A Baptist Church in Eccles, Lancashire, 1831-1842
The Minister
His name is William Giles, and fortunately for us he already has a place in history. This is because in addition to being a minister he was also a schoolmaster, and at earlier stage in his career one of his pupils was none other than Charles Dickens.[9] There were in fact two ministers with the same name, father and son, and they have often been confused. Both were in Chatham, Kent at the time when Charles Dickens lived there, and both ended their careers in the North West of England. They have been the subject of a detailed study by A. Humphreys (1926) that cleared up many – though not all – of the confusions.
William Giles the elder was born in 1771; he became a Baptist minister in c. 1797.[10] After serving several congregations in Devon and Hampshire[11] he moved to Chatham and in 1817[12] became pastor[13] first of one, then of another chapel there.[14] In 1832 he moved to Preston, Lancashire, and in due course became Pastor of the large Leeming Street Chapel,[15] [16] where he seems to have conducted an effective ministry until 1844, when he moved again, to Ashton-under-Lyne. There he was again Pastor of a Baptist chapel.[17] He died on 25th January 1846. [18] He was buried in Patricroft[19] where his son had previously worked, as will now appear.
William Giles the younger was born in 1798.[20] He is stated to have been educated at Oxford: that is, he was a pupil at a school there,[21] and although barred from being a member of the university, was allowed to attend certain university courses. Later he taught at the same school in Oxford, then for ten years ran a boys’ school in Chatham (which is where Dickens attended).[22] By 1831 he had moved to Patricroft. There he opened another boys’ school, at Barton Hall. It was advertised to start in January,[23] and evidently did so since a later advertisement announced the reopening in July, presumably after a summer break.[24] The fees were £40 per annum. A prospectus was issued, with an impressive list of local gentry as referees.[25] The school continued until 1838, when Giles moved again, as will be discussed below.
Humphreys’ study of the younger Giles’ career focuses mainly on his school mastering, and his brief contacts with Dickens, but he does mention that during his Patricroft period he “undertook the pastoral oversight of a small Baptist cause at Eccles”. [26] He also mentions his later ministry in Liverpool and Chester. It is interesting that Humphreys uses the word “cause”, which is not widely known (though still used among present-day Particular Baptists). He does not refer to any published general histories of Baptist churches, and there is nothing to suggest that he had seen records of the Eccles church such as the one we are mainly concerned with here.
In 1821, in Chatham, Giles the younger had married Harriott Miller Waring,[27] and they had at least six children, two sons and four daughters.[28] (All the records confirm that the mother’s first name was spelled Harriott). The two sons and one of the daughters were born in Patricroft, and they were duly named in the Baptist Chapel - Joseph Leese Giles [2], Harriott Emily Giles [11] and William Theophilus Giles [23]. The unusual spelling Harriott is repeated consistently. Also they had at least one child before these three, who died young – see below. The two oldest daughters Mary Anne and Elizabeth Waring Giles, born in Chatham, appear just once, as witnesses to a birth in 1836 [15].
The minister evidently has no middle name. He always signs himself simply W. Giles. On certain occasions it appears that his father was also present at a naming ceremony[29] - he signs himself W. Giles Senior [11,16].[30]
The minister's residence is specified in 1831 as "my house in Patricroft" [1], but on 1 March 1832, and still in 1837, it is "Barton Hall, Patricroft.” Presumably he and his family lived there the whole time while the building also functioned as the school. According to the school prospectus, mentioned above, it was “delightfully situated adjoining the Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal, and… almost hourly accessible by the Railway Carriages and the Duke’s Packets”. These are references to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which had opened in the previous year, with a station at Patricroft, and to a passenger service of boats which operated on the canal.[31] Barton Hall, locally known as "Barton Old Hall", stood on the north side of the road to Warrington, near Peel Green. It had once been the residence of the lords of the manor of Barton but at the time we are concerned with it was part of the Legh estates.[32] It ended up merely as a farmhouse. It was demolished in 1879, but a photograph is extant, showing it in a very run-down state.[33] There is a woodcut illustration in Giles’ school prospectus but it is hard to see much resemblance between the two pictures[34] and one wonders if the printer of the prospectus simply used a woodcut from stock. Presumably the Gileses leased the house for a short time. It seems to have been unoccupied for periods both before and afterwards.[35]
Even without all these details, the church record itself would have given us a sign of the minister's superior social status — or at least the upward mobility of his family — in the names and occupations of the people in attendance at the births of his grandchildren. On all three occasions [2, 11, 23] they have a surgeon, the first time a man from Flixton, the second and third times a different man from Manchester. Also each time, the midwife is a "nurse", Mary Roby Silburn (or Sibburn) from Manchester for the first two births, Martha Chapman, from Patricroft, for the third. Martha Chapman is a member of the congregation [17], and the only one whose occupation we know from the record
© Roderick D. Cannon.
