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Idealism and Association in Early Nineteenth Century Dissent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Deryck Lovegrove
Deryck Lovegrove*
Affiliation:
St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews
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Extract

In April 1799 Francis Wollaston, rector of Chislehurst, published a pamphlet warning his parishioners and the public at large of the activities of certain seditious societies whose purpose was that of disseminating Jacobin principles; ideas already responsible for plunging France into chaos. His enquiries, he announced, had confirmed his worst suspicions:

The parties who so kindly, and out of pretended benevolence undertake to instruct my people for me, are members of a society, calling itself the Union Society of Greenwich: the same, as I am informed, which under the name of an Itinerant Society, had been driven from a public-house in that neighbourhood some little time since.

Wollaston’s message, an ecclesiastical variant of the more general concern to engage in active defence of the established order, received its definitive form the following year at the hands of Bishop Samuel Horsley. In an important passage in his second visitation charge to the clergy of Rochester diocese the bishop referred to the emergence of an ecclesiastical subculture consisting of religious conventicles, Sunday schools and itinerant preachers. In Horsley’s eyes these ecclesiastical excrescences were merely the outward manifestations of a more sinister and worrying development, the appearance of associations designed to defray the costs of the current spate of unauthorized ‘religious’ activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 23: Voluntary Religion , 1986 , pp. 303 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1986

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References

1 Wollaston, F., A country parson’s address to his flock, to caution them against being misled by the wolf in sheep’s cloathing, or receiving Jacobin teachers of sedition, who intrude themselves under the specious pretense of instructing youth and preaching Christianity (London 1799) p. 30.Google Scholar

2 Horsley, S., The charges of Samuel Horsley L.L.D., F.R.S., F.A.S., late Lord Bishop of St Asaph, delivered at his several visitations of the dioceses of St David’s, Rochester and St Asaph (London 1830) p. 104.Google Scholar

3 For the purposes of classification this paper will include Calvinistic Methodist bodies under this heading.

4 See Brown, F.K., Fathers of the Victorians. The Age of Wilberforce (London 1961) cap. 9; Heasman, K., Evangelicals in Action. An Appraisal of their Social Work in the Victorian Era (London 1962); Bradley, I., The Call to Seriousness. The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians (London 1976)Google Scholar cap 7.

5 Useful comments are made by: Nuttall, G.F., ‘Assembly and Association in Dissent, 1689-1831’, SCH 7 (1971) pp. 289–309; Ward, W.R., Religion and Society in England 1790-1850 (London 1972) pp. 48–50; Gilbert, A.D., Religion and Society in Industrial England. Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740-1914 (London 1976) pp. 55, 59, 117 & 190; and Sellers, I., Nineteenth-Century Nonconformity (London 1977) pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

6 See Van Den Berg, J., Constrained by Jesus’ Love. An Inquiry into the motives of the missionary awakening in Great Britain in the period between 1698 and 1815; (Kampen 1956); Warren, M., The Missionary Movement from Britain in Modern History (London 1965)Google Scholar caps 1 & 2.

7 The three latter societies are hereafter referred to as the Baptist Society, the Congregational Society and the Northern Evangelical Association.

8 Bedford County Record Office (CRO) MS Z 206/1 fol 1v.

9 A Circular Letter, from the associated ministers of the Gospel, in Hampshire, Convened at Andover, June 7, 1797 p. 5.

10 Steadman,, T. Memoir of the Rev. William Steadman, D.D. (London 1838) p. 200.Google Scholar

11 Burls, R., A Brief Review of the Plan and Operations of the Essex Congregational Union for Promoting the Knowledge of the Gospel in the County of Essex and its Vicinity (Maldon 1848) pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

12 Idle Academy Report for 1802-1806 pp. 3-4; Circular Letter from the Elders and Messengers of the several Baptist Churches of the Yorkshire and Lancashire Association assembled in Westgate, Bradford, May 24th and 25th, 1825 (Bradford 1825) p. 7.

13 London Baptist Union, Essex Baptist Association minutes 29 May 1821.

14 London Dr Williams’s Library (DWL), New College MS 58/1 minutes 15 Nov 1820. Compare with MS 60/1 minutes for 1828 passim.

15 London Baptist Missionary Society, MS Ue minutes 22 Oct 1807.

16 North Bucks Association of Independent Ministers and Churches Report for 1826 p. 11.

17 Essex CRO MS D/NC 9/1 minutes 7 Aug & 23 Oct 1798, 19 Mar 1799.

18 North Bucks Independent Association Reports for 1820 p. 14 & 1821 p. 20.

19 Rippon, J. ed Baptist Annual Register 4 vols (London 1790-1802) 1 p. 430.Google Scholar

20 Essex CRO MS D/NC 9/1 minutes 23 Oct 1798.

21 Burls, Brief Review p. 23.

22 The parent society of the Baptist academy which opened at Bradford in 1806.

23 Greatheed, S., General Union Recommended to Real Christians (London 1798) p. 17.Google Scholar

24 Hill, R., An Apology for Sunday Schools (London [1801]) pp. 42–43.Google Scholar

25 London DWL, New College MS 44 fol 2r.

26 North Bucks Independent Association Report for 1827 p. 30; London DWL, New College MS 41/72.

27 London Guildhall MS 3083 minutes 27 Dec 1805, 27 Feb 1807 & 25 Nov 1808.

28 Gilbert, Religion and Society p. 91.

29 Greatheed, General Union Recommended pp. 2 & 79.

30 Bedford CRO MS Z 206/1 fol 2r.

31 Baptist Society Plan p. 3. A copy of the plan is preserved in the society’s minutes, London BMS MS Ue.

32 Bull, F.W., ‘The Newport Pagnell Academy’ Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 4 (1909-10) pp. 305–319.Google Scholar

33 London DWL, New College MS57 Village Itinerancy minutes 4 Aug 1806.

34 London DWL, New College MS 122/1 minutes 25 Jan 1799; MS 124/1 minutes 30 May 1806 & 28 Aug 1807.

35 London DWL, New College MS 126/1 minutes 9 Jun 1797.

36 London Congregational Library MS li 35 minutes 16 Mar 1798.

37 London DWL, New College MS 56/1 minutes Oct 1816-May 1817.

38 London DWL, New College MS 126/1 minutes 6 Apr 1787, 12 Apr 1799 & 18 Apr 1800.

39 Bristol Education Society Report for 1815 pp. 62, 53 & 54.

40 Baptist Western Association Circular Letters 1797-1830, passim; Buckinghamshire Association of Baptist Churches Circular Letters for 1822 p. 13 & 1828 p. 13; North Bucks Independent Association Reports for 1821 & 1822.

41 Bristol Education Society Report for 1808 p. 11. The report erroneously ascribes the Christian name David to Kinghorn.

42 Idle Academy Reports for 1817 p. 6, 1818 p. 11, 1825; pp. 6-7 & 1829 p. 11.

43 Northamptonshire Association Circular Letter 1812 pp. 3-4.

44 London DWL, New College MS 124/1 minutes 27 Jan 1804.

45 Hoxton Academy Report for 1823 p. 5; North Bucks Independent Association Report for 1822 p. 20.

46 London Guildhall MS 3083 minutes 25 Jan 1799.

47 Baptist Magazine 10 (1818) pp. 157-8.

48 Baptist Society Plan p. 2; London Baptist Union, Essex Baptist Association minute book 1805-64, introductory notes.