Christian Warwick: A Portrait of Peace, 1694-1900

Bryan Morey

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Honors in History Hillsdale College

Spring 2016

Defense Committee:

Dr. Dave Stewart, advisor

Dr. Tom Conner

Dr. Korey Maas

Warw

ick, c.1900

A = Northgate Methodist B = St. Mary’s Collegiate Church (Anglican) C = Back Hill / Castle Hill Baptist D = St. Nicholas’ Church (Anglican)

C D

A

B

E

F

H G

E = Brook Street Chapel (Congregationalist) F = High Street Chapel / Unitarian Church G = Quaker Meeting House H = St. Mary Immaculate (Roman Catholic)

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Inter-church relationships in Warwick, England, during the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries differed from the standard religious narrative in Britain at the time. The national

picture, often influenced by the experiences of large cities such as London, Manchester, or

Birmingham, depicts a religiously divided nation. Warwick, however, did not experience great

tensions between the Dissenters and the Anglicans. In fact, at times, both sides cooperated and

demonstrated mutual respect. In addition to the general lack of tensions, Warwick differed from

the national narrative with regards to the rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism. Neither of those

movements played large roles in Warwick’s religious history, particularly in the eighteenth

century. Thus, Warwick’s relative peace and tolerance during the post-Restoration period

coupled with a relative isolation from the great religious movements of the day suggests a

remarkably different story than the typical narrative of English religious history after the

Restoration.

The town of Warwick is located in the Midlands of England and sits on the Avon River

several miles northeast of Stratford, William Shakespeare’s hometown. In 1694, a devastating

fire destroyed much of the old town center, forcing most of the community to rebuild. Thus, the

fire marked the beginning of a new era in Warwick’s history. Even after rebuilding, though the

county seat and the historic home of the Earls of Warwick, the town of Warwick paled in

comparison to many of the surrounding developed cities, such as Coventry and, later,

Birmingham. Warwick’s population remained small throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, with around 3,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the eighteenth century and around

5,600 in 1801. By 1891, the town had grown to almost 12,000 people. 1 The relative

unimportance of the town served to isolate it religiously from many of the movements of the age.

1 W. B. Stephens, ed., An Account of the Topography, Economy, Architecture, and Political and Religious Life of Coventry and the Borough of Warwick (London, 1969), 418.

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Thus, many of the tensions experienced in other parts of England did not emerge in Warwick,

and there is little to no indication of any violence related to religious confrontations apart from a

small anti-Catholic riot in the mid-nineteenth century. The only notable tensions emerged within

the congregations themselves. Even these tensions were not normal, for many of the Dissenting

congregations in Warwick experienced great longevity of ministers, some serving for forty years

or more. Generally, religious peace and tolerance marked Warwick from the Restoration period

through the closing of the nineteenth century.

Because of the relatively rural nature of Warwick, the town did not experience many of

the widespread religious movements of the day, such as Evangelicalism and Revivalism. While

there is evidence that these movements may have influenced some of the congregations, there is

no suggestion that the great revivals and evangelical gatherings so prominent in other parts of

England ever took place in Warwick. Even Methodism emerged very late in Warwick, after the

turn of the nineteenth century. The lack of heavy industrialization in Warwick is largely

responsible for the relative absence of these religious movements so prominent in more heavily

industrial areas. Warwick’s lack of large evangelical movements and its lack of religious

tensions distinguished the town from the common religious experience of England in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

While the terms “Dissenter” and “Nonconformist” are often interchangeable, their

general meanings changed over the course of the Restoration and Romantic periods. After the

Restoration of Charles II, Dissenter referred to anyone who would not submit to the Church of

England. According to Michael Watts, the term Nonconformist “was used in the reign of

Elizabeth of Puritans who were in communion with the Church of England but who declined to

conform to certain practices prescribed by the Prayer Book of 1559.” After 1662, when the

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Anglican Church ejected some 2,000 clergymen, Nonconformist came to refer to anyone

separated from the Church of England.2 In fact, the legal definition of “Dissenter” included

anyone that would not adhere to the Act of Uniformity of 1662.3 Primary documents from the

eighteenth century preferred the term “Dissenter,” while “Nonconformist” gained in popularity

as a synonym towards the end of the century and into the nineteenth century.4 Thus, the words

generally refer to the same groups of people, although the popularity of specific terms changed

over time.

The post-Restoration period marked a significant change in the way Anglicans,

Dissenters, and Roman Catholics related to each other. Dissenters gradually grew in influence

and importance as the eighteenth century progressed. However, the Dissenting groups did not

experience unity amongst themselves. These groups included the Baptists, Congregationalists,

Presbyterians, Quakers, and the Methodists. Roman Catholics did not factor into the designation

of “Dissenter” because, for much of the period, they could not worship freely. They did not

begin to enjoy the relative freedom that the Nonconformists enjoyed until the end of the

eighteenth century, at the earliest. The rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism in England in the

eighteenth century further complicated the relationships between the Dissenters and the

Anglicans. While Evangelicalism is typically seen as a low-church phenomenon, it actually

began in the Church of England. Furthermore, for most of his career as an evangelist, John

Wesley considered his Methodist movement an outgrowth of the Anglican Church, not a separate

entity. As revival spread across England, the Dissenting groups rapidly contributed their own

2 Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 1. 3 Judith J. Hurwich, “Dissent and Catholicism in English Society: A Study of Warwickshire, 1660-1720,” Journal of British Studies 16, no. 1 (Autumn, 1976): 25, accessed February 25, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/175283. 4 Richard J. Helmstadter, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed. D. G. Paz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 57.

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evangelical preachers, with the Methodist movement gaining its greatest strength by the middle

of the nineteenth century. Dissenting groups generally found stronger traction in areas neglected

by the Anglican Church because they reached out to the churchless. As the different

denominations fundamentally shifted their methods of outreach, internal tensions often cropped

up within congregations. However, due to the strength of evangelicalism and revivalism,

Nonconformity successfully appealed to many people throughout England in the nineteenth

century. Such success would likely have been impossible a century earlier.

Tolerance and Restriction: 1660-1715

The Restoration of Charles II on May 29, 1660, marked a definite change in the

relationship between the Church of England and Dissent. Tensions emerged between tolerance

and persecution of Dissent from the beginning of his reign. On April 4, 1660, in the Declaration

of Breda, Charles made several promises, including “liberty to tender consciences… that no man

shall be disquieted, or called in question, for differences of opinion in matters of religion which

do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.”5 From the very beginning of his reign, it seemed that

Charles would be religiously tolerant and possibly even open to Dissent. However, after a decade

of strict Puritan rule, Parliament pushed back against Charles’ toleration. Beginning in 1661,

Parliament started passing the Clarendon Acts, named after Charles’ Lord Chancellor, the Earl of

Clarendon, as a means of persecuting Dissenters. The Corporation Act of 1661 required all

“mayors, alderman, recorders, bailiffs, town-clerks, common council-men, and other persons

then bearing any office or offices of magistracy… take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy…”

The Act required them to promise not to take arms against the king or those “commissioned by

him.” It also required elected officials to have received “the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,

5 Charles II quoted in Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 221.

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according to the rites of the Church of England” at least once during the year preceding the

election.6 As a result of this Act, many Dissenters lost their jobs, while others were reelected just

so that they could be heavily fined.7 The Conventicle Act of 1664 forbade Dissenters from

worshipping in groups larger than five.8 The Test Act of 1673 required anyone working for the

government to take oaths of supremacy and allegiance, as well as to repudiate the doctrine of

transubstantiation.9 Clearly, Parliament designed this act to marginalize Catholics. Despite initial

hints of toleration from the King, the Restoration turned into a suppression of Dissenters, likely

as a response to the Good Old Cause.

One of the biggest blows to Dissenting ministers came with the Act of Uniformity. On St.

Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1662, the Act became law, requiring every clergyman,

schoolmaster, and fellow of a college to accept the Book of Common Prayer. The Act also

required ministers to receive episcopal ordination. This law immediately removed some 1,700

clergy from their positions. Interestingly, according to James Bradley, “For many Dissenters the

Act became a badge of honor and the touchstone of their self-understanding; it remained a major

cause of their unity and independence into the nineteenth century.” 10 While the Act of

Uniformity deprived many ministers of their livelihood, it ultimately unified Dissenters against

the Church of England. It became a point of agreement for them, which they carried for well

over a century.

By the end of Charles II’s reign, many Dissenters began to fear for their safety. Watts

commented, “Some Dissenters so despaired of obtaining redress for grievances by legal means

6 “The Corporation Act, 1661,” in Documents of the Christian Church, 4th ed., eds. Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 317-318. 7 Watts, 222-223. 8 “The Conventicle Act, 1664, revised 1670,” in Documents of the Christian Church, 318-320. 9 “The Test Act, 1673,” Ibid., 322-23. 10 James E. Bradley, Religion, Revolution, and English Radicalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 49.

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that they resorted to violence.” In 1683, for example, the Rye House plotters, comprising

Presbyterians, Baptists, and former Cromwellian officers, planned to kill Charles II and his

brother James. In 1685, many Dissenters supported the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion against

James II, even though the King faced the wrath of the established Church.11 The next year, James

exempted Roman Catholics from high office and established a commission to encourage the

Anglican Church to accept a pro-Catholic policy. Watts claimed that this move angered the

Anglicans, so James planned to unite “Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics against the

persecuting state church.”12 James responded by releasing many Dissenters from prison and by

suspending the penal laws and the Test Acts, which forbade non-Catholics from holding office.

Watts claimed that James’ toleration “broke the back of Anglican intolerance and made possible

the permanent toleration of Dissent once William of Orange had landed at Torbay and James

himself had fled to France.”13 James II’s short reign offered a clear example of the realities of

religious tensions and violence between the Church of England, Dissenters, and Roman

Catholics.

After the violence and religious chaos of James II’s reign, the new monarch, William and

Mary, pursued a policy of increased toleration and peace. The Glorious Revolution saw William

III urge Parliament to allow Dissenters to enter public service.14 In 1689, Parliament passed the

Act of Toleration, which, according to Bradley, allowed Dissenters to worship legally “if their

ministers subscribed to thirty-four of the Thirty-Nine Articles.” 15 Ultimately, the Act of

Toleration greatly influenced the eventual growth of Dissent in England. Because of William’s

influence, England experienced broad toleration by the close of the seventeenth century. Henry 11 Watts, 256. 12 Ibid., 257. 13 Ibid., 259. 14 Ibid., 260. 15 Bradley, 51-52.

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Clark commented, “But though the spirit of persecution was there, it was compelled to restrain

itself through William’s reign…”16 Tensions certainly remained, but England did not experience

the violence seen during the end of Charles II’s and James II’s reigns.

The legalization of Dissent defused many tensions. However, it is also important to

remember that the radical Dissenters around London, who likely influenced governmental

opinion of Dissent, did not accurately reflect Dissenting ministers in the rest of England. Bradley

commented, “The moderate radical ideology of the London Dissenting elite was not always

representative of Dissenting ministers in the provinces; several of the provincial Dissenters went

beyond the question of legal right to address the more probing issue of economic oppression and

social injustice.”17 Dissent never maintained a homogenous front against the Anglican Church,

so even though the London Dissenters fought for toleration of worship, some provincial

ministers pushed for other issues, such as social and economic reform. With these issues in mind,

it is not surprising that tensions persisted between the Anglicans and the Dissenters.

The advent of the eighteenth century saw a clear shift in policy from the toleration

William and Mary pursued. In the spring of 1702, Anne, daughter of James II and sister of Mary,

became Queen of England. Remarkably High Church, Anne’s reign featured rising hostility and

intolerance towards Dissenters and Catholics. Anne and her government acted upon their High

Church ideals from the very beginning of her reign. In December 1702, Parliament passed the

Occasional Conformity Bill, which required Dissenters to receive Communion occasionally

according to the rites of the Church of England. Clark explained, “A Nonconformist might attend

the Sacramental service at his parish Church just previous to an election for some municipal

office, so qualifying himself for holding the post if it were on him the electors’ choice should 16 Henry W. Clark, History of English Nonconformity Vol. II From the Restoration to the Close of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 142. 17 Bradley, 14.

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fall; and, once elected, he might never present himself again till his term expired.”18 The

Occasional Conformity Bill eliminated this loophole, and it assured the primacy of the Anglican

Church.

