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Freedom through Discipline: the Concept of Little Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Methodism … left a stigma on the mind of the eighteenth-century poor whilst helping at the same time to smother the growth of a working-class consciousness. Its doctrines perverted all that was healthy in men’s emotions, its creed was cruel and grim, its view of life bleak and joyless. Its place in society closely resembled that of a malignant tumour.
Thus a Sheffield undergraduate essayist, year of 1983. The essayist was Methodist bred. For him liberation lay in bondage to E. P. Thompson, year of 1963. His student vigour is as much to be applauded as his interpretation is to be deplored. For him as for so many much older historians the bold stroke or the broad view has become in fact a sweeping into tunnel vision and the emancipation has become in fact a confirmation of old folk wisdom: Methodism is puritanism is repressive is reprehensible. We come very close to the heart of the present volume’s matter: asceticism, or the attainment of spiritual perfection by means of self-discipline. Or at least we come very close to the heart of the matter as it is vulgarly seen, for although asceticism is not a word which is too frequently applied to English protestant Dissent, its associations with discipline, abstinence and repression are far too frequently so applied.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 22: Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition , 1985 , pp. 405 - 450
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1985
References
1 Joyce, P., Work, Society and Politics. The Culture of the Factory in Later Victorian England (1980; paperback ed 1982).Google Scholar
2 Ibid p. 5.
3 Ibid p. 5.
4 Laqueur, T.W., Religion and Respectability. Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture 1780–1830 (Yale 1976);Google Scholar Cox, J., The English Churches in a Secular Society. Lambeth, 1870–1930, (Oxford 1982) pp. 225–9, 307–8.Google Scholar
5 For Brown (1820–1884) see Binfield, C., So Down to Prayers [Studies in English Nonconformity 1780–1920] (London 1977) pp. 190–9.Google Scholar The Derby Sunday School Union meeting is described pp. 193–4.
6 For Conder (1820–1892) see C[ongregational] Y[ear] B[ook] (1893) pp. 214–6.
7 He continued: ‘Truth has the same imperial claim over the intellect as duty over the conscience. There are laws of thought as well as of conduct, and true liberty lies in intelligent and willing obedience.’ F. Wrigley, [The History of the Yorkshire Congregational Union (1923)] p. 110.
8 Binfield, C., So Down to Prayers p. 96.Google Scholar
9 Macfadyen, D., Alexander Mackennal B.A., D.D., His Life and Letters (1905) pp. 165–6.Google Scholar
10 This is the concern of his chairman’s address to the Congregational Union in May 1873, the theme “Discipleship”. CYB 1874 pp. 28–31.
11 Ibid pp. 19–20.
12 F. Wrigley p. 136.
13 Andrews, Jessie Forsyth, ‘Memoir’, in P.T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ (1938) p. XIV.Google Scholar For Forsyth (1848–1921) see Bradley, W.L., P.T. Forsyth, The Man and His Work (1952).Google Scholar
14 Form of Morning and Evening Service, For the Use of Free Churches (1869) p. iii.
15 Selbie, W.B., The Life of Charles Silvester Home (1920) p. 70.Google Scholar
16 Mawson, T.H., The Life and Work of An English Landscape Architect. An Autobiography (ndc 1927) pp. 111–12.Google Scholar For Gamble (1873—1938) see CYB (1939) p. 698.
17 There are brief accounts of Vivian T. Pomeroy (1883–1961) in Mansfield College Reports (1963/4) p. 8; Mansfield College Magazine, 165 (July 1964) p. 212. Greenfield’s notoriety was the doing of Pomeroy’s predecessor Thomas Rhondda Williams (1860–1945), minister at Greenfield 1888–1909.
18 The following account is based on The Educational Institute of Greenfield Church, Carlisle Road and Lumb Lane, Bradford (Bradford nd) pp. 3–12; Greenfield Congregational Church, Bradford: Church Manual 1915, and much information provided by Mr. and Mrs. D. Steele. For Percy Lund (1863–1943), founder of Lund, Humphries and Co. see ‘Mr. Percy Lund: Death of a Well-Known Bradford Man’, Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 15 February 1943.
19 Pomeroy had a genius for stones, many of which (including several Greenfield children’s addresses) were published in The Merry Monopedes and Other Stories for Children (ndc 1916) and Legends of Lumb Lane (1923).
20 For E.J. Barson (1877–1956) see CYB (1957) p. 510.
21 (A.D. Banfield) Penge Congregational Church 1908–1958 Golden Jubilee Celebrations (Penge 1958) p. 12.
