Christian Warwick's Religious Harmony

Christian Warwick: A Portrait of Peace, 1694-1900
Bryan Morey
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Honors in History
Hillsdale College
Spring 2016
Defense Committee:
Dr. Dave Stewart, advisor
Dr. Tom Conner
Dr. Korey Maas

Warwick,c.1900
A = Northgate Methodist
B = St. Mary’s Collegiate Church (Anglican)
C = Back Hill / Castle Hill Baptist
D = St. Nicholas’ Church (Anglican)
C
D
A
B
E
F
H
G
E = Brook Street Chapel (Congregationalist)
F = High Street Chapel / Unitarian Church
G = Quaker Meeting House
H = St. Mary Immaculate (Roman Catholic)

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Inter-church relationships in Warwick, England, during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries differed from the standard religious narrative in Britain at the time. The national
picture, often influenced by the experiences of large cities such as London, Manchester, or
Birmingham, depicts a religiously divided nation. Warwick, however, did not experience great
tensions between the Dissenters and the Anglicans. In fact, at times, both sides cooperated and
demonstrated mutual respect. In addition to the general lack of tensions, Warwick differed from
the national narrative with regards to the rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism. Neither of those
movements played large roles in Warwick’s religious history, particularly in the eighteenth
century. Thus, Warwick’s relative peace and tolerance during the post-Restoration period
coupled with a relative isolation from the great religious movements of the day suggests a
remarkably different story than the typical narrative of English religious history after the
Restoration.
The town of Warwick is located in the Midlands of England and sits on the Avon River
several miles northeast of Stratford, William Shakespeare’s hometown. In 1694, a devastating
fire destroyed much of the old town center, forcing most of the community to rebuild. Thus, the
fire marked the beginning of a new era in Warwick’s history. Even after rebuilding, though the
county seat and the historic home of the Earls of Warwick, the town of Warwick paled in
comparison to many of the surrounding developed cities, such as Coventry and, later,
Birmingham. Warwick’s population remained small throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, with around 3,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the eighteenth century and around
5,600 in 1801. By 1891, the town had grown to almost 12,000 people. 1
The relative
unimportance of the town served to isolate it religiously from many of the movements of the age.
1
W. B. Stephens, ed., An Account of the Topography, Economy, Architecture, and Political and Religious
Life of Coventry and the Borough of Warwick (London, 1969), 418.

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Thus, many of the tensions experienced in other parts of England did not emerge in Warwick,
and there is little to no indication of any violence related to religious confrontations apart from a
small anti-Catholic riot in the mid-nineteenth century. The only notable tensions emerged within
the congregations themselves. Even these tensions were not normal, for many of the Dissenting
congregations in Warwick experienced great longevity of ministers, some serving for forty years
or more. Generally, religious peace and tolerance marked Warwick from the Restoration period
through the closing of the nineteenth century.
Because of the relatively rural nature of Warwick, the town did not experience many of
the widespread religious movements of the day, such as Evangelicalism and Revivalism. While
there is evidence that these movements may have influenced some of the congregations, there is
no suggestion that the great revivals and evangelical gatherings so prominent in other parts of
England ever took place in Warwick. Even Methodism emerged very late in Warwick, after the
turn of the nineteenth century. The lack of heavy industrialization in Warwick is largely
responsible for the relative absence of these religious movements so prominent in more heavily
industrial areas. Warwick’s lack of large evangelical movements and its lack of religious
tensions distinguished the town from the common religious experience of England in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
While the terms “Dissenter” and “Nonconformist” are often interchangeable, their
general meanings changed over the course of the Restoration and Romantic periods. After the
Restoration of Charles II, Dissenter referred to anyone who would not submit to the Church of
England. According to Michael Watts, the term Nonconformist “was used in the reign of
Elizabeth of Puritans who were in communion with the Church of England but who declined to
conform to certain practices prescribed by the Prayer Book of 1559.” After 1662, when the

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Anglican Church ejected some 2,000 clergymen, Nonconformist came to refer to anyone
separated from the Church of England.2
In fact, the legal definition of “Dissenter” included
anyone that would not adhere to the Act of Uniformity of 1662.3
Primary documents from the
eighteenth century preferred the term “Dissenter,” while “Nonconformist” gained in popularity
as a synonym towards the end of the century and into the nineteenth century.4
Thus, the words
generally refer to the same groups of people, although the popularity of specific terms changed
over time.
The post-Restoration period marked a significant change in the way Anglicans,
Dissenters, and Roman Catholics related to each other. Dissenters gradually grew in influence
and importance as the eighteenth century progressed. However, the Dissenting groups did not
experience unity amongst themselves. These groups included the Baptists, Congregationalists,
Presbyterians, Quakers, and the Methodists. Roman Catholics did not factor into the designation
of “Dissenter” because, for much of the period, they could not worship freely. They did not
begin to enjoy the relative freedom that the Nonconformists enjoyed until the end of the
eighteenth century, at the earliest. The rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism in England in the
eighteenth century further complicated the relationships between the Dissenters and the
Anglicans. While Evangelicalism is typically seen as a low-church phenomenon, it actually
began in the Church of England. Furthermore, for most of his career as an evangelist, John
Wesley considered his Methodist movement an outgrowth of the Anglican Church, not a separate
entity. As revival spread across England, the Dissenting groups rapidly contributed their own
2
Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1978), 1.
3
Judith J. Hurwich, “Dissent and Catholicism in English Society: A Study of Warwickshire, 1660-1720,”
Journal of British Studies 16, no. 1 (Autumn, 1976): 25, accessed February 25, 2016,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/175283.
4
Richard J. Helmstadter, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed.
D. G. Paz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 57.

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evangelical preachers, with the Methodist movement gaining its greatest strength by the middle
of the nineteenth century. Dissenting groups generally found stronger traction in areas neglected
by the Anglican Church because they reached out to the churchless. As the different
denominations fundamentally shifted their methods of outreach, internal tensions often cropped
up within congregations. However, due to the strength of evangelicalism and revivalism,
Nonconformity successfully appealed to many people throughout England in the nineteenth
century. Such success would likely have been impossible a century earlier.
Tolerance and Restriction: 1660-1715
The Restoration of Charles II on May 29, 1660, marked a definite change in the
relationship between the Church of England and Dissent. Tensions emerged between tolerance
and persecution of Dissent from the beginning of his reign. On April 4, 1660, in the Declaration
of Breda, Charles made several promises, including “liberty to tender consciences… that no man
shall be disquieted, or called in question, for differences of opinion in matters of religion which
do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.”5
From the very beginning of his reign, it seemed that
Charles would be religiously tolerant and possibly even open to Dissent. However, after a decade
of strict Puritan rule, Parliament pushed back against Charles’ toleration. Beginning in 1661,
Parliament started passing the Clarendon Acts, named after Charles’ Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Clarendon, as a means of persecuting Dissenters. The Corporation Act of 1661 required all
“mayors, alderman, recorders, bailiffs, town-clerks, common council-men, and other persons
then bearing any office or offices of magistracy… take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy…”
The Act required them to promise not to take arms against the king or those “commissioned by
him.” It also required elected officials to have received “the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,
5
Charles II quoted in Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters From the Reformation to the French Revolution
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 221.