Anne bookended her reign with bills targeting Dissenters. While the 1702 Occasional

Conformity Bill required public officials to adhere to the Church of England, the “Schism Bill”

of 1714 required operators of schools and seminaries to sign a declaration of conformity to the

Anglican Church. It also required those operators to obtain a license to teach from the Bishop

certifying that the individual had partaken in Anglican rites within the previous year.19 This

restriction made it extremely difficult for Dissenters to train their own ministers or teach young

children. Anne’s reign did little to encourage the tolerance practiced during the rule of William

and Mary. The emergence of these restricting bills ultimately highlighted the weaknesses of the

1689 Act of Toleration, which arguably did very little for Dissenters.

As the eighteenth century opened, it became clear that toleration of Dissent would not be

the normal governmental policy. With the passing of the Occasional Uniformity Bill and the

Schism Bill, the weaknesses inherent in the Act of Toleration became clear. Alan Gilbert argued

that between 1689 and 1740, the Whig controlled government did not much care about religious

issues, which led to a weakening of religious practices. Furthermore, the Act of Toleration did

not give Dissenters true freedom. Gilbert wrote, “It had permitted certain categories of

Dissenters to worship outside the Establishment, but it had not relieved them of the civil

disabilities inherent in their nonconformity.” According to Gilbert, the Act of Toleration,

coupled with Parliament’s waning concern for religious issues, reduced overall interest in

religion in England. Gilbert commented, “The right of some to absent themselves from a parish

18 Ibid., 145-46. 19 Ibid., 152.

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church in favour of a dissenting chapel had been seen by others as a right to practise no religion

at all.”20 The lack of toleration granted by the Toleration Act resulted in reduced Nonconformist

strength, diminished overall spiritual strength, and lowered religious vitality in the early

eighteenth century.21 As Queen Anne’s reign came to a close, religious fervor in England

reached new lows, setting the stage for future revivalism.

Despite Anne’s policies regarding religious toleration, hints of leniency emerged with the

coming of the new King, George I. By the time of the Hanoverian accession, it started to become

clear that the tensions between toleration of Dissent and restriction of non-Anglican practice

would strongly depend upon the character of the monarch. Tensions boiled over in 1715 with

George I’s ascension of the Throne. Clark explained, “Oxford rioted in boisterous and extensive

style. Birmingham, Norwich, and many other places saw Nonconformist meeting-houses pulled

down, Nonconformist houses invaded, Nonconformist men and women insulted and even

injured, magistrates often unable or unwilling to secure safety or redress…”22 After suppressing

this rebellion, George I personally represented the case in court, and he argued that reparation

should be made to the injured Dissenters. The government responded to the violence with the

Riot Act of 1715. Bradley wrote, “The Riot Act of 1715 contained a clause that was designed to

protect the Dissenters’ chapels, and the government had made adjustments to the law in 1722 to

accommodate the Quakers’ antipathy toward oaths. Dissenters were always free to seek seats in

Parliament and a number roughly equal to their proportion of the population did so.”23

Interestingly, the riots ultimately did more to encourage toleration in England, despite the intent

20 Alan D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England Church, Chapel, and Social Change 1740-1914 (London: Longman, 1976), 10. 21 Clark, 172. 22 Ibid., 179. 23 Bradley, 57-58.

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of the rioters. The violence and injury enacted against the Dissenters in the riots of 1715 were

simply unacceptable to the King, and he responded by advocating for increased toleration.

Evangelicalism: The Eighteenth Century and Beyond

In addition to the King’s protection of Dissenters, much of the increased toleration of

Dissenters in the early eighteenth century can arguably be attributed to growing religious apathy

at the time. Some historians have argued that as Parliament’s interest in religious issues waned as

the century progressed, the public’s interest in religion declined. General public interest in

organized religion could also have influenced Parliament’s lack of concern for the Church as

well, but the decline of religious fervor in the eighteenth century is clear. As the apathy in the

Church of England increased, the Dissenting groups reacted to fill the religious void. It is

important to note that at this point in the early eighteenth century, Dissenters only represented

roughly six percent of the population.24 While their numbers remained small, the failures of the

Anglican Church created an opportunity for Dissent to expand. Overall, its response came in the

form of the Evangelical and Revivalist movements, which became the major religious

movements in England during the second half of the eighteenth century and much of the

nineteenth century.

Evangelical movements across England and North America all maintained central beliefs.

Theologically, many evangelical groups differed in their beliefs, but they shared certain general

features. Mark Noll argued that the Bible “remained a bedrock of authority.” Furthermore, Noll

added, “Evangelicals shared a conviction that true religion required the active experience of

God.” They also generally disliked inherited institutions, and the movement was “extraordinarily

flexible in relation to ideas concerning intellectual, political, social, and economic life.”

24 Watts, 3.

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Evangelicals also practiced discipline in many different forms. 25 According to Clark,

Evangelicals believed in the “doctrines of justification by faith and salvation through the

atonement wrought by Christ.” Furthermore, Evangelicals “felt that the Church of England

system did not in actual fact and practice give to these doctrines the prominence they

deserved…”26 In summation, evangelicalism emphasized biblicalism, conversions, activism, and

crucicentrism, or the centrality of Christ’s work on the cross.27

The religious mood in England had become very bleak by the 1750s, creating a need for

the Evangelical and Revivalist movements. Arthur Bryant argued, “After a century’s monopoly

of the loaves and fishes there was a good deal of pluralism, in cases amounting to downright

scandal, much neglect of church and parishioner, and a general atmosphere of comfortable

complacency.” This complacency created a vacuum for the Dissenting churches to fill. Bryant

further pointed out, “those whom the Church neglected, the rejected of the Church cared for. The

missionary journeys of the early Methodists among the pagan outcasts of industrial Britain did

God’s work where well-endowed complacency had failed.”28 The early evangelical and revivalist

movements reached the marginalized in an increasingly industrial society that featured immense

social change. As people moved from the country to the cities, the Dissenters adapted to meet

their needs while the Anglicans struggled to change.

After the Toleration Act, the Church of England struggled to remain relevant to the newly

industrialized nation in the eighteenth century. It became bogged down by its own traditions, but

Anglicans did make an effort to reform. In fact, revivalism in England actually began in the

25 Mark A. Noll, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, eds. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 129-30. 26 Clark, 240. 27 Noll, 6. 28 Arthur Bryant, Protestant Island (London: Collins, 1967), 98-99.

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Arminian Anglican Church, not in the Calvinist Dissenting churches. John Walsh argued that

Anglican clerical involvement in the leadership of early revivalism was the key to its early

success in England and Wales. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, believed

that successful reform needed to come from the Anglican Church because of its authority. Walsh

wrote, “Nonconformity, which could claim only a tiny proportion of the population, could hardly

have provided the leadership.”29 Wesley himself claimed to be Anglican most of his life,

although he allowed anyone to come to his revival meetings. Even though the Dissenters carried

the torch of reform and revival into the nineteenth century, they needed the Anglicans to begin

the movement.

The Dissenters took advantage of the Church of England’s reluctance to accept

evangelical ideas, and they embraced the revivalist movements. Walsh wrote, “The

Nonconformist denominations that had preserved the Puritan ‘doctrines of grace’ seemed at first

less capable of propagating them than priests of the ‘apostate’ Church of England, in which they

had been largely forgotten.”30 However, it proved too difficult to change the fundamental nature

of the established state Church. E. W. Martin said, “The Church of England is an organization in

which tradition plays a useful and at times obstructive rôle. It is a body that will not submit

easily to far-reaching changes.”31 Much like in the Roman Catholic Church, tradition stifled

creativity and reform in the Anglican Church. Walsh wrote, “Since the Toleration Act of 1689

the Church of England had lost its power to compel church attendance. Instead of coercing their

parishioners, the clergy had to persuade them… Population growth and incipient industrialization

29 John Walsh, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, eds. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 27-28. 30 Ibid., 22. 31 E. W. Martin, Where London Ends English Provincial Life after 1750 (London: Phoenix House LTD., 1958), 169.

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brought unwelcome migrants to some parishes, forming new, disorderly settlements on their

margins, not amenable to clerical control.”32 Indeed, the period from 1740-1830 saw a great

decline in the Anglican Church, which held a vast majority in 1740. By 1830, it risked becoming

a minority group.33 Due to the longstanding traditions of the Anglican Church, change came

slowly. The Dissenters took advantage of Church of England’s stagnancy and inability to reform.

Revivalism in England sought to reach people that had abandoned religion altogether,

either traditional Anglicanism or the churches of Dissent. English revival proved to be a long

slow process. By the end of his life, John Wesley believed that true revival would spread from

heart to heart and house to house.34 History proved Wesley right, as evangelical revival in

England advanced slowly over generations. That is not to say that England did not experience

great revival meetings, however. Preachers such as George Whitefield and John Wesley travelled

all over England teaching to unchurched and faithless people. Harry Stout commented,

“Whitefield rewrote the book on revivals and mass preaching. He combined itinerant ministry,

outdoor preaching, weekday sermons, and extemporaneous speech to produce religious

audiences and a level of religious enthusiasm without precedent in the English-speaking

ministry.”35 Revivals also sought to revitalize peoples’ faith, and Dissenters responded widely to

many of the early Methodist revivals. Through new teaching methods directed at those that fell

away from the church, early revivalism created a religious environment separate from the formal

churches.

32 Walsh, 25. 33 Gilbert, 27. 34 Ibid., 33 35 Harry S. Stout, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, eds. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 58.

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Despite the successes revivalism made under the new charismatic leaders, the movement

met stiff resistance from many in the established church and in the rural areas. Some traditional

clergymen believed the Methodists sought to revive the fanaticism of the Civil Wars. On top of

this, evangelicalism met resistance in the rural areas, particularly where local Anglican gentry or

nobility held strong influence. Walsh wrote that they “could intimidate their tenants or prevent

the sale of land for a chapel.”36 It is understandable that evangelicalism and revivalism met a

degree of resistance in the rural areas because the Anglican Church retained strength in those

places. As people moved to the big cities for industrial work, the Church of England lost their

influence with those populations, opening the door for revivals to reach.

While Revivalism met resistance in the countryside, it grew stronger in the urban areas of

England. This success spurred the growth of Nonconformity in general, particularly in urban

areas. Noll argued that the increase in evangelicalism occurred as a response to the French

Revolution. Prior to the Revolution, evangelicalism held a great deal of influence, but it never

dominated. Noll wrote, “The best estimate is that Anglicans outnumbered Nonconformists, most

of whom would have been evangelical, by a ratio of approximately five to two in 1800, but by

1850 there were roughly ten Nonconformists for every nine Anglicans, and that in a period when

a growing percentage of Anglicans were also evangelical.”37 The growth can easily be attributed

to the massive explosion in population during that fifty-year period. However, Noll also

attributed it directly to the French Revolution because, “Successful revolutions, by their nature,

destroy traditions.”38 As the evangelical movement exploded, Nonconformity also expanded

greatly. Alan Everitt attributed the growth of Nonconformity in the nineteenth century to the

success of Evangelicalism. He wrote, “The principal factor in the growth of Nonconformity in 36 Ibid., 32. 37 Noll, 123. 38 Ibid., 130.

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the century preceding 1851 had been the Evangelical Awakening. The Methodists… owed their

origin to the Awakening, and by 1851 they were almost everywhere the most numerous

Dissenting body.”39 Regardless of the ultimate causation, Evangelicalism and Nonconformity

expanded rapidly in the first half of the nineteenth century, along with the population in general.

As their numbers grew, so did their influence.

National Tolerance in the Nineteenth Century

As England entered the nineteenth century, lingering tensions between the Church of

England and the Dissenters re-emerged. In fact, the outbreak of the French Revolution, which

later spurred the growth of Nonconformity, initially increased tensions. Most significantly, the

Revolution dashed any hopes of an immediate repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.40 The

ideas of the French Revolution proved to be too dangerous to allow increased toleration of

minority opinions. As a response against Dissent, violence broke out in the city of Birmingham

on July 14, 1791. Rioters began attacking Dissenting meeting houses, and they burned and looted

the homes of prominent Dissenters for three days. Watts wrote, “The Birmingham riots were

symbolic of the eclipse of rational Dissent. Its leaders were passing away and its meetings

declining.”41 As the period of revivalism, marked by religious excitement and enthusiasm, came

to an end, the violent anti-Dissent opinion in England slowly re-emerged. Despite advancements

in toleration and reform, the conflicts of a century earlier remained a powerful force in England.