[10]
Brought up in the Church of England, he joined the Methodists in
Plymouth. When about 20 years old, he moved to London and became a Methodist minister. In 1796 he went on a missionary
expedition to Africa. While there he became convinced of Baptist principles and on his return to Plymouth he was
baptised. W. T. Whitley, unp.;
see also Anon (1928-9).
His
wife’s name was Elizabeth, and she was born ca. 1765 (died 12 July 1844,
aged 79, see Table 6, item G 27; obituary The
Baptist Magazine, vol 36 (1844), pp 579-580). Among his other children
were Mary Eliza, born ca. 1795 (see below), John Eustace, born 1805 (W. T.
Whitley, unp.), and Samuel. A. H. Giles (1910) gives Elizabeth’s maiden as
Pike, and mentions other children, but his details should not be taken on
trust. Mary Eliza married and became Mrs Godfrey, and in the 1881 census was
still living, a widow, at 2 Belvedere Terrace, Toxteth, Liverpool. Her
children included Martha, born in Chatham c. 1814, living with her in 1881.
J. E. Giles became prominent in the Baptist movement: he was a
minister in various places, including Leeds from 1836 to 1845; President of
the Baptist Union in 1846; died 1875 (W. T. Whitley, unp.). Samuel was in
Manchester by 1843 as a textile printer and “commission agent”, with
business premises at 32 George Street and a house in Devonshire Street,
Ardwick (Pigot, 1843; see also F. R. Dean (1938), p. 8).
[11] He appears to have been resident in London, and active in Baptist affairs, at least from 1797, when he joined the committee of the newly formed Baptist Society in London for the Encouragement and Support of Itinerant Preaching. He attended meetings frequently from then until 1805, from which time he appears in the records as reporting his activities in the Dartmouth area. See Minute book of the Society, passim.
[12] His inauguration prompted the publication of a pamphlet against him by another Chatham minister, who held unitarian views, to which he replied in a pamphlet of his own. See J. Cundill (1817), W. Giles (1818). It was not the first time this had happened: while in Hampshire he had been attacked, and replied, on the subject of infant baptism – see W. Giles [1817].
[13] Cundill (1817) refers to Giles’ “ordination” but in his reply Giles himself seems to reject the use of that term. He refers to himself as having been “recognised” as pastor, and only uses the term “ordination” in a rather marked way, with a capital letter, when quoting Cundill in his conclusion.
[14]
It is not certain, but seems
likely, that Giles’s first charge in Chatham was the Zion chapel, in
Clover Street. Cundill (1817) calls it “the Calvinist Baptist Meeting
House, Clover-street, Chatham” but there is little doubt that
“calvinist” here is a derogatory epithet rather than part of the
actually name of the chapel. Cundill calls himself “Unitarian Baptist
Minister”.
A
Zion Baptist Chapel is referred to at some length by S. F. Paul (1966:
288-289). According to this account a Particular Baptist church was formed
in Chatham as early as 1644, succeeded by a meeting house in Clover Street,
Chatham, which was rebuilt as
the Zion Chapel on the same site. Paul refers to a Pastor named John Knott
who served until “1817 or 1818”, then passes over “two or three other
Pastors” until the arrival of another in 1842, whose teachings led to a
split and formation of a separate chapel of stricter Calvinistic type.
The
register of burials for Zion Chapel, Clover Street, Chatham, covers the
period 1785-1837, but I have found no signatures or other evidence in it to
show whether Giles senior was there or not.
