Nonconformists in Leeds

The following article provides a brief history of nonconformity in Leeds. A collections guide for the nonconformist registers held by WYAS can be found on Collections Guide 2.

When Dr Hook was appointed as the new Vicar of Leeds in 1837, he referred to Methodism as ‘the de-facto established religion in Leeds’. Yet Methodism was only the most recent Nonconformist sect to emerge in a long history of dissent in Leeds and the surrounding area.

Following a quiet Reformation, the choice of Robert Cooke as vicar of Leeds in 1590, succeeded by his even more fiercely Puritanical brother, Alexander, in 1615, heralded an era of developing hostility and tension in the town’s religious affairs. Civil War did nothing to heal already entrenched religious antagonisms, and “from the Restoration to at least the 1670s, Leeds had a reputation for being highly disaffected in both religion and politics, regarded as a hotbed of disloyalty to the Established Church, and as a centre of sedition as well...Above all...the whole area had become a great hotbed of Nonconformist preaching and services, held in secret to avoid the forces of the law.” ¹

The strength of Nonconformity in Leeds at the 1672 Declaration of Indulgence is illustrated by the licensing of ten private buildings under the Act for Nonconformist worship. The building of Mill Hill Presbyterian Chapel commenced in the same year, and was completed in 1674. The first Independent Chapel in Call Lane was finished in 1691, just two years after the Toleration Act of 1689. The latter seventeenth century also sees the first evidence emerging of Baptist meetings taking place in the surrounding area, although it was not until 1778 that the Baptists built a permanent place of worship in Leeds itself.

A hundred years further on, the followers of John and Charles Wesley’s Methodism benefited, as had the Presbyterians before them, from the fact that the proportion of parish churches to population in the West Riding was one of the worst in the country. The Church of England was slow to react to the massive influx of population into the urban manufacturing centres of the West Riding brought about by the Industrial Revolution: Dr Hook’s new responsibilities in 1837 covered a parish of some thirty square miles, twelve churches, twenty two clergy and a population which had tripled since 1801. The Methodists, already firmly established in the Leeds outskirts at Armley as early as 1742, seized the initiative amongst the poorly paid, badly housed, and often unemployed miners and factory workers.

Independent/Congregational and United Reformed Church

Although the traits of what was later to be labelled Nonconformity clearly existed in this part of Yorkshire from at least the mid-seventeenth century, the earliest surviving records of recognisable Nonconformist congregations held at Leeds Archives, with a few exceptions, date from the middle of the following century. The small size of the congregations probably rendered keeping formal records unnecessary, not to mention dangerous in the atmosphere of persecution prevailing up to the passing of the 1689 Act of Toleration. The records of St Mary-in-the-Wood Chapel at Morley include a register of baptisms and burials with the earliest entry being 1656, but the first entries are clearly copies [WYL794/1]. The records of another Morley Congregational Church, Rehoboth (New Chapel), include a baptism register beginning in 1756 [WYL794/57], although other records for this Church, which closed in 1967, are disappointing and mostly late nineteenth or twentieth century in date. For Leeds itself, there are baptism registers for Whitehall Independent Chapel from the 1750s and Salem Congregational Chapel also has extant eighteenth century records, including a baptism register, 1790-1799 [WYL861/13] and pew rents from 1794 [WYL861/68]. By 1841, however, many of the Salem congregation had moved on to the more salubrious East Parade Chapel, for which a substantial amount of material survives concerning the building, including specifications, plans, minute books, accounts and correspondence [WYL861/51-57 & 100/4-], as well as bundles of testimonials and letters requesting membership [WYL861/100/1]. These records form part of the deposit of East Parade’s successor Chapel, Trinity Congregational Church, latterly Trinity St.David’s United Reformed Church. Earlier Nonconformist records are frequently passed on to successor organisations in this manner, although in many cases the records of closed (and even some still functioning – Salem Chapel in Leeds, for example) Congregational churches throughout Yorkshire were sent to the Yorkshire Congregational Union for safekeeping. These have also been deposited in Leeds Archives², which together with the records of the Y.C.U. itself – mainly minute books and financial records for the Union and its various regional assemblies – form a major source for the history of Congregationalism in Yorkshire.