The nineteenth century became a period of rapid social, political, economic, and religious

change in England. With rapid change came increased religious stress throughout the country. D.

G. Paz described the nineteenth century in England as, “a time of tension between central

39 Alan M. Everitt, The Pattern of Rural Dissent: The Nineteenth Century (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1972), 16. 40 Watts, 482. 41 Ibid., 487.

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tendencies and local independence, between nation and region, between metropolitan and

provincial cultures.” However, despite these tensions, England developed a sense of unity

through a general religious identity. Paz argued, “Religious identity also was made during the

nineteenth century. That process took the direction of constructing the denomination: an identity

that transcended the family, congregation, or community and that was expressed in institutional

forms.” This process paralleled the growing “British” identity.42 More and more, people became

associated with their specific denomination, rather than as Conformist, Dissenter, or Roman

Catholic.

Reacting to changing demographics became the biggest challenge for religious groups in

the nineteenth century. The population of England doubled between 1801 and 1851. Not

surprisingly, religious groups correspondingly grew rapidly, with Nonconformity increasing by a

factor of five.43 The Anglican Church, which experienced declining membership for almost a

century, began to grow again in the 1830s. While the number of Anglican Churches in 1831

differed little from the number in 1801, the number of churches expanded rapidly in the

following decades. In 1831, there were roughly 12,000 Anglican churches and chapels in

England. By 1851, that number had grown to over 14,000, and by 1901 it surpassed 17,000.44

However, the Anglican Church did not succeed in winning over a majority of industrial workers,

according to the Census of Religious Worship of 1851, due largely to its failure to expand in the

industrial areas.45 The early nineteenth century found few Anglican bishops in the areas that

needed them most. There were no bishops in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, or Leeds,

42 D. G. Paz, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed. D. G. Paz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), ix. 43 Helmstadter, 69. 44 Gilbert, 28-29. 45 John Wolffe, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed. D. G. Paz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 21.

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even though those industrial centers expanded rapidly. 46 The Nonconformist groups took

advantage of this opportunity, and they courted the industrial workers.

The repeal of many anti-Dissenting Acts secured Nonconformity’s place in the English

religious picture and made it a significant rival to the Anglican Church, particularly in industrial

areas. While Nonconformists lobbied for a repeal of the Acts towards the end of the eighteenth

century, the French Revolution and its aftermath made that goal impossible in the short run. In

1812, after relatively little debate in both Houses, Parliament repealed the Five Mile and

Conventicle Acts. Parliament also lifted the requirement of Quakers to take certain oaths

required by the Toleration Act. In 1820, however, resistance in Parliament to Nonconformity re-

emerged with a proposed bill to limit Nonconformist teaching and schools.47 While the bill did

not pass, its proposal suggests that religious tensions still played a very real role in English

politics. As Parliament slowly repealed the anti-Dissenting Acts, religious struggles continued.

Despite some resistance to toleration of Dissent, Parliament continued repealing

restrictive acts. In 1828, Parliament repealed the Test and Corporation Acts. This Nonconformist

triumph paved the way for Catholic emancipation the following year. With the passing of these

bills, Clark wrote, “direct penalties for Nonconformity passed away. Toleration was complete.

The laws which punished Nonconformity as Nonconformity were torn up and cast away.”48 With

official legalization, true tolerance and acceptance could begin in England.

Now that Nonconformity could expand legally, the Anglican Church needed to decide

how to reach the growing populations in the industrial centers. In June 1832, they established the

Ecclesiastical Revenues Commission to address the lack of churches in industrial areas. This

commission experienced poor results at first, and, by the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, it 46 Martin, 160-61. 47 Clark, 301-305. 48 Ibid., 305-308.

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started to become clear that the Anglican Church lost its once powerful hold over religion in

England. Nonconformity quickly took advantage of the masses of people open to new churches.

As the nineteenth century marched on, Nonconformity grew in influence at the expense

of the Church of England. While the local parish Church still held a great deal of influence in

many villages at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, nationally the Church did not wield its

former influence. Bryant commented, “Pluralism, though recently abolished by ecclesiastical

reformers, had long accustomed country folk to the spectacle of neglected churches, perfunctory

services and clergymen who seemed more interested in foxes and sometimes in the bottle than

the cure of souls.” Bryant continued, “Christian zeal among humbler folk was by 1840 more

often to be found among the Methodists and in the Baptist and Independent congregations of the

older nonconformity. Of a somewhat primitive and uncritical kind… it had a stimulating effect

on the Establishment, provoking a strong rivalry between ‘Church and King’ and ‘Dissent.’”49

Indeed, this rivalry stirred some Anglicans to reform. Specifically, John Wesley’s message

influenced some Anglicans to launch the Oxford Movement in 1833.50 Anglicanism weakened

over the course of the century, largely due to influences from industrial centers and hypocrisy on

the part of many bishops and priests, but the evangelical and revival movements still managed to

stir Anglican hearts and minds.

As the century progressed, Nonconformity became an increasingly urban phenomenon,

which influenced its shift in organizational structure, political actions, and doctrinal stances. Ian

Sellers argued that the urban development of Nonconformity connected closely with the

increasing centralization of denominational leadership. He wrote, “Amongst Congregationalists

and Baptists this is particularly marked, as loose federations of Independent churches were

49 Bryant, 231-32. 50 Martin, 161.

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transformed into the provincial arms of burgeoning denominational bureaucracies.” 51 The

nineteenth century also saw a fundamental shift in Nonconformist thought. While once highly

political, after the French Revolution, Nonconformity generally avoided politics. Sellers wrote,

“the new evangelism tended to be a-political, again in sharp contrast to the Old Dissent which

had been roused to fervor over the redress of grievances and the French Revolution, and had

borne the brunt of anti-Jacobin reaction.”52 In addition to a rejection of politics, Nonconformity

also dramatically shifted its overall theological position. While previously strongly orthodox and

Calvinistic, Nonconformity gradually shifted to more Arminian doctrine as the nineteenth

century progressed. This change directly influenced church structures. Sellers wrote, “The

church covenant, the foundation deed of Independent Churches, was now seen to be cast in an

uncomfortably Calvinistic mould and so was set aside or conveniently forgotten.” 53 The

hierarchy of the Nonconformist church was fundamentally connected to its Calvinistic theology,

and when the people rejected that, the structure collapsed.

As doctrine changed, many scholars began accepting growing theological liberalism.

Beginning in the 1840s and quickening after 1880, many Nonconformist theologians embraced

higher criticism, which saw the Bible not as divinely inspired truth, but as a collection of stories

and lessons not written by their supposed authors. Once they moved down that path, they

abandoned the supposed bedrock of their faith, the Inerrancy of Scripture.54 This new theology

fundamentally changed the nature of Nonconformity because it no longer strongly differentiated

itself from the Church of England. The Second Evangelical Awakening, from 1859 to 1865,

revitalized Nonconformity for a short while. Sellers wrote, “it was in these years that

51 Ian Sellers, Nineteenth-Century Nonconformity (London: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1977), 11. 52 Ibid., 3. 53 Ibid., 23. 54 Ibid., 25.

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Nonconformity made an heroic and not unsuccessful effort to establish itself in an urban setting,

to strike roots deep enough to secure it a significant place in the evolving self-consciousness of

the urban masses.”55 This temporary re-energizing of Nonconformity brought more people into

the fold but had little lasting impact.

The Dissenters: Specific Differences

It is important to remember that Nonconformists, while often considered homogenous,

never acted uniformly. However, they did not isolate themselves from each other and the rest of

society. Nonconformists played an interesting balancing act between living lives as good

Englishmen and resisting each other and the Anglican Church. Malcolm Wanklyn pointed out

that Dissenters in the post-Restoration period widely participated in their local and extended

economic communities. He wrote, “The Corporation Acts were largely disregarded places where

[Dissenters] dominated the urban economy. Recent study of parish registers for demographic

purposes has revealed, incidentally, that moderate nonconformists used religious rites of passage

offered by the Established Church, such as baptism and burial, if these did not require them to

compromise their beliefs.”56 As further research into Dissent is conducted, it appears that many

parts of England differed from the standard picture of religious tension and violence at the time,

and Dissenting groups differed throughout England in how they reacted to the Anglican Church.

They certainly did not organize themselves into a unified whole. Each major group maintained

its distinctions, however subtle or prominent.

Baptists

The Baptists in England always embraced a Low Church approach to organization, and

they valued their separation from other Dissenting groups. The doctrine from which they derived 55 Ibid., 31. 56 Malcolm Wanklyn, English Catholics of Parish and Town 1558-1778, ed. Marie B. Rowlands (London: The Catholic Record Society, 1999), 210-11.

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their name proved to be more important than their identity as Dissenters. Even in their own

theological beliefs, Baptists divided between Arminianism and Calvinism, a common split within

Nonconformist groups.57 Some preferred a stricter interpretation of the Bible. Sellers said that

the Baptists “relied on a cruder, more uncompromising evangel and a more direct appeal to a

lower social strata, in town and countryside alike.” Despite their strict theological construction,

they managed to shift their approach in the nineteenth century to appeal to more people through

“fervent exhortation rather than intellectual argument.”58 Hurwich explained that the Baptists

“set up voluntary churches based on a radical interpretation of the priesthood of all believers, and

carried the repudiation of ritual to its logical extreme.”59 The Baptists lacked strong hierarchy,

and thus they never maintained a large central organizational structure. This fact kept the

Baptists churches relatively isolated from each other over the years.

Congregationalists

Congregational churches, sometimes called “Independents,” featured slightly more

hierarchy than the Baptist churches, and they participated more fully in Evangelicalism and

Revivalism. They rejected the rigid organization of the Anglican Church, favoring autonomous

local congregations. Doctrinally, they shared much in common with the Presbyterians.60 Despite

the lack of structure, the Congregationalists succeeded in using Revivals to gain new members,

but they went about their own evangelization in a unique manner. While they had travelling

preachers and evangelists, they focused on establishing their presence, according to Sellers, “on

the edge of towns with a view of providing a nucleus of worshippers in the event of future

57 Ernest Gordon Rupp, Oxford History of the Christian Church Religion in England 1688-1791, eds. Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 129. 58 Sellers, 1-2. 59 Hurwich, Study of Warwickshire, 25. 60 Ibid.

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suburban expansion.”61 Overall, the Independent churches featured a more forward thinking

strategy in the realm of expansion than other groups such as the Baptists or even the Methodists.

Their local focus allowed individual churches to adapt to their surroundings.

Quakers

From their inception under founder George Fox, the Society of Friends, or Quakers,

always found themselves on the fringe of Dissent. They practiced and lived differently, and they

recognized their uniqueness. Rupp wrote on Fox, who lived from 1624 to 1691, “He found no

relief from spiritual hunger from either the clergy of the Established Church or the ministers of

the gathered churches.”62 In fact, Fox loathed the established church so much that in his journal

he compared the church bell to a market calling people “together that the priest might set forth

his ware to sell.” Contrarily, Fox “reaffirmed the Christian message as one of reconciliation,

forgiveness, and peace.”63 Doctrinally, the Quakers remained rather simple. Rupp described,

“From the doctrine of the Word and of the Spirit the Quakers turned to the more congenial image

of a divine seed, implanted and growing within the soul.”64 As time passed, the Quakers

understood that they differed from other religious groups. They embraced their differences

through unusual ways of speaking and dress, and they avoided politics.65 Sellers said that they

“clung to their habits of dress and speech as a barrier against the world, and to the ‘inner light’ as

their peculiar tenet.”66 Since they could not attend University or join the army, legal profession,

or work in government, many Quakers directed their talents into industry and trade. Some traded

in wool, while others invented gadgets or pioneered in other industries. Some even became

61 Sellers, 1. 62 Rupp, 138. 63 Ibid., 140. 64 Rupp, 145. 65 Webb, 85. 66 Sellers, 5.

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important bankers. Despite their uniqueness and pressure from the government, the Quakers

managed to survive and succeed in England.