22 Ibid pp. 11–12; C. Binfield, ‘English Free Churchmen and a National Style’ [SCH 18] p. 521.
23 In addition to its reliance upon the records of Ealing Green United Reformed Church, the following account owes much to correspondence and conversation with G. Ronald Howe, P. Knight, Lady Mott, Revd. Dr. G.F. Nuttall, the late M.M. Rix, Mrs Barbara Horder West (whose typescript, The Horder Saga, dated October 1969, was of particular value), the late Mrs. Phyllis Taunton Wood and the Revd. Mary I Wyatt. Information from these sources is subsequently marked p[ersonal] i[nformation].
24 A Mirrielies daughter was the first wife of Augustine Birrell.
25 pi; E[aling] C[ongregational] C[hurch]: Register of Members of the Church from c. 1834. For ‘John Oxenham’ (his real name was Dunkerley, 1852–1941) see K.L. Parry, Companion [to Congregational Praise (1953)] p. 480.
26 But the Congregationalists had the larger Sunday School: two hundred and sixty nine children to the Baptists’ two hundred and thirty six. CYB 1910 p. 275, Baptist Handbook 1910 p. 100.
27 For William Isaac (died 1877) see CYB 1878 pp. 323–4. Edward Swaine, the firm’s principal, was a leading London Congregational layman. Adeney too was a Congregational name. Indeed Isaac’s predecessor at Ealing Green was the Revd. G.J. Adeney.
28 ‘On the occasion of his late Royal Highness Prince Albert visiting England just preceding the time when his engagement to Her Majesty was made public’, Mr. Isaac, in returning from Germany happened to be a passenger in the same vessel. An accident on board detained them for a night, which was spent on deck by the Prince and Mr. Isaac in familiar conversation. Many questions were put by the Prince with respect to political and other matters concerning the people with whom he was to be soon closely connected. Sound sterling advice was given to the young Prince with reference to his non-interference with political parties, and the policy of throwing himself into the home life and customs of the people’, and Isaac was subsequently called to Windsor to meet the prince’s father and brother.
He was not always so honestly circumspect. In Italy his determination always to be the Christian traveller led him to put tracts ‘in the Italian language in … the out-of-the-way places in St. Peter’s at Rome, when an English gentleman came up to him, and in a few quiet words gave him a caution that if he valued his safety he would find his way to his hotel by a circuitous route and as speedily as possible’. Ibid pp. 323–4.
29 For Henry Arnold Thomas (1848–1924) see N. Micklem ed Arnold Thomas of Bristol (1925). The hymn is 556 in Congregational Praise.
30 Byles (1839–1901) was also the first of a trio of literary ministers. His stories included The Legend of St Mark and Spring Blossoms and Summer Fruit. Information about his ministry comes from ECC Year Books 1876–1896 and R.C. Davis, Notebook [Giving History of Ealing Green up to 1946], an ms abstracted from church minute books. For the Byles circle see (F.G. Byles) William Byles by His Youngest Son, (Weymouth, privately printed, 1932).
31 For W. Garrett Horder (1841–1922) see CYB 1924 p. 98; pi.
32 I am indebted to Dr. D.A. Johnson ‘Pastoral Vacancy and Rising Expectations: The George Street Church, Oxford, 1879–86’. Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society 3, no. 4, Oct. 1984, p. 136.
33 CYB (1924) p. 98; B. Manning, ‘Some Hymns and Hymnbooks’, Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society IX (1925) p. 140.
34 K.L. Parry, Companion pp. XXXV-VI, 381. In 1922 the Yorkshire Observer recalled that Worship Song began with Horder’s need for a hymnbook for the children of his bible classes. ‘He could find nothing suitable, and a friend suggested that he should compile one himself … the book … made a new departure in childrens hymnody, and has affected every hymnal published since. Mr. Horder kept in the background the foolish aspirations after the other world which hymns used to put into the mouths of children”. Undated obituary cutting attached to College Chapel Bradford Minute Book 1856–1896, now with the archives of Congregational College, Manchester, held at John Rylands Library, Manchester.
35 Wood Green Congregational Church, undated (March 1893), unpaginated leaflet in the possession of Horder’s granddaughter Lady Mott.
36 Ibid.
37 This information is again derived from ECC Year Books, especially from 1896; R.C. Davis, Notebook; and from a Book of Statements about Horder’s ministry up to 1910.
38 For Rix (1881–1958) see CYB (1960) p. 435, pi.
39 pi.
40 Unless otherwise indicated information about church decisions at Ealing Green is taken from R.C. Davis, Notebook.
41 Harris, D., in [The Reverend Wilton Edwin] Rix [December 10th 1881 – December 15th 1958]: A Memorial (1959) pp. 8–9.Google Scholar
42 pi.
43 Harris, D., in Rix: A Memorial p. 7.Google Scholar
44 Daily News, 15 December 1925.
45 Rix, W., Little Church (nd c. 1936).Google Scholar
46 ‘By pagans we mean that large part of the community who are indifferent to the Church and who read their Sunday newspapers with the close attention their fathers gave to the Bible, and who attend the cinema as regularly as their parents did their chapel, and whose attitude is that they are as decent as the man next door and perhaps better’, Ibid pp. 2–3.