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according to the rites of the Church of England” at least once during the year preceding the
election.6
As a result of this Act, many Dissenters lost their jobs, while others were reelected just
so that they could be heavily fined.7
The Conventicle Act of 1664 forbade Dissenters from
worshipping in groups larger than five.8
The Test Act of 1673 required anyone working for the
government to take oaths of supremacy and allegiance, as well as to repudiate the doctrine of
transubstantiation.9
Clearly, Parliament designed this act to marginalize Catholics. Despite initial
hints of toleration from the King, the Restoration turned into a suppression of Dissenters, likely
as a response to the Good Old Cause.
One of the biggest blows to Dissenting ministers came with the Act of Uniformity. On St.
Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1662, the Act became law, requiring every clergyman,
schoolmaster, and fellow of a college to accept the Book of Common Prayer. The Act also
required ministers to receive episcopal ordination. This law immediately removed some 1,700
clergy from their positions. Interestingly, according to James Bradley, “For many Dissenters the
Act became a badge of honor and the touchstone of their self-understanding; it remained a major
cause of their unity and independence into the nineteenth century.”10
While the Act of
Uniformity deprived many ministers of their livelihood, it ultimately unified Dissenters against
the Church of England. It became a point of agreement for them, which they carried for well
over a century.
By the end of Charles II’s reign, many Dissenters began to fear for their safety. Watts
commented, “Some Dissenters so despaired of obtaining redress for grievances by legal means
6
“The Corporation Act, 1661,” in Documents of the Christian Church, 4th
ed., eds. Henry Bettenson and
Chris Maunder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 317-318.
7
Watts, 222-223.
8
“The Conventicle Act, 1664, revised 1670,” in Documents of the Christian Church, 318-320.
9
“The Test Act, 1673,” Ibid., 322-23.
10
James E. Bradley, Religion, Revolution, and English Radicalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 49.

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that they resorted to violence.” In 1683, for example, the Rye House plotters, comprising
Presbyterians, Baptists, and former Cromwellian officers, planned to kill Charles II and his
brother James. In 1685, many Dissenters supported the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion against
James II, even though the King faced the wrath of the established Church.11
The next year, James
exempted Roman Catholics from high office and established a commission to encourage the
Anglican Church to accept a pro-Catholic policy. Watts claimed that this move angered the
Anglicans, so James planned to unite “Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics against the
persecuting state church.”12
James responded by releasing many Dissenters from prison and by
suspending the penal laws and the Test Acts, which forbade non-Catholics from holding office.
Watts claimed that James’ toleration “broke the back of Anglican intolerance and made possible
the permanent toleration of Dissent once William of Orange had landed at Torbay and James
himself had fled to France.”13
James II’s short reign offered a clear example of the realities of
religious tensions and violence between the Church of England, Dissenters, and Roman
Catholics.
After the violence and religious chaos of James II’s reign, the new monarch, William and
Mary, pursued a policy of increased toleration and peace. The Glorious Revolution saw William
III urge Parliament to allow Dissenters to enter public service.14
In 1689, Parliament passed the
Act of Toleration, which, according to Bradley, allowed Dissenters to worship legally “if their
ministers subscribed to thirty-four of the Thirty-Nine Articles.”15
Ultimately, the Act of
Toleration greatly influenced the eventual growth of Dissent in England. Because of William’s
influence, England experienced broad toleration by the close of the seventeenth century. Henry
11
Watts, 256.
12
Ibid., 257.
13
Ibid., 259.
14
Ibid., 260.
15
Bradley, 51-52.

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Clark commented, “But though the spirit of persecution was there, it was compelled to restrain
itself through William’s reign…”16
Tensions certainly remained, but England did not experience
the violence seen during the end of Charles II’s and James II’s reigns.
The legalization of Dissent defused many tensions. However, it is also important to
remember that the radical Dissenters around London, who likely influenced governmental
opinion of Dissent, did not accurately reflect Dissenting ministers in the rest of England. Bradley
commented, “The moderate radical ideology of the London Dissenting elite was not always
representative of Dissenting ministers in the provinces; several of the provincial Dissenters went
beyond the question of legal right to address the more probing issue of economic oppression and
social injustice.”17
Dissent never maintained a homogenous front against the Anglican Church,
so even though the London Dissenters fought for toleration of worship, some provincial
ministers pushed for other issues, such as social and economic reform. With these issues in mind,
it is not surprising that tensions persisted between the Anglicans and the Dissenters.
The advent of the eighteenth century saw a clear shift in policy from the toleration
William and Mary pursued. In the spring of 1702, Anne, daughter of James II and sister of Mary,
became Queen of England. Remarkably High Church, Anne’s reign featured rising hostility and
intolerance towards Dissenters and Catholics. Anne and her government acted upon their High
Church ideals from the very beginning of her reign. In December 1702, Parliament passed the
Occasional Conformity Bill, which required Dissenters to receive Communion occasionally
according to the rites of the Church of England. Clark explained, “A Nonconformist might attend
the Sacramental service at his parish Church just previous to an election for some municipal
office, so qualifying himself for holding the post if it were on him the electors’ choice should
16
Henry W. Clark, History of English Nonconformity Vol. II From the Restoration to the Close of the
Nineteenth Century (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 142.
17
Bradley, 14.

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fall; and, once elected, he might never present himself again till his term expired.”18
The
Occasional Conformity Bill eliminated this loophole, and it assured the primacy of the Anglican
Church.
Anne bookended her reign with bills targeting Dissenters. While the 1702 Occasional
Conformity Bill required public officials to adhere to the Church of England, the “Schism Bill”
of 1714 required operators of schools and seminaries to sign a declaration of conformity to the
Anglican Church. It also required those operators to obtain a license to teach from the Bishop
certifying that the individual had partaken in Anglican rites within the previous year.19
This
restriction made it extremely difficult for Dissenters to train their own ministers or teach young
children. Anne’s reign did little to encourage the tolerance practiced during the rule of William
and Mary. The emergence of these restricting bills ultimately highlighted the weaknesses of the
1689 Act of Toleration, which arguably did very little for Dissenters.
As the eighteenth century opened, it became clear that toleration of Dissent would not be
the normal governmental policy. With the passing of the Occasional Uniformity Bill and the
Schism Bill, the weaknesses inherent in the Act of Toleration became clear. Alan Gilbert argued
that between 1689 and 1740, the Whig controlled government did not much care about religious
issues, which led to a weakening of religious practices. Furthermore, the Act of Toleration did
not give Dissenters true freedom. Gilbert wrote, “It had permitted certain categories of
Dissenters to worship outside the Establishment, but it had not relieved them of the civil
disabilities inherent in their nonconformity.” According to Gilbert, the Act of Toleration,
coupled with Parliament’s waning concern for religious issues, reduced overall interest in
religion in England. Gilbert commented, “The right of some to absent themselves from a parish
18
Ibid., 145-46.
19
Ibid., 152.

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church in favour of a dissenting chapel had been seen by others as a right to practise no religion
at all.”20
The lack of toleration granted by the Toleration Act resulted in reduced Nonconformist
strength, diminished overall spiritual strength, and lowered religious vitality in the early
eighteenth century.21
As Queen Anne’s reign came to a close, religious fervor in England
reached new lows, setting the stage for future revivalism.
Despite Anne’s policies regarding religious toleration, hints of leniency emerged with the
coming of the new King, George I. By the time of the Hanoverian accession, it started to become
clear that the tensions between toleration of Dissent and restriction of non-Anglican practice
would strongly depend upon the character of the monarch. Tensions boiled over in 1715 with
George I’s ascension of the Throne. Clark explained, “Oxford rioted in boisterous and extensive
style. Birmingham, Norwich, and many other places saw Nonconformist meeting-houses pulled
down, Nonconformist houses invaded, Nonconformist men and women insulted and even
injured, magistrates often unable or unwilling to secure safety or redress…”22
After suppressing
this rebellion, George I personally represented the case in court, and he argued that reparation
should be made to the injured Dissenters. The government responded to the violence with the
Riot Act of 1715. Bradley wrote, “The Riot Act of 1715 contained a clause that was designed to
protect the Dissenters’ chapels, and the government had made adjustments to the law in 1722 to
accommodate the Quakers’ antipathy toward oaths. Dissenters were always free to seek seats in
Parliament and a number roughly equal to their proportion of the population did so.”23
Interestingly, the riots ultimately did more to encourage toleration in England, despite the intent
20
Alan D. Gilbert, Religion and Society in Industrial England Church, Chapel, and Social Change 1740-
1914 (London: Longman, 1976), 10.
21
Clark, 172.
22
Ibid., 179.
23
Bradley, 57-58.