Methodism

Of all the major Dissenting groups active in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none

is more studied than Methodism and its founder, John Wesley. Part of the reason this movement

is so vastly studied is the nature of the denomination. It is centrally organized, making collection

of sources and research relatively easy. On top of that, Methodism became one of the most

interesting and influential movements of the eighteenth century, and its growth in the nineteenth

century surprised many. Dr. Robert Currie wrote on the growth of Methodism, “whilst the older

dissent generally grew strong where the Church of England was strong, deriving (at least

historically) much of its membership directly from the Church of England, Methodism grew

strong where the Church of England was weak, and recruited from those sections of the

population that Anglicanism failed to reach.”67 Everitt argued that Methodism changed its

approach in the rural areas. He wrote, “The stronghold of rural Methodism, by contrast, was

principally in areas where parish churches were relatively numerous…” 68 However,

Methodism’s strongest influence was always in the industrial centers, where the Anglican

Church struggled to reorganize to accommodate the growing number of workers.

The importance of John Wesley within the Methodist denomination cannot be overstated.

Interestingly, Wesley himself never rejected the Church of England, considering the Methodist

movement to be an outgrowth of the state church. It is clear, however, that the movements of

Evangelicalism and Revivalism greatly influenced Wesley. Wesley, a man of endless energy, is

said to have travelled 225,000 miles and preached over 40,000 sermons in his lifetime, some to

67 Dr. Robert Currie, quoted in Everitt, 10. 68 Everitt, 11.

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crowds of over 20,000 people. His lifestyle and his Arminian beliefs meant that he was a lonely,

solitary man. 69 His individualistic and Arminian perspective greatly influenced the development

of Methodism and its rejection of Calvinism. The emphasis on religious experience became the

most important contribution of Wesley and other evangelists to Christianity in England. On

Wesley and revivalist preachers, Ronald Knox commented, “The England which weathered the

excitements and disappointments of the early nineteenth century was committed to a religion of

experience; you did not base your hopes on this or that doctrinal calculation; you knew.”70 The

evangelism of Wesley and others like him transformed English Christianity into an emotional

and experiential religion.

Many Anglican clergy rejected Wesley because they did not understand him, particularly

in the early days. The first Methodist chapel opened in Bristol in 1739, and even in 1750, only

around eight Anglican clergymen supported Wesley. However, by 1788, around 500 clergymen

supported him, with over 350 Methodist meeting houses established. This rapid growth can

partly be attributed to Methodism’s outreach to the poor and neglected. Martin described the

poor at the time as being “in a state of stupor and pointless barbarity. These untouchables of the

age had few to stand by them.”71 Wesley’s message offered hope to those people. At first those

people approached his sermons suspiciously, but his eloquent and passionate sermons quickly

touched their hearts. Total Methodist membership grew from just over 22,000 people in 1767 to

almost 300,000 in 1831. By 1861, that number grew to over 500,000 members, around 4.1% of

the adult population of England.72 These numbers only reflected official church members,

69 Ronald A. Knox, Enthusiasm A Chapter in the History of Religion (1950; repr., South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 423, 457. 70 Ibid., 547. 71 Martin, 152. 72 Gilbert, 31-32. “Total” membership includes all divisions of Methodism.

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meaning the number of regular church attenders was likely much higher. The Methodist message

of hope connected widely with people in industrial England.

The Catholic Question

Of all the non-Anglican groups in England, the Roman Catholics received the most

hatred and persecution. Because the Toleration Act of 1689 did not apply to Catholics, most

Catholics in England remained unorganized throughout the eighteenth century. Catholics tended

to be scattered across England randomly, often centered on wealthy Catholic landowners. Marie

Rowlands commented:

In an age when property meant power, [Catholic nobility] were denied the right to govern at both the national and local level; they married and socialised among themselves as the best means of preserving the faith; and they were fearful that any action on their own part, or on the part of others, would lead to further restrictive measures by the state and violence from mobs acting in the name of patriotism and/or Protestantism.73

Thus, the continuance of the religion can be attributed to the strength of landed gentry and

nobility. Since England remained a missionary country during the eighteenth century, there were

no formal Catholic parishes. Usually, the bishops directly appointed priests, and those priests

rarely visited smaller communities. In fact, it was never guaranteed that Catholics would hear

mass every week.74 The only way Catholicism survived in the rural areas, then, was through the

efforts of wealthy Catholic landowners, who kept the religion alive on their estates.75 Throughout

most of the nineteenth century, Catholicism remained very limited and particularly rural.

While Catholicism survived in England largely due to the influence of Catholic gentry

and noblemen, Papists, as they were then called, came from a variety of backgrounds. The

common misconception about English Catholics is that they were all gentry, when in actuality,

73 Marie B. Rowlands, English Catholics of Parish and Town 1558-1778, ed. Marie B. Rowlands (London: The Catholic Record Society, 1999), 3. 74 Ibid., 265, 268. 75 Ibid., 287-89.

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everyone from street peddlers and yeomen to sea captains, merchants, house servants, and

blacksmiths populated the Catholic ranks. Papist records from 1767 recorded over 66,000

Catholics in England, suggesting that the majority of English Catholics came from lower social

orders. As toleration increased over time, the relationship between Catholics changed. John

Bossy wrote, “In 1770 the [Catholic] community was still dominated by its secular aristocracy;

in 1850 it was dominated by its clergy.” The importance of the gentry in Catholic life diminished

in the nineteenth century because their protection was no longer needed. Furthermore, the power

of the Catholic gentry reduced because many people started moving to the cities for industrial

work.76 Catholic congregations varied widely throughout England, and as the times changed,

poorer Catholics no longer needed support from the noblemen to survive.

In 1778, Parliament passed the first bill offering any sort of relief to Papists. The next

year, Scottish Presbyterians responded by rioting in Glasgow and Edinburgh, suggesting that

serious tensions remained. A petition to repeal this relief bill circulated, culminating in the six

day Gordon riots in London in early June of 1780. However, these riots did not deter Catholics

from pursuing toleration, and public resistance to their faith began to wane. In 1791, Parliament

passed the Catholic Dissenters’ Relief Bill granting them more privileges.77 The bill required

“Protesting Catholic Dissenters” to promise their full allegiance to the monarch and to reject any

claims to the throne by descendants of James II. The bill also required Catholics to reject any

foreign allegiances to any type of ruler, including the Pope.78 The native English Catholics

embraced this freedom and relief offered by Parliament. Unfortunately for them, however, the

76 John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975), 323, 327. 77 J. H. Hexter, “The Protestant Revival and the Catholic Question in England, 1778-1829,” Journal of Modern History 8, no. 3 (Sept., 1936): 297-98, 300, 78 “Heads of a Bill for relief of Catholics, 1791,” Warwickshire County Records Office [WCRO] CR 1998 Gate Box Folder 1/3.

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wars of the French Revolution delayed any further action towards toleration for several decades.

However, toleration increased gradually over the next thirty years, which ultimately led to the

Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. This act repealed all requirements that oaths be taken

rejecting doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church if one wanted to serve in a government

position. Catholics could become Members of Parliament, and they could vote in elections.79

With this Act, Catholics gained full legal status in England.

Despite acquiring freedom under the law, tensions between Catholics and Protestants

remained. The 1850s in particular experienced an increase in anti-Catholicism, due in part to the

Pope’s attempt to regain more control over the English Catholic Church through the

reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy and his appointment of Cardinal Wiseman to the

Archbishopric of Westminster. Riots broke out in various cities in England because they saw the

Pope’s action as an “insult offered to the Church and State of England by the intolerable pride

and tyranny of a foreign prince and potentate, who neither hath, nor ought to have, any

jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this

realm, but who has lately established.”80 The Pope’s actions stirred up severe anti-Catholic

sentiment in the 1850s. Even though the Catholics received legal religious freedom, it took them

a very long time to achieve widespread cultural and societal freedom from persecution.

Warwick: A Local Portrait

The town of Warwick offers a different picture of religious experience in eighteenth and

nineteenth century England than the generally accepted national narrative, which is highly

influenced by the large industrial centers. Warwick avoided the rapid industrialism of the

nineteenth century, despite its location on the Avon River. Most major industrial development

79 Catholic Emancipation Act, 1829, WCRO QS 60. 80 Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser and Leamington Gazette, November 9, 1850.

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occurred north of Warwick, in Birmingham and Coventry. Thus, in avoiding much of the social

change of the period, Warwick also avoided the deep religious tensions between the Church of

England and the various Dissenting groups. In fact, Warwick remained quite tranquil throughout

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, apart from a single anti-Catholic incident in 1850. None

of the violence and persecution of Dissent seen elsewhere in England occurred in sleepy

Warwick. Furthermore, the rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism also seems to have passed

Warwick. While the effects of those movements indirectly affected the town, revivals never

occurred there. Warwick’s religious experience differed rather substantially from much of

England.

The Anglican Standard

The Church of England has a long history in Warwick, with the original Collegiate

Church of St. Mary’s dating back to Norman times. The Anglican Church also established an

additional parish in the mid-eighteenth century, based in St. Nicholas’ Church. St. Paul’s Church,

established in 1844, was added to support Warwick’s growing population. The majority of

records for St. Mary’s for several years after the Great Fire of 1694 dealt with the rebuilding of

the Church. After the fire, only the chancel, crypt, and Beauchamp Chapel remained. The

reconstructed Church offers a fine example of early eighteenth century architecture. Overall,

these churches got along fairly well with the extended community, and there is very little

evidence of internal or external dissension.

Theologically, the Anglican Churches of Warwick appeared to match the general tenor of

the rest of England at the time. This is unsurprising since these churches were established state

churches. In the eighteenth century, the local documents reflected a more traditional sense of

theology, while the nineteenth century sermons reflected a growing evangelical influence. In an

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eighteenth century children’s catechism, much of the doctrine found is rather similar to Catholic

doctrine. Baptism is described as a step necessary for salvation, a doctrine with which many of

the Dissenting churches at the time would have disagreed. The catechism also extended the

commandment to honor one’s parents to honoring and obeying “the King, and all that are put in

Authority under him.” It also claimed that it was a sin to neglect reciting the Lord’s Prayer.81 The

eighteenth century religious documents suggest a more traditional belief, while the sermons

delivered in Warwick in the nineteenth century suggest a greater evangelical influence.

The evangelical influence upon the Anglican Churches in Warwick emerged in the

nineteenth century. In a form of prayer from 1805, God’s punishment was seen as an act of love.

The author wrote, “If Thou chastenest us, we are as rebellious sons, not knowing that in Thy

displeasure Thou carest tenderly for us, and art compassionate towards us, as a father pitied his

own children.”82 This prayer matched evangelical sentiment in St. Mary’s eighty years later.

Interestingly, the emphasis on the Lord’s Prayer found in the eighteenth century children’s

catechism was in direct contrast to a series of ten sermons preached on the Lord’s Prayer at St.

Mary’s in 1885. They said that the prayer is merely a guide to teach people how to pray, rather

than a command to recite a formula. These sermons emphasized God as a loving Father, rather

than as a harsh master.83 These sermons and prayers also reflected a growing evangelical

emphasis upon God’s love for his children rather than a critical view of God, which saw Him as

a taskmaster ready to punish those who do wrong.

The gradual abolition of pew rents in the Anglican Churches in Warwick also suggested a

growing evangelical inclination. In the 1790s, the congregation of St. Mary’s discussed

81“Questions for the Instruction of children in Church Catechism,” eighteenth century, WCRO CR 1291/730. 82 “A Form of Prayer,” 1805, WCRO 1291/712. 83 A.H.B., Late nineteenth century sermons, St. Mary’s, WCRO 1011/19.

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purchasing pews in the gallery, as well as consolidating families into single rows so that they

could all sit together.84 By 1839, the Church considered switching from a flat lifetime rental of

pews to a yearly rent.85 In 1869, the Church appointed somebody to abolish pew rents in St.

Mary’s, thus returning all of the seating to everybody regardless of wealth or social status.86

While the removal of pew rentals took a great deal of time, the eventual abolition of the practice

suggest some degree of liberality in the congregation, likely coupled with the growing

evangelical sentiment suggested in St. Mary’s.

