A Baptist Church in Eccles, Lancashire, 1831-1842
The Chapel
The register makes it clear that there was an actual chapel, a point to be emphasised since it was not unusual for nonconformist churches to begin simply as informal meetings in members’ houses. For seven of the 24 namings, the place is specified. The exact wordings used are shown in Table 2. The first was indeed in the minister’s own house, and it is not his own child. There was just one witness. The church had actually been started on Sunday May 1st 1831, but the first naming took place in November. But evidently a permanent meeting place had been found by the time of the next naming, April 1832, “in the Baptist Chapel, Eccles”. In the next two namings the expression changes to “meeting house”, and in the last three it is specifically the “vestry” of the Chapel (or Meeting).
Where was the chapel located? As already mentioned the six-inch OS map of 1848 shows several chapels in the Eccles/Patricroft/Barton areas, but all of them can be identified with the help of other records and none of them are Baptist.[42] Later published histories[43] of Eccles and its churches give little help. They are mostly interested in other denominations and refer slightingly if at all to Baptists, though two are of some use as will be seen below.
The register gives one clue, since it consistently refers to the chapel as being in “Eccles, Lancashire”. If this means simply the parish of Eccles it tells us nothing, but there are indications that it is meant to be more specific. The register does contain the phrases “parish of Eccles” and “township of Barton” but when it refers to places of residence the expressions (Table 3) are more brief and do not all correspond to the political or administrative divisions that were in force at the time. The main ones are, “Eccles”, “Patricroft”, and two roads, “Catch Inn Lane” and “Back Lane”. We also have, once, “Barton on Irwell”, which is the official name of the whole township containing these localities, and once, the neighbouring township of Pendleton. In 15 cases it has been possible to identify the locations quite precisely. They are marked on the map, Figure 3, and as will be seen, the two instances of “Eccles” are well within the main village of Eccles, the two of “Patricroft” are in the hamlet of Patricroft and the open country to the west, and the three of “Catch Inn [Lane]” are in the part of that road which is well separated from either Eccles or Patricroft. On this basis it seems to reasonable to say that when the register mentions the “Baptist Chapel, Eccles” it means a location somewhere in the built-up area of Eccles village.[44]
One location which has been mentioned as a centre of Baptist activities is the Temperance Hall, which was at the Eccles end of Barton Lane. According to J. Bagot (1875), this building was first put up in 1821 for the use of the Wesleyan Methodists, at the expense of one Tomlinson Hesketh, a Manchester businessman who had come to live at Monton Green.[45] The next reference is a feature in the local newspaper, about 1900, which gives the benefactor’s name as William Tomlinson Hesketh, and the date of building “about 1818”.[46] Finally E. Moss (1913) gives a racy and amusing account of the whole life of the building, and it is he who mentions the Baptists. He repeats the story of Tomlinson Hesketh, a “flour dealer of Manchester”, and the date of 1821. “The Wesleyans occupied it for about four years, after which it came into the hands of the Baptists. During the tenancy of the latter a portion of the building was set aside for the earliest Eccles Temperance Society...”. Subsequently it was used by a literary institute and day school, occupied as a short-lived grammar school, reoccupied temporarily by the Wesleyans, adopted as the day and Sunday School of St. Andrews Church, became the headquarters of the Blue Ribbon Army, then an early cinema, and was finally demolished.[47]
All three of these writers had local knowledge, but none of them of course refers to original sources. The earlier parts of their accounts are at least fairly consistent, and it is a fact that a William Tomlinson Hesketh, who was a corn merchant in Manchester for over 50 years, lived at Monton Green for a while in the early 1820s.[48] The later part of Moss’s account is also supported by contemporary documents.[49] Moss also enables us to pinpoint the location of the building – see Figure 4. The 25-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1878 shows the Temperance Hall, clearly labelled, with a narrow frontage in Barton Lane, facing the end of what was then called George Street, now St George’s Street. Using this map as a guide and turning to the 1848 map, it is possible, in spite of the smaller scale, to make out a building in the same position. The indication is that it then measured about 30 feet wide, by 50 feet running back from the street, and that the front was aligned at something of an angle to the line of the street. By 1878 it had been extended to about double the depth, and had acquired a small rectangular extension at the front left hand corner. By 1888, when the premises had become a school, there had been been further extensions at the back and west side, the small extension had gone, but an entrance porch of some sort had been added. No photographs showing any part of the hall have been discovered.