It is however certain that Giles was subsequently at a different chapel, called Providence. The extant register of births for Providence Chapel begins 20 October 1822 and has frequent entries by Giles senior up to 22 October 1827, including two of his own grandchildren, as noted below.
Providence Chapel stood on a street called The Brook, next door to the house which the Dickens family occupied for a time in the 1820s. There is an engraving showing the two buildings, in R. Langton (1883), facing page [33]. In Langton’s time the address of the house was 18 St Mary’s Place, and the chapel building had become the Salvation Drill Hall (ib., p. 44). The fact that this was Giles’s chapel was confirmed by his daughter, Mrs Godfrey, who was interviewed by Langton when she was an old lady living in Liverpool – see below.
W. T. Whitley (unp) stated that Giles actually founded the second Particular Baptist Chapel in Chatham, which is consistent with the above, if we assume that Providence began as a fresh start under Giles. What remains unclear is what Giles was doing, and where, in the period 1827 to 1833.
[15] A tabulation of Baptist churches, published in 1836, states that Giles was “settled” [= confirmed in his position as pastor] at Preston in 1832, Baptist Union Annual Report, 1836, Appendix no. 1 (p. 40). J. Lister (1842, p. 17) wrote that in May 1832 “[the Preston] church unanimously invited Mr. W. Giles, who had lately left Chatham, to take the pastoral charge over them. After remaining some months among them... Mr Giles accepted the call". The form prefixed to the birth register of Leeming Street Chapel contains Giles’s own statement that he had kept the record since August 1832. J. Lister (1842) continues “The chapel being too small, was enlarged and re-opened in February 1833 at which time Mr Giles was publicly recognised as pastor”. He resigned from Preston, March 17 1844, according to a handwritten note in the Angus Library copy of the Baptist Union Annual Report, 1843, page 51.
[16] A picture of Giles senior, preaching in his pulpit, is reproduced in W. T. Whitley (1913), p. 186, and A. Humphreys (1926), facing p. 3. In Humphreys’ time, such a picture was in the Fishergate Street Chapel, Preston, together with an inscription which stated incorrectly that Giles senior had been the teacher of Dickens. Humphreys maintains that the Fishergate portrait is a copy and that the published reproductions are based on the original.
[17] He is recorded as having resigned from Preston on 17 March 1844 (handwritten note in the Angus Library copy of the Baptist Union Annual report for 1843, p. 51). The church at Ashton had been formed in 1836 and W. Giles was “settled” as pastor there in 1844. (Information from a tabulation of Baptist churches in the Lancashire and Cheshire Association, Baptist Manual, 1845).
[18] “Recent Deaths. Rev. W. Giles. Died, January 25th, 1846, the Rev. W. Giles, of Ashton-under-Lyne, in the fifty-fourth year of his ministry, and the seventy-fifth year of his age;...” Baptist Magazine,1846, pp 170-171. Obituary, Baptist Manual, 1846, pp 42-44.
[19] Strictly speaking, the stone in the George Street ground [they have all since been removed] was his memorial, and did not say that he was actually buried there – see Table 6, item G27.
[20] 30 December 1798, as implied by an inscription on a silver tea and coffee service presented to him for his 50th birthday – A. Humphreys (1926), p. 17.
[21] The school was run by James Hinton, Baptist minister, at a house in St. Aldate’s [street] Oxford.
[22] Langton’s
account of the school (1883, pp 55-57) is worth quoting in full:
“Mr.
William Giles, the son of the Rev. Wm. Giles, the minister of Providence
Chapel on the Brook, commenced school-keeping at a house in Clover Lane, now
Clover Street, Chatham, and at that time his scholars consisted of his own
younger brothers and sisters, of the children of some of the officers of the
garrison, and a few of the children of the neighbours.
He shortly afterwards moved to the large house still standing at the corner of Rhode Street and Best Street, shown in [an engraving on p. [54] of the book], and closely adjoining Clover Lane, and here Charles and Fanny Dickens attended as scholars. Finally he moved to Gibraltar Place on the new-road. The school still lives in the memory of numbers of people resident in these towns (Strood, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton), and a doggrel [sic] survives which runs thus –
Baker’s
Bull Dogs,
Giles’s Cats,
New-road scrubbers,
Troy Town Rats.
and in this rhyme four of the principal educational establishments of fifty years ago (in these towns) are named.”