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of the rioters. The violence and injury enacted against the Dissenters in the riots of 1715 were
simply unacceptable to the King, and he responded by advocating for increased toleration.
Evangelicalism: The Eighteenth Century and Beyond
In addition to the King’s protection of Dissenters, much of the increased toleration of
Dissenters in the early eighteenth century can arguably be attributed to growing religious apathy
at the time. Some historians have argued that as Parliament’s interest in religious issues waned as
the century progressed, the public’s interest in religion declined. General public interest in
organized religion could also have influenced Parliament’s lack of concern for the Church as
well, but the decline of religious fervor in the eighteenth century is clear. As the apathy in the
Church of England increased, the Dissenting groups reacted to fill the religious void. It is
important to note that at this point in the early eighteenth century, Dissenters only represented
roughly six percent of the population.24
While their numbers remained small, the failures of the
Anglican Church created an opportunity for Dissent to expand. Overall, its response came in the
form of the Evangelical and Revivalist movements, which became the major religious
movements in England during the second half of the eighteenth century and much of the
nineteenth century.
Evangelical movements across England and North America all maintained central beliefs.
Theologically, many evangelical groups differed in their beliefs, but they shared certain general
features. Mark Noll argued that the Bible “remained a bedrock of authority.” Furthermore, Noll
added, “Evangelicals shared a conviction that true religion required the active experience of
God.” They also generally disliked inherited institutions, and the movement was “extraordinarily
flexible in relation to ideas concerning intellectual, political, social, and economic life.”
24
Watts, 3.

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Evangelicals also practiced discipline in many different forms. 25
According to Clark,
Evangelicals believed in the “doctrines of justification by faith and salvation through the
atonement wrought by Christ.” Furthermore, Evangelicals “felt that the Church of England
system did not in actual fact and practice give to these doctrines the prominence they
deserved…”26
In summation, evangelicalism emphasized biblicalism, conversions, activism, and
crucicentrism, or the centrality of Christ’s work on the cross.27
The religious mood in England had become very bleak by the 1750s, creating a need for
the Evangelical and Revivalist movements. Arthur Bryant argued, “After a century’s monopoly
of the loaves and fishes there was a good deal of pluralism, in cases amounting to downright
scandal, much neglect of church and parishioner, and a general atmosphere of comfortable
complacency.” This complacency created a vacuum for the Dissenting churches to fill. Bryant
further pointed out, “those whom the Church neglected, the rejected of the Church cared for. The
missionary journeys of the early Methodists among the pagan outcasts of industrial Britain did
God’s work where well-endowed complacency had failed.”28
The early evangelical and revivalist
movements reached the marginalized in an increasingly industrial society that featured immense
social change. As people moved from the country to the cities, the Dissenters adapted to meet
their needs while the Anglicans struggled to change.
After the Toleration Act, the Church of England struggled to remain relevant to the newly
industrialized nation in the eighteenth century. It became bogged down by its own traditions, but
Anglicans did make an effort to reform. In fact, revivalism in England actually began in the
25
Mark A. Noll, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the
British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990, eds. Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 129-30.
26
Clark, 240.
27
Noll, 6.
28
Arthur Bryant, Protestant Island (London: Collins, 1967), 98-99.

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Arminian Anglican Church, not in the Calvinist Dissenting churches. John Walsh argued that
Anglican clerical involvement in the leadership of early revivalism was the key to its early
success in England and Wales. Even John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, believed
that successful reform needed to come from the Anglican Church because of its authority. Walsh
wrote, “Nonconformity, which could claim only a tiny proportion of the population, could hardly
have provided the leadership.”29
Wesley himself claimed to be Anglican most of his life,
although he allowed anyone to come to his revival meetings. Even though the Dissenters carried
the torch of reform and revival into the nineteenth century, they needed the Anglicans to begin
the movement.
The Dissenters took advantage of the Church of England’s reluctance to accept
evangelical ideas, and they embraced the revivalist movements. Walsh wrote, “The
Nonconformist denominations that had preserved the Puritan ‘doctrines of grace’ seemed at first
less capable of propagating them than priests of the ‘apostate’ Church of England, in which they
had been largely forgotten.”30
However, it proved too difficult to change the fundamental nature
of the established state Church. E. W. Martin said, “The Church of England is an organization in
which tradition plays a useful and at times obstructive rôle. It is a body that will not submit
easily to far-reaching changes.”31
Much like in the Roman Catholic Church, tradition stifled
creativity and reform in the Anglican Church. Walsh wrote, “Since the Toleration Act of 1689
the Church of England had lost its power to compel church attendance. Instead of coercing their
parishioners, the clergy had to persuade them… Population growth and incipient industrialization
29
John Walsh, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 27-28.
30
Ibid., 22.
31
E. W. Martin, Where London Ends English Provincial Life after 1750 (London: Phoenix House LTD.,
1958), 169.

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brought unwelcome migrants to some parishes, forming new, disorderly settlements on their
margins, not amenable to clerical control.”32
Indeed, the period from 1740-1830 saw a great
decline in the Anglican Church, which held a vast majority in 1740. By 1830, it risked becoming
a minority group.33
Due to the longstanding traditions of the Anglican Church, change came
slowly. The Dissenters took advantage of Church of England’s stagnancy and inability to reform.
Revivalism in England sought to reach people that had abandoned religion altogether,
either traditional Anglicanism or the churches of Dissent. English revival proved to be a long
slow process. By the end of his life, John Wesley believed that true revival would spread from
heart to heart and house to house.34
History proved Wesley right, as evangelical revival in
England advanced slowly over generations. That is not to say that England did not experience
great revival meetings, however. Preachers such as George Whitefield and John Wesley travelled
all over England teaching to unchurched and faithless people. Harry Stout commented,
“Whitefield rewrote the book on revivals and mass preaching. He combined itinerant ministry,
outdoor preaching, weekday sermons, and extemporaneous speech to produce religious
audiences and a level of religious enthusiasm without precedent in the English-speaking
ministry.”35
Revivals also sought to revitalize peoples’ faith, and Dissenters responded widely to
many of the early Methodist revivals. Through new teaching methods directed at those that fell
away from the church, early revivalism created a religious environment separate from the formal
churches.
32
Walsh, 25.
33
Gilbert, 27.
34
Ibid., 33
35
Harry S. Stout, Evangelicalism Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North American, the
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 58.

