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West End Chapel, Back Street Bethel: Labour and Capital in the Wigan Churches of Christ c. 1845–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2016

Peter Ackers
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Extract

There is a large and complex literature regarding the part played by working-class Nonconformity in the industrial revolution and the emergence of the English labour movement. For all its nuances, this writing can be separated into two main strands. The first, broadly Marxist, perspective sees working-class Nonconformity primarily as a form of capitalist control, inculcating bourgeois norms of hard work, thrift, respectability and political moderation into the working class. However, even labour historians who subscribe to this view cannot help but be struck by the ubiquitous accounts of lay preachers at the forefront of Victorian labour movement campaigns, especially in the coalfields. Thus, the second view stresses the part played by working-class Nonconformists in leading their class towards political and industrial emancipation. To a considerable extent, the stance taken, particularly on Methodism, depends on whether writers draw their evidence from national, usually middle-class, denominational hierarchies, or from local accounts of working-class religiosity.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 298 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 For the first view see Thompson, E. P., The making of the English working-class, London 1980 Google Scholar, on the earlier nineteenth century. P. Joyce, Work, society and politics: the culture of the factory in later Victorian England, London 1980, gives this attitude a novel ethnic twist for industrial Lancashire, linked to employer paternalism. For the second view see Moore, R., Pit-men, preachers and politics: the effects of Methodism in a Durham mining community, Cambridge 1974, and Wearmouth, R. F., Methodism and the struggle of the working-classes, 1850–1900, Leicester 1954.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For the Churches of Christ see especially Thompson, D. M., Let sects and parties fall : a short history of the association of Churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland, Birmingham 1980 Google Scholar, a good general history which includes a valuable bibliography. Two other studies are Billington, L., ‘The Churches of Christ in Britain: a study in nineteenth-century sectarianism’, Journal of Religious History viii (1974/5), 21–48 Google Scholar, and Davies, T. Witton, ‘The McLeanist (Scotch) and Campbellite Baptists of Wales’, Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society vii (1920/1), 147–81 Google Scholar. See also Ackers, Peter’s larger study, ‘Christian brethren, union brother: a study of the relationship between religious Nonconformity and trade union leadership, in the life of the coal mining deputies’ official, Miller, W. T., 1880-1963’, unpubl. PhD diss. Wolverhampton 1993.Google Scholar

3 For Back Street Bethel and West End Chapel see McLeod, H., Religion and the working- class in nineteenth century Britain, London 1984, 15 Google Scholar. For sect-to-denomination see Wilson, B. R., Sects and society : a sociological study of three religious groups in Britain, London 1961, and Patterns of sectarianism : organisation and ideology in social and religious movements, London 1967.Google Scholar

4 Thompson, Sects and parties, membership appendix II.

5 Lancaster, B., Radicalism, co-operation and socialism: Leicester working-class politics, 1860–1906, Leicester 1987, 71 Google Scholar. For the Leicester Churches see Hammond, G.J., ‘The ten churches of Leicester: the rise and progress of the Restoration movement in and around the conference city’, CA, 20 July 1928, 451–4 Google Scholar; Anon., , Churches of Christ, Nottingham and Leicester district co-operation: a record of service, 1865–1915, Heanor 1915 Google Scholar; Waterton, B. and Waterton, M., Churches of Christ in Leicestershire between the wars (Churches of Christ Historical Society Occasional Paper ii, 1986), 1—15.Google Scholar