Presbyterians and Unitarians

Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel in the centre of Leeds is the only nonconformist Church for which Leeds Archives holds original records earlier in date than the eighteenth century. Established as a Presbyterian Meeting in 1672, following the suspension of penal laws against nonconformist dissenters, the first chapel was built in 1674. The Mill Hill records form a particularly complete and significant collection for the study of nonconformity in Leeds, perhaps partly because the chapel has always attracted the leading citizens of the town to its congregation, including the historian Ralph Thoresby, and James Kitson, first Lord Airedale. Indeed, the Chapel has been called ‘The Mayor’s Nest’ because of the number of holders of the office who were members of the congregation. The important early records of the Chapel include a two volume Bible belonging to the first minister at Mill Hill, Richard Stretton (1673-1678) [WYL1386/68], and a volume of sermons 1693-1696 by another minister, Timothy Manlove [WYL1386/69]. The main series of chapel minute books and accounts date from 1771 [WYL1386/6-12; WYL1386/17]. The original 1674 building was the first dissenting meeting house to be built in Leeds, so a parcel of deeds 1676-1830 is of particular interest [WYL1386/31], as are the records relating to the rebuilding of the chapel in the 1840s.³ The 1848 building bears an uncanny resemblance to Leeds Parish Church, which itself had just been pulled down and rebuilt as part of Dr Hook’s High Anglican Gothic Revival movement, and the survival of papers giving the Mill Hill building committee’s vindication for adopting the Gothic style form a pertinent reminder of the intense religious rivalries at work in nineteenth century Leeds [WYL1386/46]. Records also survive concerning the building of Priestley Hall, named after Mill Hill Chapel’s most eminent minister, Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen [WYL1386/47, 48 & 52A], and for the Sunday and Day schools associated with the chapel [WYL1386/47A & 58-65]. Like most churches in urban areas during the nineteenth century, Mill Hill was involved in mission movements to the working classes and ventures of a social/education nature, with initiatives including a library [WYL1386/66] and the establishment of two mission stations at Holbeck (1844) and Hunslet (1863), whose records survive amongst the Mill Hill deposit. As the leading Unitarian church in the area, Mill Hill played an important role in raising subscriptions for other Unitarian churches as far away as Scarborough and Carlisle [WYL1386/86-89A]. The chapel was also used as a place of deposit on behalf of the Yorkshire Unitarian Union [WYL1386/90-93].

Baptists

The earliest record of Baptist activity held at Leeds Archives is the Church Book of the Gildersome congregation, 1740-1795 [WYL1213/2/1]. The Gildersome Church Book is a typical example of its type: opening with a short note of the foundation of the chapel in 1707, although the congregation first met around 1660, the book continues with a rambling confession of faith and covenant of communion, followed by records of adult baptisms, disciplinary action, and letters of dismission granted to members moving away from the area. Most Baptist church records, however, date from the nineteenth century, with the most substantial deposit being from the Blenheim Baptist Church in Leeds, a 1848 breakaway from South Parade Church. Typical holdings of records from Baptist churches include registers of church members, frequently the earliest surviving record of a particular church, church meetings and Deacons’ minute books, account books and other financial records including pew rent books, and Sunday School records. The Archives also holds a number of marriage registers from closed churches or churches no longer licensed for marriages. The Blenheim Baptist deposit also includes a substantial amount of material on various building projects for the Chapel, its associated school and Camp Road Mission [WYL1549/25-41 & 68-74].

Methodists

The crowning glory amongst the Nonconformist collections at Leeds, however, have to be the substantial deposits of Methodist records, which the local Methodist District Archivist believes include 'some of the earliest surviving local Methodist records in the world', forming 'a major and invaluable source'.⁴ The records are so extensive, they can only be selectively described here: they include the minutes of the Leeds (Wesleyan) Methodist District Synod from 1880 and its constituent committees, such as the Leeds Methodist Council and Extension Society (minutes, secretary’s papers and accounts) from 1907, the Band of Hope Union, Sunday School Council, and minutes of the Home Missions meetings 1879-1980. All the Leeds circuits have deposited records, along with those of Aireborough, Horsforth and Bramley, Otley, Pudsey and Farsley, and Tadcaster. Two circuit deposits are substantial: the Leeds (Oxford Place) circuit, which includes the executive committee minutes of the Leeds District Federation of Free Church Council, 1899-1938 [WYL95/2/180], and – as evidence of the wider social responsibility of the Methodist Church – a baptism register, 1899-1915 of the Beth Carr Maternity Home [WYL95/2/180]. Secondly, the deposit from the Leeds (Brunswick) Circuit, which includes material in the minute books of the Brunswick Chapel relating to the formation of the Wesleyan Protestant Methodists in 1827, following a dispute over the installation of a grand organ in the chapel.⁵ The first major Methodist split after Wesley’s death also took place in Leeds: whilst the Conference met in Quarry Hill, Leeds, in 1797, the Methodist New Connexion was established at nearby Ebenezer Chapel. Brunswick Circuit records also include minutes of the Leeds District meetings 1800-1847, quarterly meetings minute books for various predecessor circuits, local preachers meetings minutes, Sunday and day school records, and records of individual chapels, including the steward’s book for class money 1773-1802 [WYL490/68] and a pew rent book 1767-1772 [WYL490/66] for St Peter’s (‘Boggart House’) Chapel. Leeds Archives also holds a large amount of material relative to the early growth of the Primitive Methodists in the Leeds circuit, which originally covered a wide area from Dewsbury to Otley.