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Despite the successes revivalism made under the new charismatic leaders, the movement
met stiff resistance from many in the established church and in the rural areas. Some traditional
clergymen believed the Methodists sought to revive the fanaticism of the Civil Wars. On top of
this, evangelicalism met resistance in the rural areas, particularly where local Anglican gentry or
nobility held strong influence. Walsh wrote that they “could intimidate their tenants or prevent
the sale of land for a chapel.”36
It is understandable that evangelicalism and revivalism met a
degree of resistance in the rural areas because the Anglican Church retained strength in those
places. As people moved to the big cities for industrial work, the Church of England lost their
influence with those populations, opening the door for revivals to reach.
While Revivalism met resistance in the countryside, it grew stronger in the urban areas of
England. This success spurred the growth of Nonconformity in general, particularly in urban
areas. Noll argued that the increase in evangelicalism occurred as a response to the French
Revolution. Prior to the Revolution, evangelicalism held a great deal of influence, but it never
dominated. Noll wrote, “The best estimate is that Anglicans outnumbered Nonconformists, most
of whom would have been evangelical, by a ratio of approximately five to two in 1800, but by
1850 there were roughly ten Nonconformists for every nine Anglicans, and that in a period when
a growing percentage of Anglicans were also evangelical.”37
The growth can easily be attributed
to the massive explosion in population during that fifty-year period. However, Noll also
attributed it directly to the French Revolution because, “Successful revolutions, by their nature,
destroy traditions.”38
As the evangelical movement exploded, Nonconformity also expanded
greatly. Alan Everitt attributed the growth of Nonconformity in the nineteenth century to the
success of Evangelicalism. He wrote, “The principal factor in the growth of Nonconformity in
36
Ibid., 32.
37
Noll, 123.
38
Ibid., 130.

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the century preceding 1851 had been the Evangelical Awakening. The Methodists… owed their
origin to the Awakening, and by 1851 they were almost everywhere the most numerous
Dissenting body.”39
Regardless of the ultimate causation, Evangelicalism and Nonconformity
expanded rapidly in the first half of the nineteenth century, along with the population in general.
As their numbers grew, so did their influence.
National Tolerance in the Nineteenth Century
As England entered the nineteenth century, lingering tensions between the Church of
England and the Dissenters re-emerged. In fact, the outbreak of the French Revolution, which
later spurred the growth of Nonconformity, initially increased tensions. Most significantly, the
Revolution dashed any hopes of an immediate repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.40
The
ideas of the French Revolution proved to be too dangerous to allow increased toleration of
minority opinions. As a response against Dissent, violence broke out in the city of Birmingham
on July 14, 1791. Rioters began attacking Dissenting meeting houses, and they burned and looted
the homes of prominent Dissenters for three days. Watts wrote, “The Birmingham riots were
symbolic of the eclipse of rational Dissent. Its leaders were passing away and its meetings
declining.”41
As the period of revivalism, marked by religious excitement and enthusiasm, came
to an end, the violent anti-Dissent opinion in England slowly re-emerged. Despite advancements
in toleration and reform, the conflicts of a century earlier remained a powerful force in England.
The nineteenth century became a period of rapid social, political, economic, and religious
change in England. With rapid change came increased religious stress throughout the country. D.
G. Paz described the nineteenth century in England as, “a time of tension between central
39
Alan M. Everitt, The Pattern of Rural Dissent: The Nineteenth Century (Leicester: Leicester University
Press, 1972), 16.
40
Watts, 482.
41
Ibid., 487.

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tendencies and local independence, between nation and region, between metropolitan and
provincial cultures.” However, despite these tensions, England developed a sense of unity
through a general religious identity. Paz argued, “Religious identity also was made during the
nineteenth century. That process took the direction of constructing the denomination: an identity
that transcended the family, congregation, or community and that was expressed in institutional
forms.” This process paralleled the growing “British” identity.42
More and more, people became
associated with their specific denomination, rather than as Conformist, Dissenter, or Roman
Catholic.
Reacting to changing demographics became the biggest challenge for religious groups in
the nineteenth century. The population of England doubled between 1801 and 1851. Not
surprisingly, religious groups correspondingly grew rapidly, with Nonconformity increasing by a
factor of five.43
The Anglican Church, which experienced declining membership for almost a
century, began to grow again in the 1830s. While the number of Anglican Churches in 1831
differed little from the number in 1801, the number of churches expanded rapidly in the
following decades. In 1831, there were roughly 12,000 Anglican churches and chapels in
England. By 1851, that number had grown to over 14,000, and by 1901 it surpassed 17,000.44
However, the Anglican Church did not succeed in winning over a majority of industrial workers,
according to the Census of Religious Worship of 1851, due largely to its failure to expand in the
industrial areas.45
The early nineteenth century found few Anglican bishops in the areas that
needed them most. There were no bishops in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, or Leeds,
42
D. G. Paz, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed. D. G. Paz
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), ix.
43
Helmstadter, 69.
44
Gilbert, 28-29.
45
John Wolffe, Nineteenth-Century English Religious Traditions Retrospect and Prospect, ed. D. G. Paz
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 21.

Morey 17
even though those industrial centers expanded rapidly.46
The Nonconformist groups took
advantage of this opportunity, and they courted the industrial workers.
The repeal of many anti-Dissenting Acts secured Nonconformity’s place in the English
religious picture and made it a significant rival to the Anglican Church, particularly in industrial
areas. While Nonconformists lobbied for a repeal of the Acts towards the end of the eighteenth
century, the French Revolution and its aftermath made that goal impossible in the short run. In
1812, after relatively little debate in both Houses, Parliament repealed the Five Mile and
Conventicle Acts. Parliament also lifted the requirement of Quakers to take certain oaths
required by the Toleration Act. In 1820, however, resistance in Parliament to Nonconformity re-
emerged with a proposed bill to limit Nonconformist teaching and schools.47
While the bill did
not pass, its proposal suggests that religious tensions still played a very real role in English
politics. As Parliament slowly repealed the anti-Dissenting Acts, religious struggles continued.
Despite some resistance to toleration of Dissent, Parliament continued repealing
restrictive acts. In 1828, Parliament repealed the Test and Corporation Acts. This Nonconformist
triumph paved the way for Catholic emancipation the following year. With the passing of these
bills, Clark wrote, “direct penalties for Nonconformity passed away. Toleration was complete.
The laws which punished Nonconformity as Nonconformity were torn up and cast away.”48
With
official legalization, true tolerance and acceptance could begin in England.
Now that Nonconformity could expand legally, the Anglican Church needed to decide
how to reach the growing populations in the industrial centers. In June 1832, they established the
Ecclesiastical Revenues Commission to address the lack of churches in industrial areas. This
commission experienced poor results at first, and, by the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, it
46
Martin, 160-61.
47
Clark, 301-305.
48
Ibid., 305-308.

Morey 18
started to become clear that the Anglican Church lost its once powerful hold over religion in
England. Nonconformity quickly took advantage of the masses of people open to new churches.
As the nineteenth century marched on, Nonconformity grew in influence at the expense
of the Church of England. While the local parish Church still held a great deal of influence in
many villages at the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign, nationally the Church did not wield its
former influence. Bryant commented, “Pluralism, though recently abolished by ecclesiastical
reformers, had long accustomed country folk to the spectacle of neglected churches, perfunctory
services and clergymen who seemed more interested in foxes and sometimes in the bottle than
the cure of souls.” Bryant continued, “Christian zeal among humbler folk was by 1840 more
often to be found among the Methodists and in the Baptist and Independent congregations of the
older nonconformity. Of a somewhat primitive and uncritical kind… it had a stimulating effect
on the Establishment, provoking a strong rivalry between ‘Church and King’ and ‘Dissent.’”49
Indeed, this rivalry stirred some Anglicans to reform. Specifically, John Wesley’s message
influenced some Anglicans to launch the Oxford Movement in 1833.50
Anglicanism weakened
over the course of the century, largely due to influences from industrial centers and hypocrisy on
the part of many bishops and priests, but the evangelical and revival movements still managed to
stir Anglican hearts and minds.
As the century progressed, Nonconformity became an increasingly urban phenomenon,
which influenced its shift in organizational structure, political actions, and doctrinal stances. Ian
Sellers argued that the urban development of Nonconformity connected closely with the
increasing centralization of denominational leadership. He wrote, “Amongst Congregationalists
and Baptists this is particularly marked, as loose federations of Independent churches were
49
Bryant, 231-32.
50
Martin, 161.