The majority of the minute books for both St. Mary’s and St. Nicholas focused on

quotidian events, and they do not mention any tensions with local Dissenting congregations. The

St. Mary’s vestry minute book from 1741-1760 recorded much detail on church land rentals and

support for the poor but made no mention of dealings with Dissenters, suggesting an absence of

crises.87 The 1834-1871 St. Nicholas’ minute book dedicated the majority of its pages to rents

owed and a request for a reduction in rent prices; none of the minutes mention animosity or

tension with the nonconformists.88 If serious tensions between the groups existed, the church

secretary or minister likely would have recorded them in the minute books, or they would have

showed up in sermons. However, evidence of tensions fails to show up in either of these places

in the existing documents. Even though this argument is based upon a lack of evidence rather

than a positive existence of evidence, if there had been tensions in Warwick, someone would

have mentioned them at some point in the minute books, newspapers, or sermons.

84 Papers relating to the purchase of pews in the gallery, 1793, WCRO DR 126/14. 85 Letter about proposal to adopt pew rents in lieu of church rate, 1839, WCRO DR 537/50. 86 Warwick Advertiser, October 30, 1869. 87 “St. Mary’s Vestry Minute Book, 1741-1760,” WCRO DR 133/40. 88 “St. Nicholas Minutes, 1834-1871,” WCRO DR 87/89.

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Congregationalism: Learning from Dispute

The Congregational, or Independent, Church became the first Dissenting group in

Warwick when they began meeting in the Warwick Castle grounds in 1645, under the patronage

of Lord Brooke. After his death, the Presbyterians founded a church within the castle grounds,

which much later became the Unitarian Chapel on High Street.89 Around 1662, the Presbyterians

and Independents in Warwick began worshipping together under pastor John Wilson, who died

in 1695. Joseph Carpenter became pastor in 1700 and remained until 1742, when he moved to

Worcester. In 1746, James Kettle moved to Warwick from Dorchester to be pastor and remained

until his death in 1806.90 Shortly after he left Warwick, however, a schism developed between

the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists.

In the mid-eighteenth century, a split developed between the Unitarian Presbyterians and

the Congregationalists meeting together in Warwick. James Kettle became the first pastor to

embrace Arian sentiments, which upset some members of the congregation. 91 As the

Presbyterians became more Unitarian in their beliefs, they rejected the growing evangelicalism

of Pastor Kettle, so they left the church and began worshipping in a room on High Street.92

Others, such as Henry Vennor, left because they disagreed with Kettle’s theology. Years earlier,

Mr. Vennor’s grandfather had been a borough official tasked with breaking up a Dissenting

church meeting one Sunday. He took the Dissenters to the courthouse, but when the judge never

showed up, they invited Vennor over for dinner. After spending time with them, he converted

and joined their church. Years later, his grandson decided to leave the Presbyterian Chapel

because he believed Kettle did not teach the true Gospel. Vennor and others joined Back Hill

89 Miss J. A. Sunman, “Notes about Congregationalists in Warwick, 1966,” WCRO CR 1054/26. 90 Sunman; “Congregationalist Minutes 1858-1894,” WCRO CR 1054/5. 91“Congregationalist Minutes 1858-1894.” 92 Sunman.

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Baptist Church for a time under the pastorate of John Ryland. The new congregants, however,

could not receive the Lord’s Supper there because they were Independents, so they left that

church after Ryland left in 1759. They likely joined the new Brook Street Chapel, which other

Congregationalists formed after leaving Kettle’s ministry.

In 1758, Congregationalists upset with Kettle’s ministry formed their own church called

Brook Street Chapel on land donated by Henry Collins. They started off with around fifteen

members. Mr. Lombard served as their first pastor until 1767. Meanwhile, the High Street

Chapel, which became increasingly Unitarian, struggled to find a permanent pastor after the

church split. Interestingly, John Newton, the great hymnist and former slave trader, spent time at

High Street Chapel in 1759 before deciding to take Anglican orders. He looked back on his

memories in Warwick fondly.93 Brook Street Chapel also struggled to find a permanent pastor

after Mr. Lombard’s pastorate ended. The church had three more pastors in the 1770s. However,

this decade proved a trying time for the church because they desperately wanted the true Gospel

extolled in their town.

In 1771, the congregation wrote the Countess of Huntingdon, asking her help in finding a

pastor. After her husband died in 1739, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, devoted the rest of her

life to God. She worked for revival throughout England, and she greatly helped the Evangelical

movement. Rupp wrote, “her really significant achievement was to draw upon the assistance of a

remarkable group of young ordained clergymen, fine preachers and good pastors, who were to

become the core of the new Evangelical Movement, Calvinist in theology, but determined to be

loyal to the discipline of the Church of England.”94 The Independents of Warwick wanted such a

pastor for their own church and wrote to the Countess, “Warwick is a place where the Gospel in 93 George Eyre Evans, Midland Churches A History of the Congregations on the Roll of Christian Midlands Union (Dudley: “Herald” Printing Works, 210, Wolverhampton Street, 1899), 224. 94 Rupp, 462-63.

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its Purity is much wanted. Here are two Parish Churches, but not a Gospel Minister in either of

them, and it is only Preached in Town now, amongst the Baptists, who are a small People, have

but a dark Heavy Preacher, and where we Cannot Attend to Edification.” They continued, “We

have built a Neat Convenient Meetinghouse, but are destitute of a Minister, and are very desirous

of having one that has the Glory of God and the Good of Souls at Heart.” 95 The

Congregationalists were desperate for a good pastor, but they waited another decade before

finally gaining their own minister.

In 1780, James Moody visited Brook Street Chapel and accepted the pastorate the next

year. He preached there until 1806. During his tenure, he preached both in Warwick and in

neighboring villages, where he experienced some resistance. People in the countryside placed

wasp nests in his way, broke windows, tossed water on the worshippers, and even threw a dead

pig at him. 96 However, in Warwick itself, there is no evidence of violence against

Congregationalists. During Moody’s twenty years as pastor, the church added 150 members,

with likely many more regular attenders. In 1798, it enlarged the chapel and added a Sunday

school to accommodate the new members.97 After the Congregational schism, Brook Street

Chapel experienced considerable growth, while High Street Chapel slowly declined.

In 1811, Joseph Wilcox Percy became pastor of Brook Street Chapel, ushering in a new

era of stability and unity in the Congregational Church. He was described as a “meek,

unobtrusive, equalle [sic] minded” and faithful minister. In 1826, the Congregationalists enlarged

their Chapel, and in 1843, they opened a day school, against the wishes of Anglican St. Mary’s.

In 1858, Percy retired. The church leaders planned on making a junior pastor their full-time

95 Letter from Brook Street Chapel to the Countess of Huntingdon, November 26, 1771, WCRO Z 727 (sm). 96 “Congregational Minutes 1858-1894.” 97 Ibid.

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pastor, but he died suddenly. In 1859, George Allen became pastor but resigned in 1869, so

George Shaw replaced him. On March 24, 1870, J. W. Percy passed away at the age of eighty-

six. He was remembered locally as a man of great integrity. His obituary stated, “His name will

be associated with no memories of theological contention or political warfare. He knew how to

maintain fidelity to professed principles without indulging bitterness against opponents, and the

amenity of his disposition acted as a charm against the disturbing influences which follow on the

path of aggressive and defiant spirits.”98 The Warwick Advertiser prominently displayed his

obituary on the front page of their paper. On the day of his funeral, everyone along the funeral

procession route, regardless of their religious convictions, closed the blinds in their houses and

closed their shops as a sign of respect.99 Despite his Nonconformist identity, everyone in

Warwick respected and appreciated his fifty years of service in the community. Such unity in the

town implies relative peace and religious toleration, and the people of the town clearly

appreciated the Christian unity that J. W. Percy stood for during his long pastorate.

In a way, Percy’s death marked a shift in the history of the Congregational Church in

Warwick because he represented longevity and clarity of purpose. After his passing, the church

did not have another pastor with such a long tenure. Most ministers stayed for a few years before

resigning, possibly because they felt that they could not live up to Percy’s legacy. Not long

before Percy died, the church sought to increase its influence through the publication of a

monthly magazine, which included news from the Brook Street Church, as well as local and

national news. Circulation grew to around 250 per month.100 At the close of the century, they

expanded the church building to include classrooms, and, in 1900, George Allen returned after

several years to serve as pastor for three years. While the church could not find a permanent 98 Ibid. 99 Warwick Advertiser, April 2, 1870. 100 Sunman.

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pastor to serve for an extended period of time, they retained unity in other ways. In 1906, Miss

Ann Owen died at the age of ninety-five, after teaching in the Sunday school at Brook Street

Chapel for eighty-two years.101 After dealing with disunity in the congregation in the eighteenth

century, the Independents of Warwick responded by starting over and building an even stronger

church focused on coming together to worship God. Their strength manifested itself in the 1851

census, which recorded religious affiliations. Over 1,500 people claimed to attend Independent

congregations in the greater Warwick area that year.102 The Warwick Independents grew so

much in the nineteenth century that they opened a satellite chapel in Emscote, on the road

between Warwick and Leamington Spa, in 1837. The church had the freedom to grow in

Warwick due to the absence of religious persecution. Furthermore, the Congregationalists

managed to overcome their prior instability, and they clearly learned from their mistakes.

The Baptist Failures

While the Congregationalists in Warwick learned from their dissension, the Baptists in

Warwick continually struggled to remain unified. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, the church experienced several episodes of drama and dissent. However, they never

experienced external persecution from the government, the Anglican Church, or the community.

Baptist records in Warwick are relatively sparse in the years immediately following the Great

Fire. John Bowyer’s pastorate, at the end of the seventeenth century, marked a distinct change in

the Warwick Baptist community, however. Bowyer came from London, and, though uneducated,

the people regarded him as a man of prudence and good sense. He marked a turning point for the

church because he purchased a sixty-year lease on a house and garden on Back Hill, where he

built a meetinghouse. Bowyer died in 1702, and the congregation lacked a minister for the next 101 Ibid. 102 Census of Great Britain, 1851 Religious Worship England and Wales (London: George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1853), 78.

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three years. The minutes recorded that the congregation numbered around 22 men in 1710.103

Nevertheless, the existence of a church building allowed the Baptist congregation slowly to

expand throughout the century.

The early days of the eighteenth century found the Warwick Baptists dealing with

internal dissension rather than external persecution from the Church of England. On May 24,

1705, they held a church trial for Thomas Abbott, who apparently withheld contributions from

the church or failed to help the congregation in some way. The minutes are very sparse, but the

case lasted until 1709. It is never clear what they finally concluded because they only discussed

the importance of unity in dealing with this issue.104 The next meeting book began with similar

issues. In fact, the majority of entries focused on sins committed against members by other

members. They strove for unity of mind and purpose, and to achieve that, they needed to

confront issues of sin. When they excommunicated a member in 1758, it was a very solemn

occasion. One young, unmarried woman’s excommunication was typical, although rare:

Catherine Powel has been guilty of willful, deliberate, and reiterated lying and defrauding. She has broken the grand Fundamental Rules of our LORD and King, Christ Jesus: we do therefore in his Name and Presence declare that such a Person is now no longer a Member of this Church, but by the Laws and Institutions of Christ in that case made and provided excommunication, or separation from all special Relations to the same and divested of all Interest in the special Privileges of this Church as a Part of the visible Kingdom of Christ and consequently hence forth to be accounted and treated by Us, as one of the world, the Kingdom of the Devil until she repent.105

The church placed great importance upon these acts of excommunication. Throughout both

minute books, the Baptists did not mention any tensions with the government or the Anglican

Church, suggesting that their only real issues at the time were internal. While the lack of

evidence is clearly a negative argument from silence, the sheer absence of any tensions speaks to

103 “Baptist minutes 1697-1710,” WCRO CR 1010/1. 104 Ibid. 105 “Baptists minutes 1714-1759,” WCRO CR 1010/2.

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the fact that the people of Warwick tolerated the Baptists in a time of national intolerance of

Dissenters.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Baptist church’s biggest challenge came

from members dying out and not enough new members joining. The Baptist church fluctuated in

size over the first half of the eighteenth century. While 200 people attended the church in 1715,

in 1725, ninety-seven people attended the church. Thirteen died over the next eleven years. By

1746, only thirty people attended the church, but by 1754 the congregation grew to fifty-nine

members, causing the church to revisit its statement of faith for those new people. Young people

clearly joined the church, because they recorded the birth of sixty-two children to members

between 1746 and 1754.106 In fact, the congregation likely had more children than adults

attending. All this is to say that while the congregation size fluctuated, it generally started to

grow from mid-century.

