Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:28:46.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Voluntaryism within the Established Church in Nineteenth Century Belfast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

S. Peter Kerr*
Affiliation:
Lincoln Theological College

Extract

‘The Irish need to be governed and controlled as well as I excited.’ So wrote Daniel Wilson, a young English clergyman later to be bishop of Calcutta, after visiting Armagh in June 1814 to discuss with local clergy the possibility of setting up a branch of the Church Missionary Society. An Irish (Hibernian) Church Missionary Society, he argued, would

… have a tendency both to revive and regulate the piety of members of the Church, fostering whatever is holy and energetic, and yet directing both in … orderly submission to the Church …

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Brand, F.E., How the Church Missionary Society Came to Ireland (1935 Dublin) p. 149.Google Scholar

2 Ibid.

3 Quoted by McDowell, R.B., The Church of Ireland 1869-1969 (London 1975) p. 23 Google Scholar. See also Godkin, James, Ireland and Her Churches (London 1867) p. 501.Google Scholar

4 Bowen, D., The Protestant Crusade in Ireland (London 1977) p. 235.Google Scholar

5 Population and denominational statistics from Owen, D.J., History of Belfast (Belfast 1921).Google Scholar Statistics on Anglican Church buildings from MacNeice, J., The Church of Ireland in Belfast (Belfast 1931).Google Scholar

6 Robert, Bateson M.P., Emmerson, Tennant M.P., Mulholland, Andrew and Ewart, William.Google Scholar

7 Report of His Majesty’s Commissioners of Inquiry into Ecclesiastical Revenues and Patronage in ¡reland (1836) p. 244.

8 Dawson, A., The Annals of Christ Church Belfast from Its Foundation in 1831.Google Scholar Unpublished papers, Northern Ireland Public Records Office, T1075/11.

9 Knox, R., A Charge delivered at the Ordinary Visitation of the United Diocese of Down, Connor and Dromore (Belfast 1858) p. 20.Google Scholar

10 Mant, R., Episcopal Jurisdiction Asserted (Dublin 1834) p. 36.Google Scholar

11 Ewart, L.M., Handbook of the United Diocese of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin 1886) p. 34.Google Scholar

12 Mant, W., The Memoirs of the Right Reverend Richard Mant (Dublin 1857) p. 306.Google Scholar

13 Ibid. p. 307.

14 Mant, R., Episcopal Jurisdiction p. 36 Google Scholar

15 Mant, W., Memoirs p. 350.Google Scholar

16 Account of the Proceedings of the Down and Connor Clergy-Aid Society (Belfast 1838) p. 13.

17 Ibid.

18 This was the title that the Reverend W.G. Gibson gave to his account of the Revival. Gibson, W.G., The Year of Grace (Belfast 1860).Google Scholar

19 The title of Isaac Nelson’s rather hostile account of the Revival. Nelson, I., The Year of Delusion (Belfast 1860).Google Scholar

20 Seaver, C., Religious Revivals: Two Sermons preached in St. John’s Laganbank on Sunday July loth ¡8¡9 (Belfast 1859) p. 9.Google Scholar

21 ‘Struck’ was the term most often used to indicate that someone had been physically affected by revival-inspired conversion. See Stopford, Edward, The Work and the Counterwork. The Religious Revival in Belfast with an Explanation of the Physical Phenomena (Dublin 1859).Google Scholar

22 Killen, W.D., Ecclesiastical History of Ireland (London 1875) p. 529.Google Scholar

23 Seaver, C., Religious Revivals p. 7.Google Scholar

24 Gibson, W., The Year p. 408.Google ScholarPubMed

25 Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette July 1859.

26 Nelson, I., The Year p. 208.Google ScholarPubMed

27 Seaver, C., Religious Revivals.Google Scholar

28 Lee, A., Report of the Proceedings of the Conference of the Clergy and Laity of the United Diocese of Down, Connor and Dromore (Belfast 1862) p. 57.Google Scholar

29 Ibid.

30 Seaver, C., Religious Revivals p. 8.Google Scholar

31 Mcllwaine, W., Ulster Revivalism 1859 p. 11.Google Scholar

32 Lee, A., Report of the Proceedings of the Conference p. 69.Google ScholarPubMed

33 Belfast Newsletter 19 Jan 1821. The report of the meeting was ‘from memory’.

34 Ibid.

35 Seaver, C., ‘The Case of the Church Education Society for Ireland’ as published in Problems of a Growing City, Belfast 1780-1870 (Belfast 1973) p. 210.Google Scholar

36 The Commissioners of the Ulster National Education Association, The National System and Board: a Reply to the Explanatory Paper of the Commissioners of National Education of Ireland (1864) p. 5.

37 Drew, Thomas, State Education considered: The Church, the State, the Parent, the Child, (a sermon) (Belfast 1862) p. 6.Google Scholar

38 Dublin Evening Mail 29 Apr. 1862, Quoted in the Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette 15 June 1862.

39 Dawson, A., Annals.Google Scholar

40 Commission of Inquiry into the Riots in Belfast, ¡8¡7 (1864) Appendix 1 p. 250.

41 Protestant Defender 13 Dec. 1848.

42 Letter to Ulsterman quoted in Commission of Inquiry p. 257.

43 Ibid.

44 Protestant Defender 20 Jan. 1849.

45 Ibid. 14 Apr. 1849.

46 Dawson, A., Annals.Google Scholar

47 Ibid. The not unfriendly critic was Dawson himself, curate of Christ Church.

48 Report of the Conference of Archbishops and Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the Irish Branch of the United Church of England and Ireland (1869) p. 62. ‘The gates’ referred to were the gates of the walled city of Londonderry which were shut against the Catholic King J ames in 1689, an event which had become part of Protestant folk-lore.

49 Irish Protestant (1834-35) 1 p. 137.

50 Knox, Robert, A Charge delivered at the Ordinary Visitation of the United Dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin 1858) p. 20.Google Scholar

51 ‘Constitutions and Laws of the Belfast Mechanics Institute’ in Problems of a Growing City p. 80.

52 The Irish Pulpit (collections of sermons) p. 259.

53 The Sixth Annual Report of the Church of Ireland Young Men’s Society (Belfast 1856) p. 9.

54 The Fourth Annual Report of the Church of Ireland Young (1854) p. 9.

55 Lee, A., Report of the Proceedings preface.Google Scholar

56 Godkin, James, Ireland p. 501.Google Scholar

57 Lee, A., Report of the Proceedings p. 103.Google Scholar