its 450^th anniversary in 2018) was not the first public expression of toleration. This came in Poland in the reign of King Sigismund Augustus, who reigned from 1548 to 1572 and who declared himself ‘King of the people, not of their consciences’.

A combination of weak royal power and reform minded nobles with authority within their own areas meant a variety of religious views developed in Poland including the Polish Brethren who may have numbered as many as 40,000 at their highest, their 200 or so churches extending across all the vast Polish territories which then included Lithuania and parts of Ukraine.

It was fascinating to visit some surviving sites connected with the Polish Brethren and remarkable that some of them had survived, given their effective destruction by royal decree in 1658. The disused buildings that we saw are now recognised by the state and have been re-roofed although they are still in need of considerable restoration.

The church at Cieszkowy

The first chapel we visited was at Cieszkowy, in the countryside to the north of Kraków, the general location of all the churches we visited. This was similar in design to many of the chapels we were to see with two rooms downstairs, one the chapel and one a schoolroom, with rooms upstairs (which we were not able to visit) which presumably was the house of the minister. I believe this chapel also had a period of use as a Calvinist church, it was generally the case that the landowners decided the religious direction of the locals, and so such buildings could change hands before the full impact of the counter-reformation was felt.

One of the intriguing features of this building was that a number of inscriptions have survived in the interior: including a line from the gospel of Matthew in Polish inside the meeting-house, and a quotation, in Latin, from Virgil above the entrance to the schoolroom. The mixture of classical and scriptural texts suggest the temper and nature of the religious culture of the Polish Brethren.

Inscription from the gospel of Matthew

Classical quotation from Virgil

The interior of the meeting house at Cieszkowy, showing the sixteenth-century doors

Not that far away from Cieszkowy is the chapel at Kolosy. It also has been re-roofed and has a similar layout. Here we shared in an act of worship and, as one of three ministers present, I was privileged to take part in leading the service together with the Rev Dr Sandor Kovacs of Koloszvár, Transylvania and the Rev Dr Roger Jones of Sacramento, California. It was an unexpected privilege and delight to take part in worship in this building of 1654, built by the Polish Brethren just four years before the expulsion of the Arians (as they were frequently termed, named after Arius, the 3rd/4th century theologian). There can’t have been many services held in here since then.

Kolosy. The date stone of this church can be seen at the top of this page

The interior of the meeting house at Kolosy following the service

The next day we went to Moskorzew, originally an estate named after the local family. Here the chapel eventually reverted to Roman Catholicism, following in the direction taken by the family. The crumbling structure of the family home can still be seen as well as post-war Soviet-style social housing. There is also a largely derelict but still essentially intact schoolhouse which dates from the sixteenth century. We were told that when the chapel was reclaimed by the Catholic church the Brethren used the schoolhouse for worship until they were finally outlawed. This building is in state care but would clearly benefit from restoration.

The church at Moskorzew today

The original ancient door of the Moskorzew church

The schoolhouse at Moskorzew

Inside the much altered church there are still two memorials in the chancel to female members of the Moskorzew family dating from the time of the Polish Brethren in the late sixteenth century.

Memorial at Moskorzew dating from the 1590s commemorating a member of the Moskorzew family during the Polish Brethren era

Secemin is another Catholic church today but was used as a Calvinist church and here at a synod Unitarian views were first publicly expressed. As with most Catholic churches in Poland the interior is richly decorated but again there is a survival from the reformation period with a memorial in the chancel to Calvinist minister Gregory Broch who died in 1601.

Secemin church today

The interior of the church

Memorial in the chancel to Gregorius Broch

On the estate at Ludynia, in its delightful setting, Mr Gieżyński, the owner, has restored not only the manor house but also the nearby chapel. Here he has also built up an impressive collection of books and prints connected with Raców, the Polish Brethren and Fausto Sozzini which he shared with us in the chapel.

Ludynia manor house

The chapel at Ludynia

Inspecting some of the documents in the chapel

In future posts I will look at other aspects of the tour and the history of Fausto Sozzini and the Polish Brethren.