Morey 19
transformed into the provincial arms of burgeoning denominational bureaucracies.”51
The
nineteenth century also saw a fundamental shift in Nonconformist thought. While once highly
political, after the French Revolution, Nonconformity generally avoided politics. Sellers wrote,
“the new evangelism tended to be a-political, again in sharp contrast to the Old Dissent which
had been roused to fervor over the redress of grievances and the French Revolution, and had
borne the brunt of anti-Jacobin reaction.”52
In addition to a rejection of politics, Nonconformity
also dramatically shifted its overall theological position. While previously strongly orthodox and
Calvinistic, Nonconformity gradually shifted to more Arminian doctrine as the nineteenth
century progressed. This change directly influenced church structures. Sellers wrote, “The
church covenant, the foundation deed of Independent Churches, was now seen to be cast in an
uncomfortably Calvinistic mould and so was set aside or conveniently forgotten.”53
The
hierarchy of the Nonconformist church was fundamentally connected to its Calvinistic theology,
and when the people rejected that, the structure collapsed.
As doctrine changed, many scholars began accepting growing theological liberalism.
Beginning in the 1840s and quickening after 1880, many Nonconformist theologians embraced
higher criticism, which saw the Bible not as divinely inspired truth, but as a collection of stories
and lessons not written by their supposed authors. Once they moved down that path, they
abandoned the supposed bedrock of their faith, the Inerrancy of Scripture.54
This new theology
fundamentally changed the nature of Nonconformity because it no longer strongly differentiated
itself from the Church of England. The Second Evangelical Awakening, from 1859 to 1865,
revitalized Nonconformity for a short while. Sellers wrote, “it was in these years that
51
Ian Sellers, Nineteenth-Century Nonconformity (London: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1977), 11.
52
Ibid., 3.
53
Ibid., 23.
54
Ibid., 25.

Morey 20
Nonconformity made an heroic and not unsuccessful effort to establish itself in an urban setting,
to strike roots deep enough to secure it a significant place in the evolving self-consciousness of
the urban masses.”55
This temporary re-energizing of Nonconformity brought more people into
the fold but had little lasting impact.
The Dissenters: Specific Differences
It is important to remember that Nonconformists, while often considered homogenous,
never acted uniformly. However, they did not isolate themselves from each other and the rest of
society. Nonconformists played an interesting balancing act between living lives as good
Englishmen and resisting each other and the Anglican Church. Malcolm Wanklyn pointed out
that Dissenters in the post-Restoration period widely participated in their local and extended
economic communities. He wrote, “The Corporation Acts were largely disregarded places where
[Dissenters] dominated the urban economy. Recent study of parish registers for demographic
purposes has revealed, incidentally, that moderate nonconformists used religious rites of passage
offered by the Established Church, such as baptism and burial, if these did not require them to
compromise their beliefs.”56
As further research into Dissent is conducted, it appears that many
parts of England differed from the standard picture of religious tension and violence at the time,
and Dissenting groups differed throughout England in how they reacted to the Anglican Church.
They certainly did not organize themselves into a unified whole. Each major group maintained
its distinctions, however subtle or prominent.
Baptists
The Baptists in England always embraced a Low Church approach to organization, and
they valued their separation from other Dissenting groups. The doctrine from which they derived
55
Ibid., 31.
56
Malcolm Wanklyn, English Catholics of Parish and Town 1558-1778, ed. Marie B. Rowlands (London:
The Catholic Record Society, 1999), 210-11.

Morey 21
their name proved to be more important than their identity as Dissenters. Even in their own
theological beliefs, Baptists divided between Arminianism and Calvinism, a common split within
Nonconformist groups.57
Some preferred a stricter interpretation of the Bible. Sellers said that
the Baptists “relied on a cruder, more uncompromising evangel and a more direct appeal to a
lower social strata, in town and countryside alike.” Despite their strict theological construction,
they managed to shift their approach in the nineteenth century to appeal to more people through
“fervent exhortation rather than intellectual argument.”58
Hurwich explained that the Baptists
“set up voluntary churches based on a radical interpretation of the priesthood of all believers, and
carried the repudiation of ritual to its logical extreme.”59
The Baptists lacked strong hierarchy,
and thus they never maintained a large central organizational structure. This fact kept the
Baptists churches relatively isolated from each other over the years.
Congregationalists
Congregational churches, sometimes called “Independents,” featured slightly more
hierarchy than the Baptist churches, and they participated more fully in Evangelicalism and
Revivalism. They rejected the rigid organization of the Anglican Church, favoring autonomous
local congregations. Doctrinally, they shared much in common with the Presbyterians.60
Despite
the lack of structure, the Congregationalists succeeded in using Revivals to gain new members,
but they went about their own evangelization in a unique manner. While they had travelling
preachers and evangelists, they focused on establishing their presence, according to Sellers, “on
the edge of towns with a view of providing a nucleus of worshippers in the event of future
57
Ernest Gordon Rupp, Oxford History of the Christian Church Religion in England 1688-1791, eds.
Henry Chadwick and Owen Chadwick (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 129.
58
Sellers, 1-2.
59
Hurwich, Study of Warwickshire, 25.
60
Ibid.

Morey 22
suburban expansion.”61
Overall, the Independent churches featured a more forward thinking
strategy in the realm of expansion than other groups such as the Baptists or even the Methodists.
Their local focus allowed individual churches to adapt to their surroundings.
Quakers
From their inception under founder George Fox, the Society of Friends, or Quakers,
always found themselves on the fringe of Dissent. They practiced and lived differently, and they
recognized their uniqueness. Rupp wrote on Fox, who lived from 1624 to 1691, “He found no
relief from spiritual hunger from either the clergy of the Established Church or the ministers of
the gathered churches.”62
In fact, Fox loathed the established church so much that in his journal
he compared the church bell to a market calling people “together that the priest might set forth
his ware to sell.” Contrarily, Fox “reaffirmed the Christian message as one of reconciliation,
forgiveness, and peace.”63
Doctrinally, the Quakers remained rather simple. Rupp described,
“From the doctrine of the Word and of the Spirit the Quakers turned to the more congenial image
of a divine seed, implanted and growing within the soul.”64
As time passed, the Quakers
understood that they differed from other religious groups. They embraced their differences
through unusual ways of speaking and dress, and they avoided politics.65
Sellers said that they
“clung to their habits of dress and speech as a barrier against the world, and to the ‘inner light’ as
their peculiar tenet.”66
Since they could not attend University or join the army, legal profession,
or work in government, many Quakers directed their talents into industry and trade. Some traded
in wool, while others invented gadgets or pioneered in other industries. Some even became
61
Sellers, 1.
62
Rupp, 138.
63
Ibid., 140.
64
Rupp, 145.
65
Webb, 85.
66
Sellers, 5.