The next reference to a Baptist place of worship is in the 1861 census, where in the sequence of houses along the west side of Oxford Street there is a “Baptist Preaching Room”. This area also has since been rebuilt and the spot where the building stood is now part of the land of the Eccles Recreation Ground.[50] There is no indication that this was a purpose-built chapel but there is evidence that it was the first established meeting place of the Particular Baptists who in 1873 erected their chapel in Byron Street, Patricroft.[51]
A Baptist chapel, properly so-called, must include a baptistry, large enough for total immersion, with steps leading down into it at least from one side or more usually from both. It would be located at the front, i.e. between the pews and the pulpit, and kept covered over when not in use. The building is to that extent custom-built, and if a chapel were taken over from another denomination it would have to be modified accordingly. On the other hand we should reckon with the fact that baptisms are relatively rare events, and with the possibility that when required they might have taken place in some other Baptist chapel.
© Roderick D. Cannon.
[43] For early accounts of Presbyterian and Independent (later Congregational) churches, see Nightingale (n.d.). For Methodist churches, see J. Bagot (1875) and E. Moss (1913). F. R. Johnston (1967, 119-127) cites several locally produced histories, and treats all his sources fairly, from which it seem that little or nothing was produced relating specifically to Baptist churches.
[44] If this is correct we can draw two other conclusions (1) that the family of Lingard, living at Barton upon Irwell, did actually live somewhere in the hamlet clustered around Barton Bridge, and (2) that “Catch Inn” (which occurs eight out of ten times without the word “lane”) was probably a local term for the cluster of houses and shops along the south side of the lane.
[45] J. Bagot (1875), p. 13. “In 1821 the building now known as the Temperance Hall, in Barton Lane, was erected by Tomlinson Hesketh, who had come to reside at Monton Green, and to this place the [Wesleyan] school and preaching were now removed, and conducted here for about three years... In 1824 the New Connexion Methodist Chapel, Regent-street, was offered for sale. It was purchased by the Wesleyan Methodists and opened by them for religious worship on the 17th of October in the same year.”
[46] Eccles and Patricroft Journal. Cutting, undated, preserved in files at the Local History Library, Salford. Entitled “100 years of Wesleyan Methodism at Barton”, it evidently celebrates the centenary of the chapel in Barton Road, which is generally supposed to have been erected in 1798. It refers to a Trust Document which mentions “William Tomlinson Hesketh of Monton Green, corn dealer”, and continues “Mr Hesketh had been in business in Manchester, where he had been connected with the Methodists. Amongst many other useful things he built entirely at his own expense a large room for the use of the Eccles Methodists about the year 1818, when their usual meeting place in Timothy Street had become too inconvenient. In this building in Barton Lane, now occupied by the “Blue Ribbon Army”, the Eccles Methodists had preaching for many years previous to their buying the chapel in Regent road from the followers of Alexander Kilham...”
[47] Moss, E. (1913), pp 39-41, wrote as follows:
“In 1821…There came to live near Monton Green a benevolent man named Tomlinson Hesketh, a flour dealer of Manchester. This man, sympathising with the struggles of the poor Wesleyans at Eccles, erected a building in Barton Lane at his own expense and granted the use of it to the Wesleyans for chapel and school purposes...
