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After the Happy Union: Presbyterians and Independents in the Provinces*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David L. Wykes
David L. Wykes*
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
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Extract

The Glorious Revolution encouraged Presbyterians to hope for comprehension within the Church of England. The failure of those hopes led them to co-operate more closely with their Congregational brethren. In London the earliest practical outcome of this increased co-operation was the Common Fund, which held its first meeting in June 1690. Controlled by managers drawn from both denominations, the Fund was established to offer financial help to poor ministers, congregations, and students who lived in the provinces. A scheme for uniting the two ministries, the Happy Union, set out in the ‘Heads of Agreement’, was adopted a year later on 6 April 1691, but within months this union had dissolved amidst bitter dissension. In less than four years all the schemes for co-operation between Presbyterians and Congregationals had collapsed in London. Nevertheless, co-operation between Presbyterians and Independents, and even the ideals of the Happy Union, continued in the provinces long after the failure in London. In part this was because the desire for a union between the two denominations was widely held throughout the country; indeed the earliest agreement was made by an Assembly of West Country ministers at Bristol in June 1690, nearly a year before the ‘Heads of Agreement’ were adopted in London. Moreover, in many localities following toleration, Presbyterians and Independents still came together in one meeting as a result of the earlier persecution and because of their loyalty to a particular minister. Where dissent was strong, such as in London and the major towns, separate congregations for Presbyterians and Congregational were likely; but where dissent was weaker, particularly in the countryside, congregations included members from both denominations. In these circumstances, members had to accept a minister who did not necessarily share their own denominational preferences. During the first two decades of the eighteenth century the majority of these joint congregations were to divide, as (in most cases) the smaller body of Congregational supporters withdrew to establish their own meetings. There had, however, been more than twenty years of co-operation in many areas in the period following the collapse of the Happy Union in London, and in a few cases such arrangements even continued until the early nineteenth century. There is evidence from at least two congregations, at Leicester and Chesterfield, of a formal agreement to settle the differences between the two denominations. The Happy Union and its failure in London has been the subject of a number of studies, but by contrast the continuing co-operation between Presbyterians and Independents in the provinces has received little detailed attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 32: Unity and Diversity in the Church , 1996 , pp. 283 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1996

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Footnotes

*

I wish to express my thanks to the Revd Dr G. F. Nuttall for his advice and comments on this paper. I am also grateful to the Arts Budget Centre Research Committee of the University of Leicester for a grant in aid of some of the research.

References

1 Gordon, Alexander, ed., Freedom after Ejection: A Review (1690-1692) of Presbyterian and Congregational Nonconformity in England and Wales (Manchester, 1917), pp. 155–8 Google Scholar; Thomas, Roger, ed., ‘An Essay of Accommodation’, Being a Scheme for Uniting Presbyterians and Congregationals drawn up c. 1680, Dr Williams’s Library [hereafter DWL], Occasional Paper No. 6 (London, 1957), pp. 1–2 Google Scholar; Thomas, Roger, ‘The break-up of Nonconformity’, in Nuttall, Geoffrey F., Thomas, Roger,Lismer Short, H. and Whitehorn, R. D., The Beginnings of Nonconformity: The Hibberl Lectures (London, 1964), pp. 35–8 Google Scholar; Gordon Bolam, C., Goring, Jeremy, Short, H. L. and Thomas, Roger, The English Presbyterians: from Elizabethan Puritanism to Modem Vnitarianism (London, 1968), pp. 101–2 Google Scholar.

2 For evidence of the welcome and support given to the Happy Union by both ministers and laity, see Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, MS 3, ‘Original letters, papers, &c collected by the late famous Antiquary Ralph Thoresby’, No. 22, Priscilla [Lady] Brooke, Howgrave, to Rev. Richard Stretton, London, 13 Dec. 1690; N[oble], I[saac], A Funeral Sermon on Occasion of the Death of the Reverend James Forbes, M.A. Preach’d at Clocester, June 3d. 1712 (London, 1713), pp. 27–8 Google Scholar; BL, MS Stowe 747, Dering Correspondence, fol. 16r, John Hampden, London, to the Rev. [Francis] Tallents, Shrewsbury, 27 May 1693; Nuttall, Geoffrey F., ‘Dissenting Churches in Kent before 1700’, JEH, 14 (1963), p. 177 Google Scholar.

