A Baptist Church in Eccles, Lancashire, 1831-1842
The Eccles Church in Central records
Baptist churches are local and autonomous organisations, but in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries regional and ultimately national associations began to be formed. In time some of these developed distinct doctrinal positions and it was in this way that there developed most of the Baptist denominations we know today. An Association would hold an annual meeting, typically over a period of two days in Whit week, with services and business meetings presided over by a Moderator who was elected for one year at a time. For each meeting a Circular Letter (see bibliography, below) was published. The Letters to be mentioned here contain typically a lengthy address on some topic commissioned in advance, accounts of Association finance, reports from individual churches, and a statistical table of membership of churches.
The Lancashire & Yorkshire Association[90] was founded in 1787, but after 1837 it was subdivided and one part became the new Lancashire & Cheshire Association – with Giles senior as its first Moderator. The Eccles church became affiliated in the last year before the division, possibly not long before the date of the 1837 meeting, as it is listed in the statistical table for that year, but only at the end and with no figures. The 1838 table gives full details including the pastor’s name, “W. Giles Jun.”, but the 1839 table omits the name, and a report from Eccles confirms that Giles had left:
| A dark cloud seems now to hang over us. The providence of God, which brought our pastor among us, has, by his removal to Manchester, deprived us in a great degree of his labours; the effect of which has been to considerably decrease the congregation, and produce a much less steady attendance on the part of some of the members. Our circumstances in these respects, and in a pecuniary sense, call for your benevolent and immediate consideration. |
The figures and finances from this point on illustrate the decline. Total memberships of 55 and 58 in 1838 and 1839 drop to 31 and 32 in 1840 and 1841. In these latter two years Sunday school numbers also begin to be recorded, and Eccles shows a decline in these too, 50 and 34 in 1840 and 1841 respectively. The tables also give space for numbers of Sunday school teachers, but Eccles has none. There are no figures for 1842 or any subsequent year.[91] Table 7 presents all the data for Eccles in the Lancashire & Cheshire Letters, together with those for Giles senior’s church at Preston, for comparison.
Beginning in 1840, there are records of substantial payments from the Lancashire & Cheshire Association, to the Eccles church. In 1840, “Eccles, for three quarters of a year... £45.0.0d”; and in the same year, “voted 11th June,...for next six months... For Eccles, £15.0.0”. In the next year this payment is recorded - actually £16.0.0 - and in 1842, “Eccles for one year... £29.15.0”. In this year Eccles was the subject of a motion “that the case of Eccles be entrusted to the care of Mr. Leese, with the understanding that he will close our connection with it in two months”, and in the same minutes the next meeting of the relevant subcommittee was fixed for 7 December 1842. In the Accounts of 1843, which cover the period mid-1842 to mid-1843, Eccles receives its last large payment, £25.0.0, and the last mention of Eccles is in the Letter of 1844, a payment of £2.0.0 only.
We will come back to the question of whether there is any story hidden behind these figures, but a few comments can be drawn out straightaway. We are told that Giles’s first move away from Eccles was to Manchester, and it is clear that his pastorate ended some time in the period between mid-1838 and mid-1839. No doubt it coincided with his change of residence from Patricroft to Ardwick, which was about the end of 1838.[92] We see that the Eccles church did not succeed in attracting a replacement pastor. In such cases the normal practice would be to invite other ministers to “supply”. A supply minister might be a full-time pastor visiting from some other chapel (though obviously he in turn would need a replacement to supply in his place) but there were also itinerant preachers and Baptist “Itinerant Associations” to facilitate and finance the arrangements. We have no record of who if anyone was found to supply at Eccles, except that Giles himself did so occasionally since they were only deprived “in a great degree”. The tables also record five baptisms and two other additions to membership in the period after mid-1839, so the Eccles church was clearly not extinct. The sums of money passed to Eccles are quite large, surely too large to be accounted for by expenses of visiting ministers, and one can only assume that they were needed to pay for the chapel premises, at a rate of at least £30 per annum. Even if the congregation had been much larger during Giles’s pastorate it still seems a large sum of money to be found by a working-class congregation. Had Giles been subsidising it out of the proceeds of his school? Finally, “Mr Leese”, who was given the task of winding up the chapel affairs, is a known figure, as he is surely Joseph Leese, the Manchester businessman who was one of the financial guarantors of the school, and evidently a family friend, as Giles’s first son was named after him. He was a considerable benefactor to the Baptist cause.[93]© Roderick D. Cannon.
[91] When the Lancashire & Cheshire Association affiliated itself to the national Baptist Union, it effectively took the Eccles church in with it. The Baptist Union Annual report for 1840 carried (p. 54) a list of “Evangelical Baptist churches”, including Eccles, with its membership of the Lancashire and Cheshire Association; and in 1841 it named Eccles as newly affiliated to the Baptist Union (Giles senior’s church at Preston was listed in the same way at the same time). Eccles was still listed in 1842.
[92] He advertised his new school in Ardwick to start in January 1839, and in the same month Barton Hall was due to open under new management as a girls’ school. “Barton House, Patricroft, near Manchester. Miss Addison and Miss Chandler respectfully announce, that it is their intention to open the above residence for the board and education of young ladies, on Thursday the 24th instant...” Manchester Guardian, 5 January 1839. The school presumably did open as there is an entry in the 1841 Eccles directory, “Addison and Chandley [sic], ladies school, Peel Green”.
[93] In 1840, the year of the £45 grant to Eccles, Joseph Leese donated £50 to the Lancashire & Cheshire Association, and Joseph Leese jr donated £2.0.0d. In the same year J. Leese was also a member of the Building subcommittee of the Association.