The Methodist records held at Leeds Archives would clearly be of great historical significance simply given their substantial quantity, a legacy of the rampant nineteenth century Methodism encountered by Dr Hook. Yet there is also a considerable amount of eighteenth century material amongst the Methodist collections: in addition to those items already noted, these include: a licence for Armley Meeting House 1776, subscriptions for the building of Bramley Preaching House 1777-1779, Leeds Circuit accounts 1797-1809, and a preaching plan, October-January 1796/7, quarterly accounts 1768-1777 and society rolls 1792-1838. Eighteenth century Methodist documents from the area surrounding Leeds include an Otley Circuit account book 1790-1825, deeds and trust papers for Burley in Wharfedale Chapel from 1755, and the Yeadon Preaching House Book 1788-1834. The records are not easy to use: the proliferation of Methodism in Leeds during the nineteenth century (producing such gems as the Leeds (Third) Wesleyan Methodist Circuit’s “Worn out Preachers and Preachers Widows Auxiliary Fund Account Book”, 1841-1845 [WYL814/36]) followed by Methodist Union and the closure of many chapels in the twentieth century, which is also well documented in the Leeds records, necessitated constant reorganisation of circuits and produced a confusing archival legacy. Individual chapels may have records deposited by more than one circuit, whilst many circuits no longer exist as recognisable units. Many chapels changed name or denomination several times. For those prepared to put in the time to sort out relevant records from this tangled web, however, the Methodist records held at Leeds offer a unique opportunity for historical research.

Moravians

The records of Mirfield Wellhouse Moravian Church form something of a footnote to this survey of Nonconformist records held at Leeds, although the preaching of Benjamin Ingham in the Leeds area from 1836 probably considerably eased the task of early Methodist preachers. Ingham, born in nearby Ossett, and married to the sister of the Countess of Huntingdon, converted to the Moravian Church in 1742, and Mirfield was one of several Moravian centres in Yorkshire, set up under the supervision of the German Spangenberg at the invitation of Ingham. The extant records include minutes of the congregation committee from 1826, a congregation catalogue of 1799, minutes of the “Servants’ Conference”, 1763-1769, papers on the building of the chapel and minutes of the building committee, 1799, and a series of printed volumes, including hymn books of 1754 onwards, and a 1759 liturgy.

Despite the lack of formal legislation covering the deposit of Nonconformist records in record offices, in comparison with the established Church, and an initial reluctance from some individual bodies to deposit their records, recent years have seen a steady accumulation of Nonconformist source material at Leeds Archives. The Nonconformist deposits now form a significant source for research into all the major denominations both in Leeds itself and the surrounding area, with the exception of the Quakers, whose local records are housed at the University of Leeds. The records are particularly numerous for the nineteenth century, during which time the work of all the Nonconformist denominations flourished and expanded greatly, following emancipation in 1828. This is particularly true of the Methodist Church, for which the Leeds collections are especially spectacular. But of no less significance for historical research are the twentieth century records which cover the closure of many chapels and (re-amalgamation of various sects: for instance, Methodist Union in 1932, the formation of the United Reformed Church in 1972 – even one joint Methodist/Baptist Church in Armley.

¹ G.Forster in A.Mason (ed.) Religion in Leeds (Alan Sutton, 1994) P.37

² With the exception of records of some individual chapels transferred to Sheffield, Bradford, Northallerton etc.

³ For example, Chapel building committee minutes 1844-1847 [Mill Hill 42], and 1847-1849 [Mill Hill 43]; Chapel rebuilding fund subscription book [Mill Hill 44]; Chapel building committee minutes with reports and plans, 1846-1847 [Mill Hill 45]

⁴ D.Colin Dews The Spark of Grace: 250 years of Methodism in West Yorkshire (1990)

⁵ Brunswick 71. Colin Dews suggests that the real reason for the secession was a tussle of “polity and the powers of pastoral office”.