3 Nuttall, Geoffrey F., ‘Assembly and association in dissent, 1689-1831’, SCH, 1 (1971), pp. 289–90, 296-303Google Scholar; Thomas, ‘Essay of Accommodation’, pp. 2, 15-16, n. 11; Gordon, Alexander, ed., Cheshire Classis Minutes, 1691-1745 (London, 1919), pp. 3–4 Google Scholar; Brockett, Allan, ed., The Exeter Assembly: The Minutes of the Assemblies of the United Brethren of Devon and Cornwall, 1691-1717, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, ns 6 (1963), p. vii Google Scholar; Hunter, Joseph, The Rise of Old Dissent, Exemplified in the Life of Oliver Heywood (London, 1842), pp. 372–7 Google Scholar.

4 DWL, MS 12.78, Jollie Papers, p. 141, Copy of a general letter inviting ministers to attend a district meeting at Thomas Jollie’s house to discuss the business of the next meeting of the northern division of the United Brethren for Lancashire to be held on 12 April [1692]; ‘The minutes of the United Brethren [of Lancashire, 1693-1700]’, appendix of Shaw, W. A., ed., Minutes of the Manchester Presbyterian Classis, 1646-1660, part 3, Chetham Society, ns 24 (Manchester, 1891), pp. 351–63 Google Scholar; Brockett, Allan, Nonconformity in Exeter, 1650-1815 (Manchester, 1962), p. 65 Google Scholar; idem, Exeter Assembly, p. vii; Nuttall, ‘Assembly and association’, pp. 293–4; Gordon, Cheshire Classis, p. 140. See the Evans List for a survey of the relative strength of the two denominations in these areas, DWL, MS 38.4, ‘John Evans List of Dissenting Congregations and Ministers in England and Wales, 1715-29’. pp. 12-13, 16-17, 26-9; Hunter, Rise of Old Dissent, p. 377.

5 Stephens, W. B., ed., VCH Wanvicks. VIII: The City of Coventry and the Borough of Warwick (London, 1969), pp. 376, 387, 394 Google Scholar; Sibree, John and Caston, M., Independency in Warwickshire: a Brief History of the Independent or Congregational Churches in the County (Coventry and London, 1855), pp. 27–44, 45-64Google Scholar; DWL, New College MSS, MS Ll/10/2, Philip Doddridge, Hinckley, to Samuel Clark, St Albans, 4 May 1723; Nuttall, Geoffrey F., ed., Calendar of the Correspondence of Philip Doddridge DD (1702-1752), Joint Publications, 26 (London, 1979), p. 11 Google Scholar; Coventry, Coventry City Record Office [hereafter CCRO], MS 1184/1/1, Records of the Warwick Road United Reform Church, ‘A Church Book Belonging to the New Chappel [Vicar Lane] in Coventry’, 22 May 1725-7 Jan. 1804 [unpaginated], see 22 May 1725.

6 DWL, MS Ll/10/2, Doddridge to Clark, 4 May 1723; Letters from Doddridge to John Mason, 14 March 1723/4, to Samuel Clark, 5 May 1724, and to Alderman Richard Poole, Coventry, 29 June 1724, printed in Humphreys, J. D., ed., Correspondence and Diary of Philip Doddridge, 4 vols (London, 1829-31), 1, pp. 227, 348, 377, 404 Google Scholar; Nuttall, Calendar, pp. 11, 19, 21, 23.

7 CCRO, MS 1184/133/1, ‘A Sermon preached at the opening of Vicar Lane Chapel’, 14 Oct. 1724, by John Fleming.

8 CCRO, MS 1184/1/1, ‘Church Book’, Vicar Lane Chapel, see entries under 1, 8, 15, 18 Sept. [1727], 8 Nov. 1730, 3 April 1735, 12 Feb. 1737/8, 3 Aug. 1738, 31 March 1743, 9 June 1743; CCRO, MS 1184/133/1, Sermon preached by the Revd Mr Blackmore, 7 Nov. 1742. The Great Meeting, as the older church, is referred to as Old Meeting in the minutes of the Vicar Lane New Meeting.

9 Horsfall Turner, J., ed., The Rev. Oliver Heywood, B.A., 1630-1702: his Autobiography, Diaries, Anecdote and Event Books; Illustrating the General and Family History of Yorkshire and Lancashire, 4 vols (Brighouse, 1881-5), 2, pp. 200–1, 4, pp. 164–5 Google Scholar.