6 CA, 12 July 1963. For a contemporary account of Coop’s life see Moore, W. T., Timothy Coop : or the story of a consecrated business career, London 1889 Google Scholar. For a more detailed discussion of the Wigan background see Ackers, , ‘Christian brethren, union brother’, 40–91 Google Scholar. This account follows Gilbert, A. D., Religion and society in industrial society: church, chapel and social change, 1740–1914, London 1976, 42–4 Google Scholar, and Lancaster, , Radicalism, 70–5 Google Scholar, in seeing the Churches of Christ as part of a late Victorian ‘new primitive’ or ‘new sectarian’ working-class backlash against the increasingly middle-class character of mainstream Nonconformity. For some differences of interpretation with Lancaster see Peter Ackers’s ‘The “Protestant Ethic” and the English labour movement: the case of the Churches of Christ’, Labour History Review lix (1993), 67–72. K. Tiller, ‘Working-class attitudes and organisation in three industrial towns’, unpubl. PhD diss. Birmingham 1975, and R. Gregory, The miners and British politics, 1906–14, Oxford 1968, make interesting comparisons between Wigan, Lancashire and other towns and coalfields respectively.

7 Crook, R. K. and Robinson, W., Centenary of the Churches of Christ, Rodney Street, Wigan, 1841–1941, Wigan, 1941, 3 Google Scholar.

8 BMH, 1953, 45–6, 238.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. 1 July, 1 Aug. 1958.

10 Rodney Street Chapel Trust Deeds (1860); ‘Matters believed and practiced by Christian brethren assembling in the Christian Meeting House, Rodney Street, Wigan’.

11 See Foreman, H., The Baptists of Bewdley: a history of Bewdley Baptist church, Bewdley 1991 Google Scholar. Other later Churches of Christ ‘confessions of faith’ which the author has seen bear a close resemblance to the Rodney Street plea. See the 1910 Trust Deeds of Humberstone Garden City Christian Meeting House, Leicester, and the 1889 Trust Deeds of Loughborough Christian Meeting House. Itinerant evangelists like MacDougale probably encouraged such consistency, as did the Lancashire-based Chapel Building Fund: Thompson, Sects and parties, 66–7.

12 Crook, and Robinson, , Churches of Christ, 12.Google Scholar

13 BMH, 1 Jan. 1958.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. 1 Aug. 1958.

15 Crook, and Robinson, , Churches of Christ, 4.Google Scholar

16 Moore, , Timothy Coop, 84.Google Scholar

17 Challinor, R., The Lancashire and Cheshire miners, Newcastle 1972, 46.Google Scholar

18 BMH, 1853, 45.Google Scholar

19 Ibid. 1 May 1960.

20 Ibid. 2 July 1960.

21 See Thompson, , Sects and parties, 125 Google Scholar, and Ackers, , ‘“Protestant Ethic”’, 68–71 Google Scholar.

22 Acheson, J., Radical Puritans in England, 1550–1660, London 1990, 101 Google Scholar.

23 Moore, Timothy Coop, 95.

24 Horsman, J. B., A history of Hope Congregational church, Wigan, 1812–1962, Wigan 1962 Google Scholar.

25 BMH, 1 Apr. 1968.

26 The 1869 Wigan Directory, 1–37, published J. Worral, Blackburn 1969, repr. 1983 by N. Richardson, Swinton.

27 CA, 1883, 85.

28 Ibid. 1883, 366.

29 See Wigan Directory, 18.

30 CA, 1883, 347.

31 Ibid. 1883, 85, 527.

32 See Ambler, R. W., Ranters, revivalists and reformers: Primitive Methodism and rural society, south Lincolnshire, 1817–1875, Hull 1989 Google Scholar, and Moore, Pit-men.

33 PB, 1911–39.

34 Ibid. 29 Apr. 1923.

35 Ibid. 16 June 1912, 12 Apr. 1914.

36 Ibid. 1 Feb. 1914.

37 CA, Oct. 1976, obituary.

38 PB, 14 Jan. 1914…

39 CA, 26 July 1963.

40 Challinor, Lancashire and Cheshire miners, 164.

41 CA, 1883, 347.

42 Annotated photograph, Albert Street and interview with Harry Ackers.

43 PB, 16 July 1922.

44 Ibid. 8 Mar. 1914.

45 CA, 1883, 347.

46 PB, 11 Mar. 1923, 1 July 1934.

47 BA, 24 July 1908.

48 Ibid. 18 Aug. 1899. Harry Ackers recalls a very similar Sunday School outing at Albert Street a decade or so later.

49 Ibid. 5 Sept. 1902.

50 K. Marx: selected writing in sociology and social philosophy, ed. T. B. Bottomore and M. Rubel, Harmondsworth 1976, 41.