Around the middle of the eighteenth century, Back Hill Baptist Church got a new pastor,

named John Ryland. He went to school in Bristol and served as an assistant pastor in London

before moving to Warwick to be Back Hill’s minister, and he remained their pastor until 1759.

Very little is recorded, however, for the next fifty years. Around 1820, the church began taking

regular minutes again, commenting that posterity might understand their lives and their church.

From 1825 to 1826, the church lacked a pastor and general supply. At the end of 1826, the

church invited Mr. Lincoln to come preach, and they eventually asked him to remain as pastor.

That same year, the church added seven members. Around this time, it is clear from the minutes

that a new secretary began taking notes, because they include quite a bit more detail than the

previous seventy years. Interestingly, for the first year Mr. Lincoln served as minister, no one

bothered to give him a list of all the church members. They decided to celebrate Communion and 106 Ibid.

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recorded twenty-six members that actually showed up to receive. The next year, the congregation

unraveled.107

The year 1828 proved to be a tumultuous one for the members of Back Hill Baptist

Church, adding to the long history of internal discord in the congregation. The anonymous author

of the minutes begrudgingly wrote:

The occurrences attending the relationship existing between the Pastor of the Church and the people of his charge were during the whole of this year of a character to need concealment rather than notice in the Church Book. The Minister however feels that he should be deficient in his duty towards his office, and towards those who may succeed him in it if he did not make an impartial and faithful though brief record of transactions that deeply afflicted his mind.

At the beginning of the year, a member of the church told Lincoln that a group of people in the

congregation was forming against him because he kept a day school and an evening school open,

which occupied much of his time. A female member named Lucy Key began belittling him, so

Lincoln decided to stop going to church meetings, “as it was not his duty to submit to be treated

with low, vulgar scurrility.” After further drama, the church leaders that originally hired Lincoln

began leaving the church “because they were made uncomfortable by these unchristian and

discordant proceedings.” Their absence created a problem because they no longer gave money to

the church, violating “truth and fidelity, entirely unmerited and unprovoked by the Minister, for

none of these unruly seceders even pretended that they had anything to object against the

Minister’s doctrine or moral conduct.” The situation all came to a head one Sunday at the Lord’s

Supper, when Lucy Key and Greet, “her willing tool,” arrived. Lincoln refused to serve them

communion because of the discord they had sown, and they hurled further accusations at him.

Nevertheless, he refused to give them the sacrament. Later in the year, Lincoln tried to patch

things up with Key, but she still insisted on causing discord. Several members left in 1829, but

107 “Baptist minutes (Back Hill Church) 1795-1834,” WCRO CR 1010/3.

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they reconciled towards the end of the year, with everyone willing to forgive and forget.108 This

little episode further demonstrated how the Warwick Baptist church seemed much more prone to

internal conflict and dispute than to external persecution from the Anglicans in town.

The beginning of the 1830s failed to see improvement in the affairs of the Baptist

Church. In 1830, several more people departed the congregation. Some people needed to move

for work, while others died. As people from other areas passed through Warwick on their way to

industrial centers, some stayed at Back Hill temporarily. The minister used these opportunities to

share the Gospel with these people, in a sense performing his own type of revivalism. In 1831,

Mr. Wood and his wife stormed out of a church service, refusing to come back. They had

previously left the church but reconciled shortly thereafter. This time, however, Wood and

several other members convinced most of the congregation to transfer to the Independent

Chapel’s Sunday School, and the Independents made no effort to convince these people to

remain with the Baptist Church. Mr. Lincoln took this turn of events rather hard. However, even

though many members kept leaving the church, the author of the minutes said regular attendance

did not change much because they always had a fair number of strangers visiting the church.

These people treated Mr. Lincoln and the congregation quite well, unlike many of the church’s

members. Because the church continued to prosper, the former members became jealous and

sometimes returned to cause trouble. Their actions and vulgar speech eventually caused the

strangers to stop attending Back Hill.

In the middle of the 1830s, the Warwick Baptists finally experienced a conclusion to the

drama unfolding in their church. In 1834, Lincoln traveled to London to visit a bookseller that

printed some of his books. During his absence, he asked some preachers from Coventry, a city

with a strong Dissenting background, to fill in for him. Many of the former members used 108 Ibid.

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Lincoln’s time away to slander him further.109 With this final entry, the minute book ended with

many pages left blank. The next minute book began in different handwriting with the comment,

“This Book was commenced as consequence of the books and documents belonging to this place

of worship having been taken away by Mr. Lincoln and the improbability of at present getting

them again.” The author of this set of minutes claimed the congregation removed Mr. Lincoln

because he refused to administer the Lord’s Supper.110 In all likelihood, Lincoln probably left

because he grew tired of the bickering, infighting, and slander. In the end, the members that left

the church got what they wanted, for Lincoln left Warwick, never to return.

The Warwick Baptist congregation continued to have problems with unity over the next

few decades. In 1841, Mr. Campbell resigned the pastorate, and in 1856, Thomas Nash resigned

as pastor after thirteen years of service, citing a lack of peace over the last several years of his

time there. Around this time, in 1851, a little over 400 people attended the church regularly.111

After Campbell and Nash resigned, the Church seemed to straighten out a bit. On February 28,

1861, the Baptists changed their name to Castle Hill Baptist, which the congregation holds as

their name to this day.112 In November 1864, Frank Overbury accepted the pastorate of Castle

Hill Baptist. In 1866, the church received a letter from a gentleman that acquired the old church

minute books from Mr. Lincoln, who took them to London in 1834. Still alive thirty years later,

he agreed to return them to the Baptists in Warwick. The church experienced relative stability

until the 1880s, when they went through several pastors. Rev. David Jennings retired after three

years due to ill health, while the invitation of T. N. Smith to the pastorate caused Deacon Davis

to resign his position. Yet again, a spirit of disunity cropped up in the congregation. In 1885, the 109 Ibid. 110 “Baptist minutes 1835-1856.” 111 Census, 1851, 78. 112 Letter from the Superintendent Registrars District of Warwick to Rev. Thomas Aston Binns, February 28, 1861, WCRO CR 1010/12.

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church hired John Hutchinson as their pastor, but by the end of the decade, a money issue caused

problems between him and the congregation. Management of resources became such a problem

that the church decided to have the Midland Baptist Association come in and sort things out.

After this controversy, Castle Hill closed the nineteenth century in relative peace.113

The Baptist Church in Warwick experienced substantial internal disunity and turmoil in

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is no indication that they had any issues

with the local Anglicans or with the local government. The story of Back Hill Baptist and Castle

Hill Baptist is rather ironic, since in their early history they strived so hard to achieve unity.

Perhaps they emphasized unity so much that they created dissension through suppression of

other ideas and opinions. The problems the Baptists of Warwick experienced would likely not

have happened without the freedom from Anglican persecution that they enjoyed. Had they faced

active persecution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they probably would not have

worried about those issues that eventually became large problems for the congregation.

Quakers: The Fading Minority

Much like the Congregationalist and the Baptists, the Quakers have a long history in the

town of Warwick, dating back to George Fox, the founder of the movement. In 1655, Fox held a

meeting of Friends at a widow’s house in Warwick. They began meeting, but their church burned

down in the fire of 1694. The replacement church they built in 1695 stands to this day.

Throughout the eighteenth century, according to William White, most of the Quakers in

Warwick “were engaged in farming, some cultivated their own freeholds, others were millers,

and those resident in the town followed some of the trades usual in country towns.”114 As the

century progressed, the group gradually grew smaller, while at their peak the group claimed 113 Baptist minutes 1857-1904, WCRO CR 1292/1. 114 William White, Friends in Warwickshire, in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Birmingham: White and Pike, 1873), 127-124.

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1,200 members throughout Warwickshire. Part of their challenge came from their own actions,

since they disowned many of their members for marrying non-Quakers. Others from Warwick

moved to Pennsylvania. Despite these losses, the Quakers in Warwick valued unity, and they did

their best to restore fellowship with people that sinned against them. White wrote, “Some of the

testimonies of disownment show, however, the patience of Friends with offenders, as well as

their earnest desires for their restoration to unity with the body.”115 Despite attempts at

reconciliation, the Quakers continued to lose members.

While Quakerism in Warwick declined throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, the congregations in the county managed to distinguish themselves from much of the

rest of England. White wrote, “In many parts of the kingdom the ‘Women’s Meetings,’ had

almost fallen into disuse, but they appear to have been held regularly in this county, and form [in

1873] a favorable feature amidst much declension in other particulars.” The Friends of Warwick

also concerned themselves with the welfare of their youth. To make sure they led their youth

along the right path, they held occasional meetings and gave counsel to the young in how to

proceed in marriage and how to live Christ-like lives. The ministers instructed the elderly to

participate in guiding the young people in the way they should go.116 The Quakers took their

roles as Christians very seriously and desired to live their lives in a biblical manner.

Despite a few bright spots, the Quakers continued to have problems. In the middle of the

eighteenth century, several successive Quaker ministers died, and there were few available to

take their place. This loss merely accelerated the congregation’s shrinking. As the century

closed, fewer people attended the meetings, and church discipline suffered accordingly.117 By

115 Ibid., 69. 116 White, 53-55. 117 Ibid., 75-76, 82.

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1851, only ten to fifteen people attended the Quaker church in Warwick.118 Due to the small size

of the congregation, very few nineteenth century records remain from this church. If only a

handful of people attended the church regularly, they likely saw no need to record detailed

minutes. An article in the Warwick Advertiser from June 5, 1869, accused the Friends of not

supporting their poor members due to the small size of their group. They simply could not

support each other because they did not have sufficient resources. Overall, by the nineteenth

century, the Quaker Church in Warwick was essentially irrelevant, and they closed in 1909. Very

few records exist to suggest that they were persecuted for their beliefs, but records from other

churches also fail to mention any tensions with the Quakers, apart from minor annoyances with

them recorded in the local newspaper.

Methodism Comes to Warwick

Methodism emerged much later in Warwick than in other areas of England. John Wesley

never mentioned visiting Warwick in his extensive journal, and no records in the town mention a

visit. It is understandable that he never visited Warwick since the town is in the heart of the rural

Midlands, and Wesley focused his mission on the densely populated areas. Thomas Facer, a

stonemason from Yorkshire, moved to Warwick to work on the Earl’s building projects in 1801,

and he formally introduced Methodism to the town.119 By embracing Wesley’s goal of spreading

the Gospel from heart to heart, Facer brought the Evangelical Methodist message to the sleepy

town of Warwick. While the movement spread rapidly throughout the industrial regions in the

mid to late eighteenth century, Methodism did not officially appear in Warwick until 1804 at the

118 Census, 1851, 78. 119 Paul Bolitho, The Story of Warwick Methodism A Centenary Celebration of Two Hundred Years (Coventry: Dial House Press, 1993), 1-2.

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very earliest, when a man named Henry Chlist licensed his home for worship.120 In 1810, the

small group of Methodists from Warwick and nearby Leamington Spa founded a society, and

they held services above a carpenter’s shop. In 1817, the small church became part of the

Coventry circuit.121

By 1820 the membership of the Methodist congregation grew to the point that they

decided to build their own church on Chapel Street. However, due to the closing of a wool

factory, the congregation lost many members, and they sold their building in 1834. In 1862, they

wrote, “Some years ago the Wesleyan Methodists in Warwick were obliged to sell their Chapel

at about one third of its original cost, and to build one in a situation very inconvenient for the

attendance of the majority of the congregation and the prosecution of the one object of their

labours – the Salvation of the Souls of the People.”122 In the following years, the congregation

shrank to just three women. Due to the graciousness of the Baptist minister, those women met at

the local Baptist Church. In 1839, a new Methodist church opened. In 1840, they added a chapel

in Emscote on the way to Leamington Spa. The new building in Warwick proper served as their

home until 1863, when they relocated to a new building, funded by Miss Sarah Harvey.123

Harvey, a resident of Leamington, donated £500 to the project, as well as the deed for the land.