10 Joseph Hunter had use of the correspondence sent by the two parties to Moult, William, the Independent minister at Leeds: Hallamshire: the History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield (London, 1819), p. 169 Google Scholar; BL, Add. MS 24,437, Collectanea Hunteriana, iii: Collections for an History of the Town and Parish of Sheffield, 1, fols 59r-60r, ‘Some account of the dissenters of Sheffield. March 13th 1802’; Add. MS 24,484, ‘Britannica Puritanica, or outlines of the history of the various congregations of Presbyterians and Independents which arose out of the schism in the Church of England of 1662’, fols 26r-v; Miall, James G., Congregationalism in Yorkshire: a Chapter of Modern Church History (London, 1868), p. 352 Google Scholar.

11 Chester, Chester City Record Office, D/MH/1, Records of the Matthew Henry Chapel, Chester, Chapel Book, M. Henry, ‘A Short Account of the Beginning and Progress of our Congregation’ (1710), fols 7r-8v, printed in Roberts, H. D., Matthew Henry and his Chapel, 1662-1900 (Liverpool,[1901]), pp. 72–100 Google Scholar; T[ong], W[illiam], An Account of the Life and Death of Mr Matthew Henry, Minister of the Gospel at Hackney (London, 1716), pp. 45, 75 Google Scholar; Williams, J. B., Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry (London, 1829), p. 181 Google Scholar; Roberts, Matthew Henry, pp. 78-9, 81, 92-3.

12 Barrett, John, A Short Account of the life of the Reverend Mr William Reynolds, Who slept in Jesus Feb 26th 1697/8 in the 73d Year of his Age (London, 1698), p. 56 Google Scholar.

13 ‘High Pavement baptisms (1690-1723), Nottingham’, in Miscellany, 1, Nottinghamshire Family History Society, Records Series, 53 (1986), pp. 1, 2, 3, 4; Nottingham, Nottingham University Library Manuscripts Department, Hi 2 M/l, Nottingham Classis Minute Book (at the front of the volume is a list of ordinations, 1675-1703).

14 Mr Hewes is Obadiah Hughes, minister of High Pavement Chapel from 1728 to 1735. Nottingham, Nottingham University Library Manuscripts Department, CU/M/1/1, ‘An account of the Rise Progress and Proceedings of the Congregational Church of Christ at Nottingham’, pp. 14-17 (25 May, 2 and 25 June, 2 July 1736, 28 Dec. 1739); Benjamin Carpenter, Some Account of the Original Introduction of Presbylerianism in Nottingham and the Neighbourhood (London, [c. 1860]), pp. 152-4; Henderson, A. R., History of the Castle Gate Congregational Church, Nottingham, 1655-1905 (London, 1905), pp. 139–50 Google Scholar.

15 Chesterfield, Chesterfield Public Library, Records of Elders Yard Unitarian Chapel, Chesterfield, ELD 7-9, Lease and release, 26, 27 Dec. 1695; ELD 11-12, Agreement, 5 Nov. 1703. The Agreement is printed in Robson, D. W., Origins and History of Elder Yard Chapel, Chesterfield (Chesterfield, 1921), appendix, pp. 51–5 Google Scholar. In 1708 ‘The Congregational Church of Christ In Chesterfield’ invited Thomas Elston to be the minister of their part of the church: see BL, Stowe MS 748, Dering Correspondence, vol. 6, fol. 78r.

16 Hermann Thomas, A., A History of the Great Meeting, Leicester, and its Congregation (Leicester, 1908), pp. 31–6 Google Scholar; London, Public Record Office, CI 1/898/9 (15 Jan. 1718); J. Wilford, ‘Gallowtree Gate Chapel Jubilee’, includes a history of the earlier Independent congregation, founded in 1800, later the Bond Street Congregational Church, Leicester Chronicle, 20 Dec. 1873, p. xi; Revd Thomas Robinson, Vicar of St Mary’s Leicester, to [Revd George Gill, Minister of the Market Harborough Congregational Church], 16 Dec. 1800, in Congregational Magazine, ns 2 (1826), p. 191.

17 Henderson, History of Castle Gate, p. 140.

18 Chesterfield, Chesterfield Public Library, ELD 11-12, Agreement, 5 Nov. 1703. As late as 1730 the Congregational Church in Gloucester was warned that a general appeal for money towards the building of a new meeting-house would not be well received, since many thought they should effect a union with the Presbyterian meeting, from whom they had divided in 1714, and thus ‘the Expence of another Place have been sav’d’: see Gloucester, Gloucestershire Record Office, Records of Southgate Congregational Church, D6026/6/47, J. P., Dursley, to Rev. [Thomas] Cole, [minister of Congregational Church,] Gloucester, 11 May 1730.