51 BA, 12 Jan. 1900.

52 See Lancaster, , Radicalism, 142 Google Scholar, for Mann and Taylor. The former wrote an interesting autobiographical account of his co-operative endeavours: A. Mann, Democracy in industry: the story of twenty-one years’ work of the Leicester Anchor Boot and Shoe Productive Society Limited, Leicester 1914. His obituary is in the CA, 19 Jan. 1940. See also Peter Ackers’s entry for W. T. Miller in The Dictionary of Labour Biography, ix, Oxford 1993, 215–19, and the entries for Mann and Fleming in vol. i, 1972 (Parkinson and Taylor will appear in vol. x). Parkinson’s obituary is in the Wigan Observer, 2 Feb. 1929.

53 PB, 11 April 1923 and 27 June 1926. Thompson comments, ‘Perhaps part of the appeal of the Temperance question was that it posited a solution to social and economic problems which did not involve any criticism of the economic structure of society’: Sects and parties, 125.

54 See Ackers, Peter, ‘Who speaks for the Christians? The Great War conscientious objection movement in the Churches of Christ: a view from the Wigan coalfield’, Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society v (1993), 153–66 Google Scholar.

55 PB, 29 Aug. 1920, 26 Feb. 1922, 4 Feb. 1934. By comparison, the Minutes of the Humber stone Garden Christian Meeting House (1909–1945), led by the two radical co-operators, Mann and Taylor, which cover the same period, contain few political statements.

56 PB, 14 May 1921, 4 Oct. 1914, 2 Apr. 1916, 14 Aug. 1927, 30 June 1912, 1 May 1933.

57 Ibid. 29 Nov. 1931, 13, 20 June, 9 Dec. 1926.

58 Churches of Christ Yearbook 1932. Due to the emphasis on the closed Sunday morning communion service, membership figures are probably fairly precise, especially for the earlier, more sectarian period. Sunday School figures were also published, but the more casual attendance of non-members at open evening gospel meetings and other church activities is harder to gauge.

59 Portrait and biographical sketch of James Marsden J.P., 1841–1927, Wigan 1927, 1.

60 Moore, Timothy Coop, 281.

61 Thompson, Sects and parties, 82–5.

62 Crook and Robinson, Churches of Christ, 7.

63 R. K. Crook, ‘Mr James Marsden: biographical’, CA, 11 Mar. 1927, 155–6.

64 Portrait and biographical sketch, 2.

65 Ibid.

66 Thompson, Sects and parties, 63.

67 Billington, ‘Churches of Christ’, 30. However, Leicester businessmen did dominate particular chapels, as when, in 1887, the boot and shoe manufacturer Benjamin Toone built the South Wigston Church: see Hammond, ‘The ten churches’, 452.

68 Crook and Robinson, Churches of Christ, 8.

69 Crook, ‘James Marsden’, 156.

70 Rodney Street Chapel Deeds.

71 CA, 30 Jan. 1953, obituary.

72 See Horsman, Hope Congregational church 131–4.

73 Crook and Robinson, Churches of Christ, 8. The experience of the Leicester ‘mother church’ shows that the pre-eminence of the town-centre chapel was not assured. Crafton Street, founded in 1865, had 266 members in 1907 (compared to Rodney Street’s 256). However, due to changes in its urban setting, it had become by 1929 ‘a down-town church’ with a membership of only 82 (compared to Rodney Street’s 531). See Waterton and Waterton, ‘Churches of Christ’, 8, and Hammond, The ten churches’, 452.