Morey 23
important bankers. Despite their uniqueness and pressure from the government, the Quakers
managed to survive and succeed in England.
Methodism
Of all the major Dissenting groups active in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none
is more studied than Methodism and its founder, John Wesley. Part of the reason this movement
is so vastly studied is the nature of the denomination. It is centrally organized, making collection
of sources and research relatively easy. On top of that, Methodism became one of the most
interesting and influential movements of the eighteenth century, and its growth in the nineteenth
century surprised many. Dr. Robert Currie wrote on the growth of Methodism, “whilst the older
dissent generally grew strong where the Church of England was strong, deriving (at least
historically) much of its membership directly from the Church of England, Methodism grew
strong where the Church of England was weak, and recruited from those sections of the
population that Anglicanism failed to reach.”67
Everitt argued that Methodism changed its
approach in the rural areas. He wrote, “The stronghold of rural Methodism, by contrast, was
principally in areas where parish churches were relatively numerous…” 68
However,
Methodism’s strongest influence was always in the industrial centers, where the Anglican
Church struggled to reorganize to accommodate the growing number of workers.
The importance of John Wesley within the Methodist denomination cannot be overstated.
Interestingly, Wesley himself never rejected the Church of England, considering the Methodist
movement to be an outgrowth of the state church. It is clear, however, that the movements of
Evangelicalism and Revivalism greatly influenced Wesley. Wesley, a man of endless energy, is
said to have travelled 225,000 miles and preached over 40,000 sermons in his lifetime, some to
67
Dr. Robert Currie, quoted in Everitt, 10.
68
Everitt, 11.

Morey 24
crowds of over 20,000 people. His lifestyle and his Arminian beliefs meant that he was a lonely,
solitary man. 69
His individualistic and Arminian perspective greatly influenced the development
of Methodism and its rejection of Calvinism. The emphasis on religious experience became the
most important contribution of Wesley and other evangelists to Christianity in England. On
Wesley and revivalist preachers, Ronald Knox commented, “The England which weathered the
excitements and disappointments of the early nineteenth century was committed to a religion of
experience; you did not base your hopes on this or that doctrinal calculation; you knew.”70
The
evangelism of Wesley and others like him transformed English Christianity into an emotional
and experiential religion.
Many Anglican clergy rejected Wesley because they did not understand him, particularly
in the early days. The first Methodist chapel opened in Bristol in 1739, and even in 1750, only
around eight Anglican clergymen supported Wesley. However, by 1788, around 500 clergymen
supported him, with over 350 Methodist meeting houses established. This rapid growth can
partly be attributed to Methodism’s outreach to the poor and neglected. Martin described the
poor at the time as being “in a state of stupor and pointless barbarity. These untouchables of the
age had few to stand by them.”71
Wesley’s message offered hope to those people. At first those
people approached his sermons suspiciously, but his eloquent and passionate sermons quickly
touched their hearts. Total Methodist membership grew from just over 22,000 people in 1767 to
almost 300,000 in 1831. By 1861, that number grew to over 500,000 members, around 4.1% of
the adult population of England.72
These numbers only reflected official church members,
69
Ronald A. Knox, Enthusiasm A Chapter in the History of Religion (1950; repr., South Bend, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 423, 457.
70
Ibid., 547.
71
Martin, 152.
72
Gilbert, 31-32. “Total” membership includes all divisions of Methodism.

Morey 25
meaning the number of regular church attenders was likely much higher. The Methodist message
of hope connected widely with people in industrial England.
The Catholic Question
Of all the non-Anglican groups in England, the Roman Catholics received the most
hatred and persecution. Because the Toleration Act of 1689 did not apply to Catholics, most
Catholics in England remained unorganized throughout the eighteenth century. Catholics tended
to be scattered across England randomly, often centered on wealthy Catholic landowners. Marie
Rowlands commented:
In an age when property meant power, [Catholic nobility] were denied the right to govern
at both the national and local level; they married and socialised among themselves as the
best means of preserving the faith; and they were fearful that any action on their own
part, or on the part of others, would lead to further restrictive measures by the state and
violence from mobs acting in the name of patriotism and/or Protestantism.73
Thus, the continuance of the religion can be attributed to the strength of landed gentry and
nobility. Since England remained a missionary country during the eighteenth century, there were
no formal Catholic parishes. Usually, the bishops directly appointed priests, and those priests
rarely visited smaller communities. In fact, it was never guaranteed that Catholics would hear
mass every week.74
The only way Catholicism survived in the rural areas, then, was through the
efforts of wealthy Catholic landowners, who kept the religion alive on their estates.75
Throughout
most of the nineteenth century, Catholicism remained very limited and particularly rural.
While Catholicism survived in England largely due to the influence of Catholic gentry
and noblemen, Papists, as they were then called, came from a variety of backgrounds. The
common misconception about English Catholics is that they were all gentry, when in actuality,
73
Marie B. Rowlands, English Catholics of Parish and Town 1558-1778, ed. Marie B. Rowlands
(London: The Catholic Record Society, 1999), 3.
74
Ibid., 265, 268.
75
Ibid., 287-89.

Morey 26
everyone from street peddlers and yeomen to sea captains, merchants, house servants, and
blacksmiths populated the Catholic ranks. Papist records from 1767 recorded over 66,000
Catholics in England, suggesting that the majority of English Catholics came from lower social
orders. As toleration increased over time, the relationship between Catholics changed. John
Bossy wrote, “In 1770 the [Catholic] community was still dominated by its secular aristocracy;
in 1850 it was dominated by its clergy.” The importance of the gentry in Catholic life diminished
in the nineteenth century because their protection was no longer needed. Furthermore, the power
of the Catholic gentry reduced because many people started moving to the cities for industrial
work.76
Catholic congregations varied widely throughout England, and as the times changed,
poorer Catholics no longer needed support from the noblemen to survive.
In 1778, Parliament passed the first bill offering any sort of relief to Papists. The next
year, Scottish Presbyterians responded by rioting in Glasgow and Edinburgh, suggesting that
serious tensions remained. A petition to repeal this relief bill circulated, culminating in the six
day Gordon riots in London in early June of 1780. However, these riots did not deter Catholics
from pursuing toleration, and public resistance to their faith began to wane. In 1791, Parliament
passed the Catholic Dissenters’ Relief Bill granting them more privileges.77
The bill required
“Protesting Catholic Dissenters” to promise their full allegiance to the monarch and to reject any
claims to the throne by descendants of James II. The bill also required Catholics to reject any
foreign allegiances to any type of ruler, including the Pope.78
The native English Catholics
embraced this freedom and relief offered by Parliament. Unfortunately for them, however, the
76
John Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975),
323, 327.
77
J. H. Hexter, “The Protestant Revival and the Catholic Question in England, 1778-1829,” Journal of
Modern History 8, no. 3 (Sept., 1936): 297-98, 300,
78
“Heads of a Bill for relief of Catholics, 1791,” Warwickshire County Records Office [WCRO] CR
1998 Gate Box Folder 1/3.

Morey 27
wars of the French Revolution delayed any further action towards toleration for several decades.
However, toleration increased gradually over the next thirty years, which ultimately led to the
Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. This act repealed all requirements that oaths be taken
rejecting doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church if one wanted to serve in a government
position. Catholics could become Members of Parliament, and they could vote in elections.79
With this Act, Catholics gained full legal status in England.
Despite acquiring freedom under the law, tensions between Catholics and Protestants
remained. The 1850s in particular experienced an increase in anti-Catholicism, due in part to the
Pope’s attempt to regain more control over the English Catholic Church through the
reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy and his appointment of Cardinal Wiseman to the
Archbishopric of Westminster. Riots broke out in various cities in England because they saw the
Pope’s action as an “insult offered to the Church and State of England by the intolerable pride
and tyranny of a foreign prince and potentate, who neither hath, nor ought to have, any
jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this
realm, but who has lately established.”80
The Pope’s actions stirred up severe anti-Catholic
sentiment in the 1850s. Even though the Catholics received legal religious freedom, it took them
a very long time to achieve widespread cultural and societal freedom from persecution.
Warwick: A Local Portrait
The town of Warwick offers a different picture of religious experience in eighteenth and
nineteenth century England than the generally accepted national narrative, which is highly
influenced by the large industrial centers. Warwick avoided the rapid industrialism of the
nineteenth century, despite its location on the Avon River. Most major industrial development
79
Catholic Emancipation Act, 1829, WCRO QS 60.
80
Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser and Leamington Gazette, November 9, 1850.