Posted on March 1, 2019April 27, 2019 by David Steers · 2 Comments

The Old Meeting House, Mansfield

I was pleased to get the chance in February to visit, for the first time, the Old Meeting House, Mansfield and to be shown around by the minister, the Rev Mária Pap. It’s a very attractive meeting house, dating from 1702, with a warm and comfortable interior that is more Victorian than anything else, but is situated in the middle of some of the dreariest late twentieth-century development that one could imagine. The meeting house, with its ancillary buildings, is marooned in the midst of car parks, underpasses, shopping centres and other buildings of the sort that give town planners a bad name.

Exterior, including the porch

Interior looking towards the chancel

The chapel is not really recognisable as an eighteenth-century meeting house. This is not just because of the Gothicised interior but also because of the porch added in 1940. The stone of the porch doesn’t quite match the original building and as The Unitarian Heritage points out it spoils the symmetry of the original frontage although it must add a useful meeting space for the congregation before and after worship.

The congregation’s schools and halls

The nearby old parsonage, now let out to a charity

One reason I was interested in the building is because of its connection with the Rev Edgar Innes Fripp who was one of my predecessors in the ministry in Belfast. I blogged about him in connection with the 400^th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, that can be read here – Edgar Innes Fripp and William Shakespeare. He came from Mansfield to Belfast in 1891 (where he built All Souls’ Church in 1896) and left in 1900 to go back to Mansfield. He had a lot of input to the liturgical development of both places, compiling a version of the Prayer Book, using a robed choir, generally moving to what would be regarded as a more Anglican liturgy. He built a new church in Belfast and I had always assumed that he was responsible for adding a chancel to the originally square shaped meeting house in Mansfield. But Mansfield was ‘turned’ in 1870 and the chancel added in 1881, before E.I. Fripp was called to be minister, although the chancel was further enlarged in 1908, just after he left for the second time but probably modelled on his plans.

Re-orientating and refitting the interiors of old meeting houses was a common practice for many congregations in the second half of the nineteenth century, those that did not demolish and build anew. J. Harrop White’s book The Story of the Old Meeting House, Mansfield (1959) contains plans of the building before and after the various refurbishments:

The church possesses a number of interesting stained glass windows including three Burne-Jones windows made by William Morris & Co. These depict ‘Truth and Sincerity’, ‘Justice and Humility’ and ‘Mary Magdalene and Jesus’.

The late nineteenth century woodwork in the church is very impressive.

Oak door case dating from 1890

I was pleased to see the chapel and see the evident good work that is being done there by the congregation under their new minister, the Rev Mária Pap, not only the first woman minister to the congregation but the first minister to come to Mansfield from the Hungarian Unitarian Church, bringing insight and a deep spirituality from that ancient church which dates from the Reformation.

The Rev Mária Pap in the pulpit at Mansfield

Posted on October 7, 2017 by David Steers · 1 Comment

The regal heads of Mountpottinger

On my History of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland blog I have been gradually posting two images of every church in the denomination together with a short description of the building. My aim is to include every active church plus as many of the former churches for which images survive. You can view them here:

https://nonsubscribingpresbyterian.wordpress.com/blog/

I have amassed a large database of images in various formats over the years but passing near the Mountpottinger church in Belfast recently I decided to stop to take an up to date view.

Looking at the church close up I noticed something that I had never seen before, namely that there are four corbel heads at the base of the main entrance arches which depict crowned heads. I know I am not alone in having previously missed this intriguing detail but close up you can see four regal faces, two of them male and two female:

Who are they meant to represent? Biblical figures? Historical? Shakespearean perhaps? Or are they purely decorative? It seems clear that they were added when the church was extended in 1899. The foundation stone for the original church was laid in 1874 but the young congregation was very successful and in 1899 they extended the building.