The sale of the previous chapel amounted to merely £40, while the Methodist Corporation and

building committee supplied another £100.124 The same year the Market Street Chapel opened, a

Methodist Church opened on Avon Street in Emscote as well. Clearly there was enough demand

120 Number of Dissenting Meeting Places 1760-1829, WCRO QS 10/2; Paul Bolitho, “Early Warwick Methodism,” Wesley Historical Society West Midlands Branch Bulletin 4, no. 8 (Autumn, 1986): 112. 121 Northgate Methodist Church leaflet celebrating 150 years of Methodism in Warwick, 1951, WCRO CR 2526/21. 122 Documents found under foundation stone of Market Street Schoolroom at the time of demolition in 1962, 1863, WCRO CR 1064/4. 123 Bolitho, Story of Warwick Methodism, 3-7. 124 Warwick Wesleyan Methodist Chapels 1778-1951, WCRO CR 2526/18.

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in the area for another Methodist congregation. This particular church closed its doors in 1968.125

With Methodism thriving in Warwick, the churches continued to expand to reach more people.

By 1878, the Market Street Chapel started to fall apart, creating the need for a new

church building. The response came over a decade later with the construction of Northgate

Church. The foundation stones were laid on June 15, 1892, and the church opened on May 25,

1893.126 They sold their old building to the Primitive Methodists. Northgate serves as the

Methodist church in Warwick to this day. At the time of construction, 200 people attended the

Methodist church, while the population of Warwick was around 11,900. The new church

building accommodated 253 people, allowing room for growth.127 The construction of Northgate

Methodist vaguely marked the end of the nineteenth century for the Methodists. The previous

ninety years found the church struggling to find a proper place of worship, and in 1893 they

finally had their permanent home.

A few years after the construction of Northgate Methodist, the minute book recorded an

interesting example of the openness of the town of Warwick. In a meeting held on March 12,

1896, the trustees resolved to ask the Earl of Warwick to take the chair at their next public

meeting, scheduled for April 14.128 The fact that they felt free to request that the Earl attend the

meeting implies that they did not fear any possible resistance or persecution for being Methodist.

By this point in time, Nonconformity clearly experienced open and legal freedom throughout the

country. However, it is interesting that the Methodists appealed to the Anglican establishment,

and the request also demonstrated their loyalty to the Earl, even though they were

Nonconformists. The Earl almost certainly did not attend the meeting, however, because the

125 Bolitho, Story of Warwick Methodism, 8, 11-12. 126 Ibid., 18, 20. 127 Application to build Northgate Church, 1892, WCRO CR 1046/5. 128 “Northgate Minute Book 1890-1920,” WCRO CR 2526/17.

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Warwick Advertiser mentioned the meeting in its April 18, 1896, edition, and it failed to mention

his attendance. Usually, the Advertiser mentioned when the Earl attended meetings or public

events, so if he had been in attendance, the newspaper would have likely mentioned it.

Methodism in Warwick certainly suggests a different picture than Methodism in the rest

of England. The various revival meetings held by Methodist ministers and revivalists all over the

country never occurred in Warwick. The rapid growth of Evangelicalism seen elsewhere did not

impact the growth of Methodism in this town until the mid-nineteenth century, which saw

possibly 1,000 Methodists worshipping in Warwick and the surrounding suburbs.129 However,

the absence of a strong Evangelical or Revival movement in Warwick strongly suggests a

different narrative than the rest of England or even the surrounding Midlands. Furthermore, there

is never any indication of tensions between the Methodists and any other religious group in

Warwick, including the Church of England.

Catholicism: A Late Arrival

Of the nineteenth-century denominations, the Roman Catholic Church established itself

the latest. Most Catholics in the area depended on local rural landowners, as they did in many

other parts of England. Judith Hurwich wrote, “Post-Reformation Catholicism in England,

especially in the North and Midlands, was dependent upon the patronage of the nobility and

gentry.” She further commented on Warwickshire in particular, “a line drawn diagonally across

the county from northwest to southeast would separate the parishes in which Catholics were

numerous from those in which Dissenters were numerous.” The northeast, where Warwick lies,

was generally Nonconformist, while the southwest tended to have a stronger Catholic presence.

The Throckmortons and the Dormers were among the prominent Catholics landowners in that

129 Census, 1851, 78.

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area.130 The strength of Catholicism in the southeast of Warwickshire and the relative absence of

Catholics in the east and north help explain the lack of Catholics in Warwick in the eighteenth

century and for much of the nineteenth century.

The registration of Catholic places of worship began in 1791, the year the government

first gave them relief. That year, someone in Warwick registered a place of meeting in a building

called Cocksparrow Hall.131 However, it is unclear if Catholics ever worshipped there at all,

since there is no mention of this place again after it was registered. If anyone met there, they

likely did not do so for very long. Catholicism clearly did not have strongholds in the town

because most Catholics in the county were in the southwest, but this was not due to persecution.

After 1720, the people of Warwick no longer persecuted Catholics.132 The only real reaction

against Catholics in Warwick came in 1850, after the Pope tried to set up dioceses in England. In

November of that year, several articles in the Warwick Advertiser bemoaned this fact. The

discontent continued with demonstrations held in many urban areas, including violent riots in

Birmingham. A small riot broke out on Guy Fawkes Day during which the people burned an

effigy of the Pope.133 While this act had become a ritual in England every year on Guy Fawkes

Day, this particular demonstration featured more anti-Catholic sentiment than usual. This

disturbance is the only recorded act of violence directed at a religious group in the town of

Warwick in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even in this riot, the violence was not

directed at local Catholics but rather at the Pope himself.

In 1858, Fr. Thomas Longman performed the first mass in Warwick. This meeting

marked the beginning of a Catholic congregation in the town. In a letter to his mother, Longman 130 Hurwich, Study of Warwickshire, 32. 131 Registration of Catholic Meeting Houses, 1791, WCRO QS 10/3. 132 Ruth Barbour, Catholic Warwick (Birmingham, UK: Archdiocese of Birmingham Historical Commission, 2009), 34. 133 Warwick Advertiser, November 9, 1850.

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said that Lord and Lady Dormer visited for this mass, and local Catholics supplied the ephemera

needed to perform the ceremony.134 Longman quickly realized that Warwick had a great need for

a Catholic Church and a full time priest. W. B. Ullathorne, the Bishop of Birmingham, responded

to a letter Longman sent him asking that the mass be celebrated monthly in Warwick, and

Ullathorne agreed.135 In a letter dated May 24, 1859, Longman stated that 300 Catholics lived in

Warwick without a church or a school. Instead, they had to walk three miles to Hampton-on-the-

Hill to go to church, where he was priest. In this letter to a congregation, he asked for money,

and in return, he would set aside special masses to pray for their souls.136 In a final act of

desperation to get money, Longman wrote to a Catholic Church in Paris, France, asking for

contributions. He told them that Catholics in England tended to be very poor and that, while the

government did not harm them, it did not help them either. He told them that there had not been

a Catholic Church in Warwick for over 300 years, and he said he planned on dedicating the new

church to St. Mary in honor of her Immaculate Conception. The Parisian church responded by

saying that God would help him.137 Longman certainly struggled to find monetary support for his

dream of a church in Warwick, but he ultimately succeeded.

Despite all the barriers Longman encountered in acquiring funds to finish building the

new Catholic Church, St. Mary Immaculate opened its doors on June 12, 1860. Lord Dormer

attended the opening ceremony. Longman became the church’s first priest. By 1899, the

congregation numbered 230, slightly fewer than the 300 members around the time of the

construction of the church. However, in May 1899, Edward Illsley, the Bishop of Birmingham,

134 Thomas Longman, to his mother, November 18, 1858, Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives (BAA) B3813. 135 W. B. Ullathorne, to Thomas Longman, May 20, 1859, BAA B3860. 136 Longman, to an unnamed congregation, May 24, 1859, BAA B3861. 137 Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception ex cathedra in 1854. Longman to a church in Paris, November 1, 1859, BAA B3899.

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wrote to Alfred Hall, the priest of St. Mary Immaculate, requesting that a Catholic school be

established in Warwick. He even promised money to help build the school. Fr. Hall’s problem

came in finding money to build the school, because his congregation was very poor.138 Even

forty years after the establishment of the church, the congregation and its priest struggled to find

money to meet their ambitions. The Catholic Church in Warwick, while very poor, never

experienced persecution or tension with its local community. Even after the small riot in 1850,

the Catholics in the town enjoyed peace. Even though few Catholics openly worshipped in

Warwick for many years, the other denominations did not go out of their way to publicly demean

Catholicism.

The Earl Speaks: An Example of Tolerance

One of the most striking examples of the peace and toleration in Warwick came from the

private journal of the Earl of Warwick. From an entry around 1769, the Earl wrote that

Dissenters and Anglicans got along in the town of Warwick. He wrote:

Thus the inhabitants obtained what they long coveted, and, of course, made them more reconcilable to my endeavors, so that now all look on one another with more ease and every hour distinctions seem to be out of the question. The Corporation man and the Dissenter live neighbourly together, play at bones together, and enter into all other sociality without thinking it, as before, strange so to do, and the Castle, equally beneficent to all, by its example encourages the town to do the same and to abolish all former grudges and horrid behaviour as then practiced. Lord Greville as their Member goes sometimes amongst them and but the other night, 8 August 1769 or thereabouts, he was seen puffing between Mr. Keble, the minister of the Presbyterians - a worthy, cheerful man - and George Eborall, an Alderman - one of the old Corporation, now quite complaisant and civil, and all three merry hearty together. This some small time since never could have been believed me…139

Clearly from the Earl’s own account, Dissenters and Anglicans, or “Corporation” men,

cooperated and enjoyed each others’ company. In his eyes, no tensions existed between the

religious groups, even amongst highest members of society, such as Lord Greville or one of the 138 Edward Illsley, to Alfred Hall, May 11, 1899; Alfred Hall, to Mr. Cave, June 5, 1899, BAA B12423. 139 Earl of Warwick’s Journal, 1769, WCRO CR 1886 / Box 614 / 11.

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Aldermen. Because of Warwick’s small size, the Anglicans and Dissenters had to get along since

they lived so close to each other.

The Earl’s account lends credence to the idea that peace and toleration existed in

Warwick long before other more populated areas of England. This peace was so widespread that

the people of Warwick appointed a Dissenter, Jonathan Butler, to the position of Alderman on

September 21, 1768, even though it was illegal for a Dissenter to serve in government positions.

Since Butler, an ironmonger, was a Dissenter, he refused the office. Normally, a man received a

£10 fine for refusing the position, but the town council decided not to fine him, given the

circumstances.140 The fact that the people, who were mostly Anglican at this time, elected a

Dissenter to be their Alderman implies that there was a great deal of peace between the groups.

At the time, it was not wholly uncommon for Dissenting Aldermen to serve on town

councils. For example, Bradley wrote, “At Coventry the Dissenters had a majority of the

aldermen in 1712 and as late as 1735 the Presbyterian chapel alone supplied eleven aldermen.”141

Furthermore, Bradley’s cursory examination of some “registers reveals Dissenting excise

officers at Great Yarmouth, Cambridge, Gloucester, Ipswich, Bath, Devizes, Barnstaple,

Leominster, West Ham (Essex), Weymouth, and Melcombe Regis, Lyme Regis, Southwark, and

London.” He continued, “This initial survey demonstrates that the number of urban Dissenters

holding minor government offices was proportionately as great as Anglicans who held such

posts. In fact, at Bristol, there were more Dissenters in the excise office than Anglicans.”142

While many Dissenters served in local governments across England, it certainly was not the legal

standard. Furthermore, it was not common in Warwick. Thus, for the town council to forgive the

140 WCRO CR 1618/W21/4. 141 Bradley, 78. 142 Ibid., 82.

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fine in this case suggests that they cared more about peace and justice than oppression of

Dissenting groups.

Unitarians: Intolerance in Warwick

While the town of Warwick proved tolerant of almost every religious persuasion it

encountered, including Roman Catholicism, some slight anti-Unitarian sentiment emerged in the

late eighteenth century. In 1791, a pamphlet war broke out between William Field, a Unitarian,

and R. Miller, the vicar of St. Nicholas, over the introduction of a Unitarian Sunday school for

children. Field wrote, “In the Sunday schools belonging to the [Anglican] Church, it was made a

rule that the children of parishioners only, should be admitted. The Dissenters, observing that

there were many poor children, living in the town and neighborhood, who did not come under

this description, thought proper to open a school for their benefit.” The Anglicans disapproved of

this school, not necessarily on religious grounds, but on the basis that it simply was not

Anglican. Field continued, “The most serious part of the charge seems to be, that the Dissenters

instituted their school, not for the purpose of giving young children instruction in reading and

writing, and in the first principles of religion, but with the view of making them Dissenters.”143

From Field’s position, the Unitarians merely wanted to help children neglected by the Church of

England. From the Anglican position, the Unitarians broke the law and tried to convert people to

Dissent.