Morey 28
occurred north of Warwick, in Birmingham and Coventry. Thus, in avoiding much of the social
change of the period, Warwick also avoided the deep religious tensions between the Church of
England and the various Dissenting groups. In fact, Warwick remained quite tranquil throughout
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, apart from a single anti-Catholic incident in 1850. None
of the violence and persecution of Dissent seen elsewhere in England occurred in sleepy
Warwick. Furthermore, the rise of Evangelicalism and Revivalism also seems to have passed
Warwick. While the effects of those movements indirectly affected the town, revivals never
occurred there. Warwick’s religious experience differed rather substantially from much of
England.
The Anglican Standard
The Church of England has a long history in Warwick, with the original Collegiate
Church of St. Mary’s dating back to Norman times. The Anglican Church also established an
additional parish in the mid-eighteenth century, based in St. Nicholas’ Church. St. Paul’s Church,
established in 1844, was added to support Warwick’s growing population. The majority of
records for St. Mary’s for several years after the Great Fire of 1694 dealt with the rebuilding of
the Church. After the fire, only the chancel, crypt, and Beauchamp Chapel remained. The
reconstructed Church offers a fine example of early eighteenth century architecture. Overall,
these churches got along fairly well with the extended community, and there is very little
evidence of internal or external dissension.
Theologically, the Anglican Churches of Warwick appeared to match the general tenor of
the rest of England at the time. This is unsurprising since these churches were established state
churches. In the eighteenth century, the local documents reflected a more traditional sense of
theology, while the nineteenth century sermons reflected a growing evangelical influence. In an

Morey 29
eighteenth century children’s catechism, much of the doctrine found is rather similar to Catholic
doctrine. Baptism is described as a step necessary for salvation, a doctrine with which many of
the Dissenting churches at the time would have disagreed. The catechism also extended the
commandment to honor one’s parents to honoring and obeying “the King, and all that are put in
Authority under him.” It also claimed that it was a sin to neglect reciting the Lord’s Prayer.81
The
eighteenth century religious documents suggest a more traditional belief, while the sermons
delivered in Warwick in the nineteenth century suggest a greater evangelical influence.
The evangelical influence upon the Anglican Churches in Warwick emerged in the
nineteenth century. In a form of prayer from 1805, God’s punishment was seen as an act of love.
The author wrote, “If Thou chastenest us, we are as rebellious sons, not knowing that in Thy
displeasure Thou carest tenderly for us, and art compassionate towards us, as a father pitied his
own children.”82
This prayer matched evangelical sentiment in St. Mary’s eighty years later.
Interestingly, the emphasis on the Lord’s Prayer found in the eighteenth century children’s
catechism was in direct contrast to a series of ten sermons preached on the Lord’s Prayer at St.
Mary’s in 1885. They said that the prayer is merely a guide to teach people how to pray, rather
than a command to recite a formula. These sermons emphasized God as a loving Father, rather
than as a harsh master.83
These sermons and prayers also reflected a growing evangelical
emphasis upon God’s love for his children rather than a critical view of God, which saw Him as
a taskmaster ready to punish those who do wrong.
The gradual abolition of pew rents in the Anglican Churches in Warwick also suggested a
growing evangelical inclination. In the 1790s, the congregation of St. Mary’s discussed
81
“Questions for the Instruction of children in Church Catechism,” eighteenth century, WCRO CR
1291/730.
82
“A Form of Prayer,” 1805, WCRO 1291/712.
83
A.H.B., Late nineteenth century sermons, St. Mary’s, WCRO 1011/19.

Morey 30
purchasing pews in the gallery, as well as consolidating families into single rows so that they
could all sit together.84
By 1839, the Church considered switching from a flat lifetime rental of
pews to a yearly rent.85
In 1869, the Church appointed somebody to abolish pew rents in St.
Mary’s, thus returning all of the seating to everybody regardless of wealth or social status.86
While the removal of pew rentals took a great deal of time, the eventual abolition of the practice
suggest some degree of liberality in the congregation, likely coupled with the growing
evangelical sentiment suggested in St. Mary’s.
The majority of the minute books for both St. Mary’s and St. Nicholas focused on
quotidian events, and they do not mention any tensions with local Dissenting congregations. The
St. Mary’s vestry minute book from 1741-1760 recorded much detail on church land rentals and
support for the poor but made no mention of dealings with Dissenters, suggesting an absence of
crises.87
The 1834-1871 St. Nicholas’ minute book dedicated the majority of its pages to rents
owed and a request for a reduction in rent prices; none of the minutes mention animosity or
tension with the nonconformists.88
If serious tensions between the groups existed, the church
secretary or minister likely would have recorded them in the minute books, or they would have
showed up in sermons. However, evidence of tensions fails to show up in either of these places
in the existing documents. Even though this argument is based upon a lack of evidence rather
than a positive existence of evidence, if there had been tensions in Warwick, someone would
have mentioned them at some point in the minute books, newspapers, or sermons.
84
Papers relating to the purchase of pews in the gallery, 1793, WCRO DR 126/14.
85
Letter about proposal to adopt pew rents in lieu of church rate, 1839, WCRO DR 537/50.
86
Warwick Advertiser, October 30, 1869.
87
“St. Mary’s Vestry Minute Book, 1741-1760,” WCRO DR 133/40.
88
“St. Nicholas Minutes, 1834-1871,” WCRO DR 87/89.

Morey 31
Congregationalism: Learning from Dispute
The Congregational, or Independent, Church became the first Dissenting group in
Warwick when they began meeting in the Warwick Castle grounds in 1645, under the patronage
of Lord Brooke. After his death, the Presbyterians founded a church within the castle grounds,
which much later became the Unitarian Chapel on High Street.89
Around 1662, the Presbyterians
and Independents in Warwick began worshipping together under pastor John Wilson, who died
in 1695. Joseph Carpenter became pastor in 1700 and remained until 1742, when he moved to
Worcester. In 1746, James Kettle moved to Warwick from Dorchester to be pastor and remained
until his death in 1806.90
Shortly after he left Warwick, however, a schism developed between
the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists.
In the mid-eighteenth century, a split developed between the Unitarian Presbyterians and
the Congregationalists meeting together in Warwick. James Kettle became the first pastor to
embrace Arian sentiments, which upset some members of the congregation. 91
As the
Presbyterians became more Unitarian in their beliefs, they rejected the growing evangelicalism
of Pastor Kettle, so they left the church and began worshipping in a room on High Street.92
Others, such as Henry Vennor, left because they disagreed with Kettle’s theology. Years earlier,
Mr. Vennor’s grandfather had been a borough official tasked with breaking up a Dissenting
church meeting one Sunday. He took the Dissenters to the courthouse, but when the judge never
showed up, they invited Vennor over for dinner. After spending time with them, he converted
and joined their church. Years later, his grandson decided to leave the Presbyterian Chapel
because he believed Kettle did not teach the true Gospel. Vennor and others joined Back Hill
89
Miss J. A. Sunman, “Notes about Congregationalists in Warwick, 1966,” WCRO CR 1054/26.
90
Sunman; “Congregationalist Minutes 1858-1894,” WCRO CR 1054/5.
91
“Congregationalist Minutes 1858-1894.”
92
Sunman.