Adrian Moir, the congregational treasurer and representative elder, has sent me the follwing interesting photograph of the original building as it looked before 1899. Standing in front, he thinks, is the Rev William Jenkin Davies minister from 1896 – 1903 who was married to the niece of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence who donated the new schoolroom as a memorial to her following her death:

Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence was a major Unitarian benefactor, an MP who declared the Unitarian College, Manchester open when it moved to Summerville in 1905, a friend of the Rev Alexander Gordon and the leading proponent of the theory that Shakespeare’s plays were actually the work of Francis Bacon!

A comparison of the new buildings of 1899 with the old one shows how they added a schoolroom and ancillary rooms on both sides of the original church with a common frontage uniting all the structures. In very recent times a disabled ramp was added to the church.

A view of the church published in 1907, showing the new additions to the building

But it would be interesting to know the identity of the four regal heads who adorn the outside wall of Mountpottinger church.

Posted on April 25, 2016 by David Steers · 3 Comments

Edgar Innes Fripp and William Shakespeare

The current celebrations of the 400^th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare prompt me to think about the Rev Edgar Innes Fripp. His is not a name widely remembered today but I was very aware of him when I was minister of All Souls’ Church in Belfast as a very distinguished predecessor in that pulpit, indeed the minister under whose leadership that church was built in 1896.

E.I. Fripp didn’t really get the attention he deserved in the congregation, although I wrote and spoke about him on a number of occasions. If the congregation looked to anyone as an historical exemplar it was A.L. Agnew whose own particular heroic story in the course of a 54 year ministry was partly based on an undoing of the achievements of his predecessor Fripp. He did away with the ‘Fripperies’ that remained from early in the century even to the extent – or so I was told – of having a bonfire of old service books along with assorted hassocks, communion table cloths and pulpit hangings. Fripp had introduced an edited version of the prayer book to the church, a robed choir and a much more devotional style of worship than had been the case before. More than that he had built the church, a little medieval English parish church in suburban Belfast. It was his vision in achieving this that had enabled the church to survive. Without this move it would have been unlikely to have lasted in Rosemary Street, and although there may have been a falling off in attendances between the wars it suited the narrative of the later arrival of Dr Agnew and the York Street congregation following the blitz of 1941, to write off everything that had gone before. In fact the destruction of the York Street building made an eventual union of the two congregations inevitable but without the intervention of the German Luftwaffe even that probably would not have taken place.

All Souls’ in 1900

By the time I was minister at All Souls’ a large majority of the congregation had belonged to York Street or were descendants of that congregation. The Second Congregation families, the original All Souls’ people, were a minority yet there were a few who remembered Edgar Innes Fripp. This wasn’t because they were extraordinarily old, because although he had built the church in 1896 and left in 1900 he had returned at the start of the 1920s for a few years. In the 1990s there were some people who had childhood memories of Fripp and what they remembered in particular was his interest in Shakespeare. He was much given to quoting him and increasingly found inspiration in his writings for his sermons.

The title page of Shakespeare’s Stratford

In Belfast he had been innovative, imaginative and creative. He was a genuine scholar, he had been a Hibbert Scholar in Germany before entering the ministry, and was a caring and effective pastor. All this can be seen in his Kalendar, the first monthly magazine to be distributed within a church of the Non-Subscribing tradition in Ireland. Before he had arrived the Second Congregation had left the presbyterian structures to pursue their own course although they were rooted in the Free Christian theological traditions exemplified by James Martineau.

Early in his ministry he had produced an account of the composition of the book of Genesis, by the end of his ministry he was completely absorbed in Shakespearean studies. He published a number of works on Shakespeare, and his life and times, and became a trustee of Shakespeare’s birthplace. Indeed it is interesting to see that today the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has a short video examining E.I. Fripp’s analysis of Iago:

http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/shakespeares-villains-iago

At the end of his life Fripp’s funeral took place in Shakespeare’s church and he was buried in Stratford on Avon. But he produced a large amount of work on Shakespeare and I have often been tempted to seek out a contemporary Shakespearean scholar to give an assessment of how these works are regarded today for Faith and Freedom. There is and has long been a vast industry around Shakespeare and each age finds a different set of interpretations that reflect its own circumstances. It would be nice to know from the point of view of an English literature specialist what endures from Fripp’s writings. But if nothing else he had an enduring impact on the topography of South Belfast, something that continues to this day.