47 Ibid pp. 1–4.
48 Ibid pp. 4–6. Rix told this horror story (ibid p. 5): ‘A certain London church had two Sunday Schools, one under the church roof for children of members, and the other in a mission-hall. Certain teachers, feeling that such a distinction was contrary to the spirit of Christ, succeeded in merging the two Sunday Schools on the church premises. Within six months, however, the number of children of church members left in the Sunday School had dwindled almost to nothing, and the rest had been sent to Crusader classes’.
49 The Sunday school proportion of Little Church people was ‘limited by the fact that many parents will not take the trouble to prepare their children for morning worship, as the activities of their Sunday do not seem to begin in earnest until the midday meal’. Ibid p. 7.
50 Ibid pp. 9–10.
51 Ibid pp. 10–11.
52 Ibid pp. 11–12.
53 Ibid p. 13; ‘A “Little Church” for Little People’, [The Sunday School Chronicle and Times 7 July 1927], p. 427.
54 Rix, W., Little Church, pp. 13–16.Google Scholar
55 ‘A “Little Church” For Little People’, p. 427.
56 Rix, W., Little Church, pp. 17–23.Google Scholar
57 The chief source for the following account, unless otherwise indicated, is the church’s Building [Extension Committee] Minute Book 1925–1931.
58 For Percy Morley Horder (1870–1944) see DNB and C. Binfield, ‘English Free Churchmen and a National Style’, pp. 521–3. Horder was the architect of Penge Congregational Church.
59 CYB (1960) p. 435.
60 Programme [for the Ealing Green Puritan Market, 18–20 November 1926]; p.i.
61 ‘Church Member’ in Ealing Green Magazine, cutting in church records.
62 Cutting in church records.
63 Brochure for Church Dedication Services, 1–5 July 1926, in church records.
64 Programme.
65 R.C. Davis, Notebook.
66 Programme, 20–22 December 1927; pi.
67 pi.
68 pi.
69 Programme 1933.
70 pi.
71 R.C. Davis, Notebook.
72 pi.
73 Building Minute Book 1925–1931, R.C. Davis, Notebook; pi.
74 W.E. Rix, On the Improvement of Public Worship (1939) unpaginated pamphlet reprinted from Transactions of the Free Church Fellowship Summer Conference, September 1939. The following quotations are taken from the pamphlet. The author has in his possession Rix’s privately printed The Ealing Book (1936) of litanies and intercessions (including May Day and Michaelmas Litanies), prayers and collects.
75 pi. Information in this paragraph and the next is drawn from R.C. Davis, Notebook.
76 pi.
77 Streatham Congregational Church Manual (1928) p. 9.
78 Drummond, A.L. [The Church Architecture of Protestantism, Edinburgh 1934] p. 219 Google Scholar, Dr. Merrill was a “high” Congregationalist as his installation address made clear: ‘The appeal of the altar, rising white in the dim light of a lovely chancel, is perfectly legitimate’. Ibid p. 228–9.
79 pi. He continued to write children’s stories: The Enchanted Children, 1938; Another Story Please (Boston, Mass.) 1947.
80 W.E. Orchard, letter of 1 January 1942. I am indebted to Miss Elaine Kaye for this reference. For Orchard (1877–1955) see From Faith to Faith: An Autobiography of Religious Development (1933).
81 For Gamble (1888–1978) see United Reformed Church Year Book (1980) p. 254.
82 Hunt, Patricia, A Century and a Half. The Story of the Congregational Church in Otley 1821–1971 (Otley nd [1971]) pp. 15–16.Google Scholar
83 Galey, R.L., The History of the Woodford Green United Free Church, (Woodford 1968) pp. 42–4.Google Scholar
84 Caton, Dor, A Short History of The Avenue Congregational Church Southampton Google Scholar (nd r.1968) pp. 32, 42, 47.
85 Davies, J.T., Richmond Hill Story (1956) pp. 60, 68–9.Google Scholar
86 The Opening of ‘Little Church’, Alverstoke, Wednesday June 23rd 1937, Order of Proceedings. F.W. Lawrence, the architect, had designed Church of the Peace of God, Oxted, where A.G. Matthews and Wilton Rix had ministered and where Matthews still lived. John Litten, the principal of the Homes, had previously lived in Ealing. “‘See these Books?” said Uncle Jack to his sister, “look, Nan, how beautifully each service is arranged – one for each Sunday in the month, and look … all arranged telling them what to do.’” Alice Campling, The Little Church, (Alverstoke nd) p. 6.
87 Ibid.
88 A.L. Drummond, pp. 218–9.