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Church Extension in Town and Countryside in Later Nineteenth-Century Leicestershire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David M. Thompson
David M. Thompson*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam College
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Extract

Studies of nineteenth-century urban religion have often been conducted with very little reference to the surrounding countryside. Even Obelkevich in his stimulating study of rural religion in Lincolnshire suggested that there, ‘In the Church of England, though the ideal and model of the village parish church continued to inspire town churchmen, towns and villages largely remained in separate compartments. Only through Methodism did the towns have much effect on village religious life. . . . The circuit, the key unit of Methodist organization, brought preachers and people from towns and villages into regular contact with each other and made it possible for the financial and human resources of the town chapels to contribute to the life of the outlying village chapels’. But the methodist exception is significant, not so much in a denominational sense (although the methodist form of organisation was in theory the best for this purpose) but because it is an example of a situation in which the money and men available in any one particular place were not sufficient to carry out what the church concerned wished to do there. It was therefore necessary to tap the resources of other places to help. In large towns such as Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, and in some of the smaller industrial towns as well, the necessary resources often had to be found within the town or not at all; and to that extent the study of urban religion on its own is understandable. But in many parts of the country rural evangelism was felt to be as urgent a priority as urban evangelism. The church of England sought to overcome the consequences of rural neglect; and all nonconformists, not only methodists, attempted to involve town members in the life of country chapels. Thus in less exclusively industrial parts of the country than Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and the Black Country, a genuine conflict of priorities between town and countryside could arise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 16: The Church in Town and Countryside , 1979 , pp. 427 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979

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References

1 James, Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society (Oxford 1976) pp 5–6 Google Scholar.

2 Stephen Yeo has rightly observed that the concern with ‘numbers unlimited’ and buildings was not the only choice open to the churches, but that does not affect the argument here: [Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis] (London 1976) pp 69-74, 154-5.

3 Leicester Journal, 21 May 1869 (italics mine).

4 Four of these were in the towns of Loughborough, Hinckley and Ashby de la Zouch.

5 Return of 600 New Churches needed: Parliamentary Papers, H.C. (1852-3) 78, p 46.

6 [W. G.] Whittingham, [Church Extension in the Archdeaconry of Leicester] (privately printed nd) p 4.

7 Leicester Clerical Association Minutes, 4 April 1864: L[eicester] M[useum], 27D 64/A/1.

8 L[eicester] Ar[chdeaconry] C[hurch] E[xtension] Association] Min[ute]s 1, pp 3-8; LM Misc 184/4; Whittingham, p 4.

9 Report of LACEA annual meeting 1867 in the Leicester Advertiser: LACEA Mins 1, pp 66-7.

10 LACEA Mins 1, pp 64-5, 74-8.

11 Report in Leicester Journal : LACEA Mins 1, p 90.

12 Leicester Journal, 21 May 1869.

13 LACEA Mins 1, pp 129-30.

14 Report in Leicester Advertiser: LACEA Mins 1, p 177.

15 Leicester Journal, 13 June 1873.

16 Leicester Journal, 24 April 1874; LACEA Mins 2, pp 9-12, 20; LM Misc 184/6.

17 Leicester Journal, 11 June 1875.

18 Magee, W.C., A Charge delivered to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Diocese of Peterborough at his Second Visitation, October 1875 (London 1875) p 7 Google Scholar.

19 Leicester Journal, 7 July 1876.

20 Leicester Journal, 9 November 1877; LACEA Mins 2, pp 30, 33, 35-6.

21 LACEA Mins 2, pp 37-8.

22 Ibid 39-43, 51.

23 Fletcher, W. G. D., Historical Handbook to Loughborough (Loughborough 1881) pp 26-7Google Scholar; Church Commissioners’ Benefice Files, no 56235, letters 15752 (27 October 1877), 13885 (16 October 1878).

24 Petty, J., History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion (3 ed London 1864) pp 495-6Google Scholar; Kendall, [H. B.], [The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church] (London nd) 1, p 334.Google Scholar

25 Leicester Wesleyan Circuit Q[uarterly] M[eeting] Min[ute]s 1, pp 17-18; Bishop Street Chapel Trustees’ Minutes 1, pp 348-9; 2, pp 10, 12, 13, 15-16: all at Bishop Street methodist church.

26 Leicester Wesleyan Circuit QM Mins, 1, pp 85, 88, 95, 97, 106-9, 112-13, 123-5, 126-7, 129.

27 L[eicestershire and Rutland] C[ongregational] U[nion] Min[ute]s 1, pp 19-20; Leic[e]s[tershire] C[ounty] R[ecords] O[ffice] N/C/MB/1.

28 L[eicestershire and Rutland] C[ongregational] U[nion] Exec[utive Committee] Min[ute]s 1, pp 47-8; Leics CRO N/C/MB/2.

29 LCU Exec Mins 1, pp 51-2.

30 LCU Mins 1, pp 213-14, 222, 230-1; LCU Exec Mins 1, pp 75-7, 79-80, 87-9.

31 LCU Exec Mins 1, pp 107-8.

32 LCU Mins 2, p 176: Leics CRO N/C/MB/8.

33 LCU Stationing Committee Minutes p 21; Leics CRO N/C/MB/15.

34 L[eicestershire] B[aptist] A[ssociation] Min[ute]s 3, pp 41-2, 247; in possession of the East Midlands baptist association.

35 The General Baptist Year Book, i869 (London 1869-): Association Letter p 15.

36 Williams, S. T., Our Duty in relation to the Moral and Religious Needs of Leicester (Leicester 1872) pp 5, 8Google Scholar: LCU Mins 1, p 344.

37 LCU M[ission] B[uilding] C[ommittce] Min[ute]s pp 23-33, 54-6: Leics CRO N/C/MB/16.

38 LCU MBC Mins pp 77-8, 108-9, 116.

39 LCU Exec Mins 2, pp 79-80; Leics CRO N/C/MB/3.

40 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (London 1859) p 371.

41 LCU Mins 2, pp 43-4.

42 Report of the Leicestershire Baptist Association, 1876 (Leicester 1876) pp 6-7, 9-10.

43 Baptist Handbook 1877 (London 1877) pp 105-21.

44 Kendall 1, p 298.

45 Church of England Year Book, 1887 (London 1887) p 48.

46 Ward, W. R., ‘The Cost of Establishment’, SCH 3 (1966) p 286 Google Scholar.

47 LCU Mins 1, p 143.

48 LBA Mins 3, pp 338, 342.

49 LCU MBC Mins pp 27, 48-9.

50 Yeo pp 296-308.