The view of All Souls’ today from the Belfast City Hospital

Posted on March 19, 2016March 22, 2016 by David Steers

Pictures of Harvest Festivals

Pictures of Harvest Festivals are amongst the most frequent early survivors of photographs of church or chapel interiors. The modern Harvest Festival, as it is known in churches today, was really invented by the Rev Robert Hawker, vicar of Morwenstow in Cornwall, in the 1840s. He was as colourful and eccentric as they come but devised the notion of a service in which the produce of the fields was brought into the church and used as decoration as an act of thanksgiving. The idea of the service quickly caught on and became a big part of the year for most churches, whether urban or rural. Harvest Festivals became and remain very popular with Unitarians, it would be interesting to study when and how they began to be incorporated into the cycle of services.

I don’t have any information to hand as to how harvest services spread and became popular but I see that in 1881, for instance, Alexander Gordon introduced the first Harvest Festival service to the First Presbyterian, Rosemary Street congregation in Belfast. This must be quite late, I would imagine. Was that something he had previously done over the preceding twenty years at Norwich, Hope Street, Liverpool, or Aberdeen? It would be an interesting avenue to pursue.

With the gradual development of photography as a medium, pictures were taken of churches and chapels. However, the difficulty – for all except the most skilled photographers – of taking good interior shots, and also, perhaps, a reluctance to take a picture of a scene that was so familiar as to be seen as hardly worth recording means that early shots of interiors of chapels and meetings houses are not that common. This seems to change when it comes to Harvest Festivals and a number of pictures that I have of now closed churches were taken to show off the harvest decoration that had been thoughtfully and faithfully put there by some parishioners.

In the recent posts about Nantwich Unitarian Chapel I asked if anyone had any photographs of the interior. Andrew Lamberton has again found a fascinating image. He has sent me this picture of the area around the organ decorated for harvest. There is no date on the picture and it is very difficult to be at all precise although I would guess it was taken probably in the first decade of the twentieth century.

I gather the organ was installed in the 1870s so the picture shows a decorated scene around the organ sometime after that date. As I have mentioned in previous posts the chapel of 1725-26 was rebuilt and ‘turned’ in 1846-49 and this picture would appear to show the area on the plan between the windows and marked as ‘former site of Pulpit’ in Christopher Stell’s Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in the North of England:

Plan from Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in the North of England

It’s hard to make out too much detail in the photograph but it confirms the description also found in Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in the North of England (page 28) that the pews which incorporated original features from the 1720s were laid out in tiers:

“Seating: against E and W walls, two tiers of pews, partly reconstructed, include much early 18^th-century fielded panelling, fronts renewed. The centre pews also incorporate original material.”

It is not an easy thing to take a picture of what is a dark wood-panelled interior while including the main source of light from two large windows. The light floods in through the window and the dark areas remain dark. But for all its limitations we have in this print a rare and useful image of a long forgotten building.

(Photo: Andrew Lamberton and Nantwich Museum Archives)

Posted on March 5, 2016March 22, 2016 by David Steers

Nantwich Unitarian Chapel

Willaston School Nantwich was created through the will of Philip Barker who lived at the Grove, a house originally built by his brother in 1837. It’s clear also that Philip Barker and his brothers were the main supporters of the Unitarian Chapel, their vision – and financial contribution – seems to have been what maintained what was otherwise quite a weak cause.

The chapel and associated buildings, probably dating from the 1950s. Photo courtesy of Andrew Lamberton

I found myself in Nantwich once, almost by accident, and carried out an ineffective and inevitably fruitless search for anything left of the Chapel. If I had checked The Unitarian Heritage book first I would have known that it was long demolished (in 1969), eventually meeting, it would appear, quite a sad end. However, the town of Nantwich is fortunate in having a very active History Group (which published Willaston School Nantwich – see the two previous posts) and through the kind help of Andrew Lamberton – who supplied me with a number of fascinating images and other information – I’ve been able to piece together something of the history of the congregation that was once served by Joseph Priestley.