This is based on evidence “of Mr. Dickeson and others, who went to this school” and of “Mrs Godfrey, the eldest sister of Mr. Giles [i.e. Mary Eliza, see above], a venerable lady, now in her eighty-ninth year, residing at Liverpool... she clearly remembers both the house [the Dickens’s] at Ordnance Terrace, and that on the Brook; she also recognised the drawing of Providence Chapel as her father’s chapel... At Mr Giles’ school the boys were expected to wear (and did wear) white beaver hats...” Humphreys stated (1926, p. 4n) that by his time the house on the corner of Rhode street and Best Street had been pulled down.
[23] Manchester Guardian, 22 Jan 1831. “Barton-Hall School, Patricroft. – Mr. W. Giles takes occasion to announce, that his engagements with his pupils will commence on Wednesday, January 26th, 1831. – Prospectuses may be obtained of Joseph Leese Esqr., 56 High-street, Manchester”.
[24] Manchester Guardian, 9 July 1831, announcing that the school is to reopen on July 27th. The advertisement has the same woodcut illustration as the prospectus, a similar list of subjects, and a shorter list of referees.
[25] The original has not been traced. A. Humphreys reproduces (1926, plate facing p. 9) what he calls the first page of it. It has the (supposed) picture of the house, a very ambitious list of subjects taught, and a list of 26 referees, in Manchester and seven other places.
[26] A. Humphreys (1926, p. 9). An indication that Eccles was W. Giles junior’s first pastorate is the form he filled in to accompany the Register when he sent it to the Parliamentary Commissioners in June 1837. In answer to a question whether he had been “Minister, Trustee, or Member… of any and what Chapel, respecting the Register of which you can give information” he replied only “Baptist Chapel, Eccles”.
[27] William Giles married Harriott Miller Waring, at Chatham, on 31 December 1821 (IGI).
[28] Elizabeth Waring Giles, born October 1822, and Mary Ann Giles, born 31 December 1823; registered at Providence Particular Baptist Chapel, Chatham. A. H. Giles (1910, p. 23) also mentions a daughter Theodora and gives names of husbands of three of these, but no dates.
[29] On one of these occasions [11] it is the naming of his granddaughter Harriott Emily, when Giles Senior actually performed the ceremony, and it seems that for some reason Giles junior was absent, as he is not even listed as a witness. The other [16] is for Rachel, a daughter of John and Lois Barlow, the former being one of the deacons. On this occasion Giles junior was present and is the first in the list of witnesses.
[30] The handwritings of the two Gileses in their signatures are very similar, but Giles junior, when signing formally, uses a remarkable flourish of ornamental lines.
[31] The passenger boat service between Worsley and Manchester continued until 1860 (VCH, 1911). A public house by Patricroft Bridge, on the corner of what are now Barton Road and Peel Green Road, is still called “The Packet House”.
[32] The family was called Barton at first, then the lands passed to the family of Booth in 1292, to the Trafford family in 1576, and to the Legh family in 1586 (VCH, 1911). Baines (1836) named the proprietor as G. C. Leigh, of High Leigh, esq.” and stated that the building “is now a farm house”. Although Baines’ book was published in 1836 it was evidently a few years out of date. There are various indications that the information was correct to about 1832. “High Leigh” is in Cheshire but the preferred modern spelling is Legh, as in the VCH.
[33] Bowes, P., and Patry, M. (1982 Page 43.
[34] The house was described by Baines (1836) as “a brick edifice, with two gables in front, a projecting wing, and mullion windows” and the photograph agrees with this description. But the woodcut shows a building in two parts, with pitched roofs in line with each other, and no twin gables.
[35] Barton Hall is not mentioned in Baines’ Lancashire Directory of 1826, nor in the 1841 census for Barton-upon-Irwell.This implies that in 1825 it was either unoccupied or else occupied by someone who did not rate as “gentry” for Baines’ purpose, and unoccupied again in 1841. In 1869 (Slater) the tenants were the Misses Sarah and Ellen Hall.