This building was destined to have a chequered history. The Wesleyans occupied it it for about four years, when it came into the hands of the Baptists. During the tenancy of the latter a portion of the building was set apart for the earliest Eccles Temperance Society, a flourishing organisation vigorously carried on by working men who gave to the place the name of Temperance Hall. Meanwhile a literary institute, inaugurated with a day school about 1852 by the generosity of the Chadwick family (cotton manufacturers) had fallen into difficulties owing to the death of the head of the firm and the consequent closing of the mill. The literary committee made an arrangement with the temperance society for a joint tenancy of the hall, which then became known as the Temperance Hall and Literary Institute. The mill was restarted by John Holdsworth, who, though a member of the Society of Friends was a most energetic, bustling man. Mr Holdsworth seeing and deploring the depravity of the village as exemplified in the races and the “wakes”, stirred up the literary committee and a many [sic]of the residents on the Old Road to supplement the efforts of the temperance society by the inauguration of a series of lectures on Wednsday evenings and a series of penny readings on Saturday evenings. The “Penny Readings Movement” was about that time (1859) being started in many places in Lancashire and Cheshire. In Eccles it was very successful for six or seven years, as was also the Wednesday evening lecture movement. In connection with the latter the ministers of all denominations from all parts of the Manchester district, and many literary and scientific men, gave their services freely as lecturers, while the Saturday evening entertainments were supported with equal generosity by many literary residents (more it is to be feared than could now be found), some well-known choirs of churches and chapels or the numerous vocal societies that then existed. These lectures and entertainments brought great kudos and prestige to the Temperance Hall and Literary Institute. Before they were ended the building was occupied as a day school by Robert Sharp, the grammar school master, who had been turned out of the churchyard [where his school had been located]… In 1864 the Wesleyans again came into it for public worship and Sunday School during the enlargement of the Regent Street chapel and school. After this it became the day and Sunday School of St. Andrews Parish; later the headquarters of the Blue Ribbon Army, then a moving picture house with a glaring electric-lighted false front, suggesting a desperate exprting struggle for distinction; and finally a heap of dusty ruins, to be carted away as bricks and firewood or dumped as rubbish into some ignominious hole along with the debris from the slums of the once notorious Timothy Street.
[48] He appears in Pigot & Dean’s (later Pigot’s) Manchester directories from 1813 onwards, at first as “corn, malt &c. dealer”, later expanding into dairy products as well. Prior to this (1804, Dean’s directory) there had been a corn dealer in Salford named Tomlinson Hesketh. The firm became W. T. Hesketh and Sons from 1836 and continued to 1876. Besides his business addresses in Manchester and/or Salford, W. T. Hesketh had his house address in the directories of 1821-2 and 1824-5, as “Monton-green, Eccles”. It may be significant that these are the only directories in the period which have sections devoted to Eccles as such, though the information about Hesketh is contained only in the Manchester section. The Eccles sections list mainly tradespeople such as craftsmen and shopkeepers. The possibility remains that Hesketh also lived at Monton Green before and/or after the dates mentioned; though in the 1813 directory his house is in Salford, next door to his business. He died 23 December 1848 (will proved much later at Chester, 7 September 1877, by his daughter Elizabeth Hesketh, then of Davyhulme).
[49] In Slater’s directory for 1869, Robert Sharp is living in Barton Lane. By 1896 Barton Lane has been renamed Barton Street and the “Old Temperance Hall” is located between Nos 14 and 20; from 1897 to 1901 the “Old Temperance Hall” is followed immediately by the “Gospel Hall”. From 1902 to 1905, the name of the hall is followed by “Eccles Blue Ribbon Army”; from 1903 to 1910 there is also “Eccles Friendly Sick and Burial Society”. 1910 is the last year in which Timothy Street appears; in 1911 the Old Temperance Hall is still in the same position, but Corporation Street has been built; from 1912 onwards the whole range of buildings from Church Street to Corporation Street has gone.
[50] In the census (film 2862 in the copy held at Manchester Central Library) the houses in Oxford Street are not numbered but they are assigned “schedule numbers”, thus, 296 James Nelson, 297 Baptist Preaching Room, 298 John Hughes etc.
[51] S. F. Paul (1961), 271-2.