The congregation dated from the ejection and registered a former malt-kiln on Pepper Street as a meeting house in 1689. Between 1725 and 1726 they built the Chapel on Hospital Street.

The lively painting of the interior on this page was painted in 1942 by George Hooper as part of the ‘Recording Britain’ series of images, held in the V & A which describes the scheme in the following way:

The ‘Recording Britain’ collection of topographical watercolours and drawings [was] made in the early 1940s during the Second World War. In 1940 the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, launched a scheme to employ artists to record the home front in Britain, funded by a grant from the Pilgrim Trust. It ran until 1943 and some of the country’s finest watercolour painters, such as John Piper, Sir William Russell Flint and Rowland Hilder, were commissioned to make paintings and drawings of buildings, scenes, and places which captured a sense of national identity. Their subjects were typically English: market towns and villages, churches and country estates, rural landscapes and industries, rivers and wild places, monuments and ruins.

It’s an interesting choice of subject and shows the pulpit with memorials to Joseph Priestley and Philip Barker on either side. You probably wouldn’t guess from the painting but the interior had been completely re-ordered. The chapel had been turned through 180 degrees and the pulpit placed on a false wall with a vestibule and ancillary rooms located behind it. Andrew Lamberton has supplied me with this plan of the interior of the remodelled chapel (from the Cheshire Record Office):

Plan of the interior c.1850 (Cheshire Record Office)

Strangely this plan does not show the pulpit which would have been in the centre of the wall on the right hand side of the drawing as we look at it. Opposite it is an area described as ‘orchestra’ on the plan. Is this meant to imply some instrumental accompaniment for hymns or would it be the place for the choir? Philip Barker’s pew can be seen in the top left hand corner.

The major repairs that resulted in the re-ordering of the interior took place in 1846-49 according to Christoper Stell’s Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in the North of England (1994). His plan of the interior can be compared with the one above. By 1850, however, it was not a large congregation as this subscription list, also supplied by Andrew Lamberton from the Cheshire Record Office, shows

Subscribers List 1850 (Cheshire Record Office)

The chapel was clearly very dependent on the Barker family and the Rev J Morley Mills, minister at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries, recorded that it was known in those days as “Mr Barker’s Chapel”. By the time of the Second World War it was clearly at a very low ebb. Surviving photographs show the building in a very sorry state.

In 1896 a schoolroom had been built right in front of the chapel. This obscured the distinctive outline of the frontage with the Dutch style gables. However, Christopher Stell suggests this design may not have been original and could have been added in a rebuilding of 1870. Either way the Victorian schoolroom obscured the look of the chapel:

The chapel probably in the 1960s. Photo from Andrew Lamberton

Curiously The Unitarian Heritage carries a photograph of Nantwich chapel taken, presumably, after the school house had been demolished and showing the frontage as it had been built:

From The Unitarian Heritage

It seems a reasonable assumption to make that this photograph was taken at the start of the demolition process, after the Victorian school house had been taken down. However, if you compare this photograph and the previous one which dates from the 1960s it is clear that the two long windows are both intact and fully glazed and the stone work and frames around the window are no longer painted. Could this photograph actually date from a different period?

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has any more information and any additional photographs of the chapel, especially of the interior.

Andrew Lamberton has also sent me this newspaper cutting taken form the Nantwich Chronicle in about 1966 and indicating the sad end the chapel faced:

From the Nantwich Chronicle c.1966

It is a shame that such a an unusual and interesting building was lost to the locality, one that had been thought significant enough to record for posterity during the darkest years of the Second World War.

The Presbyterian Unitarian Chapel, Nantwich; Recording Britain; Chapel, Hospital Street, Nantwich. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London