143 William Field, A Letter Addressed to the Inhabitants of Warwick in Answer to Several Charges of a Very Extraordinary Kind, Advanced Against the Dissenters Assembling at the Chapel, in High-street; By the Rev. Mr. Miller, Vicar of St. Nicholas (Birmingham: J. Thompson, 1791), 6-8.

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In their public response to Field, R. Miller and H. Laugharne accused the Unitarians at

High Street Chapel of bribing people to send their children to their Dissenting Sunday school.144

They claimed:

Finding upon Enquiry, that the greater Part of the Dissenting School consisted of the Children of Parents, professing themselves Members of the Church of England, and that Means were employed to seduce the Parents themselves from the Church to the Meeting; We were led to consult several Gentlemen of respectable Character upon the Subject, who united Opinion, that it was the indispensable Duty of the Clergy, to use their Endeavours to bring back both the Parents and their Children to the Communion, to which they originally belonged.145

At the crux of the issue here was the perception that the Unitarians stole members from the

Anglican Church, regardless of their intentions. This story is a very rare example of tensions in

Warwick between the Anglicans and a Dissenting group, and even this example is relatively

mild, having nothing to do with doctrine.

Nonconformity in Stratford: A Local Comparison

Stratford-upon-Avon, several miles downriver from Warwick, has long connections with

the town of Warwick, and thus makes an interesting comparison. Despite the close proximity of

the towns, Stratford Dissenters apparently experienced more resistance than their counterparts in

Warwick. Methodism emerged in Stratford much earlier than it did in Warwick. John Wesley

came to Stratford once, in 1743, while he never visited Warwick. It is likely that Wesley stopped

temporarily in Stratford while on his way to another location. In his journal Wesley described an

interaction with a demon-possessed women in Stratford. He wrote:

As soon as I came to the bed-side she fixed her eyes and said, “You are Mr. Wesley. I am very well now, I thank God; nothing ails me: only I am weak…’ After singing a verse or two we kneeled down to prayer. I had but just begun (my eyes being shut) when I felt as

144 R. Miller and H. Laugharne, Remarks Upon A Letter to the Printer of the Birmingham Gazette, Dated October 14, 1791, And also upon a Letter addressed to the Inhabitants of Warwick, Dated August 8, 1791, By William Field, Minister of the Dissenting Congregation Assembling in the High-Street, Warwick (Warwick: J. Sharp, 1791), 9. 145 Ibid., 22.

Morey 53

if I had been plunged into cold water, and immediately there was such a roar that my voice was quite drowned, though I spoke as loud as I usually do to three or four thousand people. However, I prayed on. She was then reared up in bed, her whole body moving at once, without bending one joint or limb, just as if it were one piece of stone. Immediately after it was writhed into all kind of postures, the same horrid yell continuing still. But we left her not till all the symptoms ceased, and she was (for the present at least) rejoicing and praising God.

Wesley summarized his experience in Stratford, “Most of the hearers stood like posts; but some

mocked, others blasphemed, and a few believed.” While brief, Wesley’s visit to Stratford left an

indelible impression on him. Despite his visit, no Methodist Church began in Stratford until

1819. By 1825, they moved into a small building and had a thirty-member congregation. Ten

years later, they built a permanent church that lasted well into the twentieth century.146

Methodism in Stratford represents a local contrast to Warwick. While the Methodists in

Warwick experienced freedom and tolerance, an 1855 report from the Stratford Methodists

claimed, “we have to struggle against what is perhaps the most virulent and most ably conducted

High Church Crusade that is now carried on in any part of the world. But still we live and

grow.”147 Evidence of religious tensions emerges immediately in Stratford, while after intense

search and study nothing of the kind emerges in the church records in Warwick, mere miles

away. Such evidence further suggests that Warwick’s picture of religion in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries was relatively unusual.

Of all the dissenting denominations, the Congregationalist church in Stratford maintained

the strongest ties to Warwick. The Congregationalists in Stratford date back to 1662, but the

original church closed in the eighteenth century over a dispute about Arianism. In 1782, James

Moody, the pastor of the Brook Street Chapel in Warwick, started preaching to Independents

146 J. S. M. Hooper, The Story of Methodism in Stratford-Upon-Avon (Herald Press, 1962), Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archive (SCLA) DR 1069/3/55. 147 A few notes written on the history of Methodism in the Stratford on Avon Circuit 1743-1932, 1932, SCLA DR 147/1/53.

Morey 54

meeting in Stratford.148 The church officially began in 1785, and James Moody signed as a

witness for their declaration of formation and faith. He appeared to have a strong influence over

the church, and he made recommendations for ministers.149 Fifty years later, in 1845, J. W. Percy

of the Brook Street Chapel signed as a witness for the Stratford Church, insinuating that the

congregations maintained close connections many years after Moody helped re-establish the

church.150 The churches worked together to further their cause of unity. These connections serve

to suggest that Warwick and Stratford were fairly similar towns, which makes the emergence of

religious tensions in Stratford but not in Warwick all the more interesting. As a rural town,

Warwick represents a different picture of Nonconformity, even as it related to the rest of the

county.

Rural Dissent: A Different Narrative

While much of the traditional narrative of religious history in England following the

Restoration of Charles II is based upon the experience of the industrial centers, the rural picture

often looked quite different. While Nonconformity remained under pressure in industrial centers

throughout much of England, Dissenters enjoyed relative strength elsewhere, even if their

numbers stayed small until the middle of the eighteenth century. Everitt wrote, “[Dissenters]

exerted an influence in English society out of all proportion to their modest numbers; yet the

days of great ‘revivals’ and mass ‘conversions’ still lay in the future.”151 Even before Dissent

increased rapidly, it influenced society greatly, especially in the small towns. As Nonconformity

gained in numbers, its importance likewise increased, further easing tensions in the rural areas.

148 Stratford Congregationalist Church Minutes 1865-1880, SCLA DR 172/3. 149 Stratford Congregationalist Church Minutes 1783-early 1800s, SCLA DR 172/1. 150 Stratford Church Records 1845-1864, SCLA DR 172/2. 151 Everitt, 13.

Morey 55

As Evangelicalism and Revivalism spread across England, coupled with increased

toleration, Nonconformity rose in influence, even in the rural areas. The middle of the nineteenth

century saw the height of Nonconformist power, with as much as half of the church-going

population attending a Nonconformist denomination. In some areas, such as Cornwall, Wales,

and parts of the Midlands, more than half of churchgoers claimed to be Nonconformist. The

majority of these people across England attended Congregationalist, Baptist, or Methodist

churches.152 Everitt wrote, “By the 1850s Dissenters were not only far more numerous than ever

before but had come to form a far larger proportion of the population. This is clear from the

census of 1851, the first and only one to record religious allegiance. In most counties Dissenters

appear to have comprised by this data at least a third of the church-going population.” From the

census, roughly 46% of the population identified as Dissenters, with the rest being Anglican.153

In Warwick, roughly 22% of the population identified as Dissenters, with the rest being mostly

Anglican.154 Much of the national growth occurred in the rapidly industrialized countryside, as

people moved to areas that provided steady work.

The old market towns of the English countryside provided an interesting home for

Dissent. Many of the markets established during the Middle Ages began dying out by the early

sixteenth century, mainly due to population decline. After enjoying relative stability for a while,

those towns started declining again between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of

these towns became centers of Dissent because they may have been natural meeting places due

to geography or other reasons. Essentially, they became meeting places for Dissent for the same

reasons they became market towns in the first place. Everitt said that some of these towns were

“situated at the junction of ancient tracks or driveways, and there may well have been a direct 152 Ibid., 5. 153 Ibid., 13, 46. 154 Census, 1851, 78.

Morey 56

connexion in these cases between their Nonconformity and the ruse of the wayfaring and droving

fraternity.” Many of these old market towns also became industrial centers, further expanding

their appeal to Dissenters.155 The relative mobility of the new industrial workers made these

centrally located market towns ideal for travelling Dissenters to visit or settle down.

The growth of industrialism created a religious and social void for many people, and

Nonconformity offered an opportunity to fill that void. Even though Nonconformity was never a

homogenous movement, its outreach to industrial workers and their families offered them

fellowship and community. Everitt commented:

No doubt one of the underlying reasons for the rapid growth of Dissenting societies in the countryside was the expansion of the rural population generally and its increasing geographical mobility. As country people plucked up their roots, and migrated increasingly from village to village, or settled in expanding numbers in the old market towns with their new industries, they must have felt more of a need for the intense fellowship of the chapel community.156

Nonconformity welcomed these relocated people with open arms, which likely affected the

growth of Dissent in the nineteenth century. People looked for acceptance and community in

their new homes, and Nonconformity offered this in the countryside towns and industrial

villages.

As research into local communities has increased over the past few decades, it has

become clear that there are multiple religious narratives for England in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless, traditional scholarship has focused on the picture portrayed

by the industrial centers, which influenced society, economics, politics, and religion the most.

However, this scholarship generally neglects the rural picture, which itself is somewhat diverse.

While many rural communities embraced Dissent, they did not necessarily do so in the same

way. Some towns, as Everitt argued, saw an increase in Nonconformity because they had been 155 Everitt, 27, 31-32. 156 Ibid., 62-64.

Morey 57

natural meeting places for centuries. Other towns, like Warwick, experienced toleration because

of the small size of the town. Living in close proximity to one another forced the people of

Warwick to get along. While Warwick’s story is unique compared to the traditional national

narrative, it may not have been an isolated experience.

The town of Warwick offers a unique and underappreciated look into the relationships

between Dissent and the Church of England in a rural setting. While Dissent and Catholicism

generally experienced persecution throughout England, both enjoyed freedom and toleration in

Warwick, despite any national laws. Even though Parliament, over the course of the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries, relaxed its persecution of Dissenters and Catholics, tensions still

remained in many areas. In a sense, Warwick was ahead of the curve of toleration, because

Warwick’s Anglicans made peace with Dissenters long before it was legal or socially acceptable.

None of the violence and riots experienced in places such as Birmingham and London ever

happened in Warwick. Over the course of two centuries, the closest Warwick came to violence

was a pamphlet war and a particularly rowdy Guy Fawkes celebration. Warwick also differed

from much of England in its lack of Evangelical and Revivalist influence. While most churches

in the town gradually accepted Evangelical principles and theology over the course of the

nineteenth century, Warwick never experienced the Revivals so common elsewhere in England.

This absence is likely due to Warwick’s small size. However, the absence of these national

currents further isolated Warwick from the standard picture of English religion at the time.

Morey 58

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Primary Archival Sources

I performed the majority of primary research for this thesis at the Warwickshire County

Records Office (WCRO) in Warwick, England, in May and June of 2015. While there, I

examined hundreds of pages of records related to the Anglicans, Congregationalists, Baptists,

Methodists, and Roman Catholics. Very little primary records remain from the Quakers of

Warwick, thus requiring the use of secondary sources from the nineteenth century. Church

minutes spanning two centuries provided the most valuable information for recreating the

narratives of the local churches in Warwick. Registers of Baptisms, births, deaths, and marriages

also proved helpful in determining the social makeup of congregations. Sermons, letters, and

related documents served to illustrate the doctrinal and theological leanings of congregations at

specific points in time.

I performed additional research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust archive (SCLA) in

Stratford, England, in an effort to create a local comparison to Warwick. I researched the

Stratford Methodist, Congregationalist, and Baptist church minutes and general records. I also

spent a day at the Birmingham Archdiocesan Archive (BAA) researching records related to the

creation of St. Mary Immaculate Church in Warwick. Fr. John Sharp was very helpful in

directing my research, as well as locating letters written by Fr. Thomas Longman, the first

Roman Catholic priest in Warwick. I also reviewed registers of Catholic baptisms, marriages,

confirmations, and deaths.