74 See the sociological analysis in B. R. Wilson, Sects and society, and Patterns of sectarianism. At a national level, the British Churches of Christ followed a classic sect-to- denomination development, leading to merger with mainstream Nonconformity in the form of the United Reformed Church. However, a substantial minority dissented from this movement at different periods in this century, particularly through the ‘old paths’ movement, and at the grassroots the picture was far more complex. For instance, of the Wigan chapels discussed here only Rodney Street joined the United Reformed Church. If the predominant trend in the Churches of Christ was to ‘open up’, Wilson’s earlier study shows how the Christadelphians, whose movement originated in the early Churches of Christ, followed an alternative ‘closed’ path, as did sections of the Churches themselves. Individual congregations often negotiated their own balance between the two dynamics.

75 See Appendix II.

76 A.B. Barton, Discovering chapels and meeting houses, Princes Risborough 1990, 21; Peter Ackers, ‘Churches of Christ in the Wigan area’, Chapel Society Newsletter iv (1991), 44–5.

77 Gilbert, Religion and society, 198–203.

78 Quoted in Thompson, Sects and parties, 125.

79 Interviews with members of the Miller family.

80 See United Reformed Church Act, 1981.

81 Interview with Elsie Armstrong.

82 See the discussion in Thompson, Sects and parties, 134–41.

83 PB, 4 Apr. 1920, 18 Aug. 1921, 16 Apr. 1924, 6 June, 14 Aug. 1927. Clearly in some Nonconformist circles there were links between theological liberalism and Labour political sympathies. Among the working-class members of the Churches of Christ, however, a measure of political radicalism and theological fundamentalism seem to have gone hand- in-hand. This was true of W. T. Miller, the Wigan subject of Ackers’s ‘Christian brother, union brethren’, and J. T. Taylor, Leicester socialist and co-operator, who on 14 Oct. 1928 moved, unsuccessfully, ‘That owing to the decision of the Annual Meeting again to have American preachers, who believed in open communion, come and preach in this country for the Churches, we sever our connection with the co-operation’: Humberstone Church Minutes (see above n. 11).

84 Thompson, Sects and parties’, 121.

85 PB, 8 Sept. 1939. Issues such as instrumental music also preoccupied the Humberstone brethren during the inter-war years: Humberstone Church Minutes, 28 Jan. 1934.

86 PB, 13 July 1930, 26 Dec. 1911, 7 Nov. 1915, 14 Oct. 1934.

87 Crook and Robinson affirmed in 1941 that ‘this Church has ever stood for the priesthood of all believers’: Churches of Christ, 12.

88 Thompson, Sects and parties, 128–34.

89 PB, 30 Apr., 8 Oct. 1922, 7 Apr., 21 June 1925.

90 Ibid. 16 Sept. 1934. 322

91 Ibid. 6 Feb. 1916, 11 Apr. 1923, 13 July 1930, 1 May 1933, 4 Mar. 1934.

92 Ibid. 4 Feb. 1934. A point mentioned in several of the Wigan interviews.

93 See Gilbert, Religion and society, 206–7.

94 For this type of explanation see Moore, Pitmen, and R. Colls, ‘Primitive Methodism in the northern coalfield’, in J. Obelkevich, L. Roper and R. Samuel (eds), Disciplines of faith: studies in religion, politics and patriarchy, London 1987, 323–34.

95 See Hobsbawm, E.J., ‘The Labour sects’, in his Primitive rebels: studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Manchester 1971, 126–49 Google Scholar, and Joyce, Work, society and politics, 134–57.

96 Thompson, Sects and parties, 53.

97 Colls, Primitive Methodism, 333.

98 See McLeod, Religion and the working-class, 44–56, and Thompson, E. P., ‘On history, sociology and historical relevance’, British Journal of Sociology xxvii (1976), 387–402 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 G. Miller, undated letter, c. 1966, to Chapel Building Committee.