Morey 32
Baptist Church for a time under the pastorate of John Ryland. The new congregants, however,
could not receive the Lord’s Supper there because they were Independents, so they left that
church after Ryland left in 1759. They likely joined the new Brook Street Chapel, which other
Congregationalists formed after leaving Kettle’s ministry.
In 1758, Congregationalists upset with Kettle’s ministry formed their own church called
Brook Street Chapel on land donated by Henry Collins. They started off with around fifteen
members. Mr. Lombard served as their first pastor until 1767. Meanwhile, the High Street
Chapel, which became increasingly Unitarian, struggled to find a permanent pastor after the
church split. Interestingly, John Newton, the great hymnist and former slave trader, spent time at
High Street Chapel in 1759 before deciding to take Anglican orders. He looked back on his
memories in Warwick fondly.93
Brook Street Chapel also struggled to find a permanent pastor
after Mr. Lombard’s pastorate ended. The church had three more pastors in the 1770s. However,
this decade proved a trying time for the church because they desperately wanted the true Gospel
extolled in their town.
In 1771, the congregation wrote the Countess of Huntingdon, asking her help in finding a
pastor. After her husband died in 1739, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, devoted the rest of her
life to God. She worked for revival throughout England, and she greatly helped the Evangelical
movement. Rupp wrote, “her really significant achievement was to draw upon the assistance of a
remarkable group of young ordained clergymen, fine preachers and good pastors, who were to
become the core of the new Evangelical Movement, Calvinist in theology, but determined to be
loyal to the discipline of the Church of England.”94
The Independents of Warwick wanted such a
pastor for their own church and wrote to the Countess, “Warwick is a place where the Gospel in
93
George Eyre Evans, Midland Churches A History of the Congregations on the Roll of Christian
Midlands Union (Dudley: “Herald” Printing Works, 210, Wolverhampton Street, 1899), 224.
94
Rupp, 462-63.

Morey 33
its Purity is much wanted. Here are two Parish Churches, but not a Gospel Minister in either of
them, and it is only Preached in Town now, amongst the Baptists, who are a small People, have
but a dark Heavy Preacher, and where we Cannot Attend to Edification.” They continued, “We
have built a Neat Convenient Meetinghouse, but are destitute of a Minister, and are very desirous
of having one that has the Glory of God and the Good of Souls at Heart.” 95
The
Congregationalists were desperate for a good pastor, but they waited another decade before
finally gaining their own minister.
In 1780, James Moody visited Brook Street Chapel and accepted the pastorate the next
year. He preached there until 1806. During his tenure, he preached both in Warwick and in
neighboring villages, where he experienced some resistance. People in the countryside placed
wasp nests in his way, broke windows, tossed water on the worshippers, and even threw a dead
pig at him. 96
However, in Warwick itself, there is no evidence of violence against
Congregationalists. During Moody’s twenty years as pastor, the church added 150 members,
with likely many more regular attenders. In 1798, it enlarged the chapel and added a Sunday
school to accommodate the new members.97
After the Congregational schism, Brook Street
Chapel experienced considerable growth, while High Street Chapel slowly declined.
In 1811, Joseph Wilcox Percy became pastor of Brook Street Chapel, ushering in a new
era of stability and unity in the Congregational Church. He was described as a “meek,
unobtrusive, equalle [sic] minded” and faithful minister. In 1826, the Congregationalists enlarged
their Chapel, and in 1843, they opened a day school, against the wishes of Anglican St. Mary’s.
In 1858, Percy retired. The church leaders planned on making a junior pastor their full-time
95
Letter from Brook Street Chapel to the Countess of Huntingdon, November 26, 1771, WCRO Z 727
(sm).
96
“Congregational Minutes 1858-1894.”
97
Ibid.

Morey 34
pastor, but he died suddenly. In 1859, George Allen became pastor but resigned in 1869, so
George Shaw replaced him. On March 24, 1870, J. W. Percy passed away at the age of eighty-
six. He was remembered locally as a man of great integrity. His obituary stated, “His name will
be associated with no memories of theological contention or political warfare. He knew how to
maintain fidelity to professed principles without indulging bitterness against opponents, and the
amenity of his disposition acted as a charm against the disturbing influences which follow on the
path of aggressive and defiant spirits.”98
The Warwick Advertiser prominently displayed his
obituary on the front page of their paper. On the day of his funeral, everyone along the funeral
procession route, regardless of their religious convictions, closed the blinds in their houses and
closed their shops as a sign of respect.99
Despite his Nonconformist identity, everyone in
Warwick respected and appreciated his fifty years of service in the community. Such unity in the
town implies relative peace and religious toleration, and the people of the town clearly
appreciated the Christian unity that J. W. Percy stood for during his long pastorate.
In a way, Percy’s death marked a shift in the history of the Congregational Church in
Warwick because he represented longevity and clarity of purpose. After his passing, the church
did not have another pastor with such a long tenure. Most ministers stayed for a few years before
resigning, possibly because they felt that they could not live up to Percy’s legacy. Not long
before Percy died, the church sought to increase its influence through the publication of a
monthly magazine, which included news from the Brook Street Church, as well as local and
national news. Circulation grew to around 250 per month.100
At the close of the century, they
expanded the church building to include classrooms, and, in 1900, George Allen returned after
several years to serve as pastor for three years. While the church could not find a permanent
98
Ibid.
99
Warwick Advertiser, April 2, 1870.
100
Sunman.

Morey 35
pastor to serve for an extended period of time, they retained unity in other ways. In 1906, Miss
Ann Owen died at the age of ninety-five, after teaching in the Sunday school at Brook Street
Chapel for eighty-two years.101
After dealing with disunity in the congregation in the eighteenth
century, the Independents of Warwick responded by starting over and building an even stronger
church focused on coming together to worship God. Their strength manifested itself in the 1851
census, which recorded religious affiliations. Over 1,500 people claimed to attend Independent
congregations in the greater Warwick area that year.102
The Warwick Independents grew so
much in the nineteenth century that they opened a satellite chapel in Emscote, on the road
between Warwick and Leamington Spa, in 1837. The church had the freedom to grow in
Warwick due to the absence of religious persecution. Furthermore, the Congregationalists
managed to overcome their prior instability, and they clearly learned from their mistakes.
The Baptist Failures
While the Congregationalists in Warwick learned from their dissension, the Baptists in
Warwick continually struggled to remain unified. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the church experienced several episodes of drama and dissent. However, they never
experienced external persecution from the government, the Anglican Church, or the community.
Baptist records in Warwick are relatively sparse in the years immediately following the Great
Fire. John Bowyer’s pastorate, at the end of the seventeenth century, marked a distinct change in
the Warwick Baptist community, however. Bowyer came from London, and, though uneducated,
the people regarded him as a man of prudence and good sense. He marked a turning point for the
church because he purchased a sixty-year lease on a house and garden on Back Hill, where he
built a meetinghouse. Bowyer died in 1702, and the congregation lacked a minister for the next
101
Ibid.
102
Census of Great Britain, 1851 Religious Worship England and Wales (London: George E. Eyre and
William Spottiswoode, 1853), 78.

Morey 36
three years. The minutes recorded that the congregation numbered around 22 men in 1710.103
Nevertheless, the existence of a church building allowed the Baptist congregation slowly to
expand throughout the century.
The early days of the eighteenth century found the Warwick Baptists dealing with
internal dissension rather than external persecution from the Church of England. On May 24,
1705, they held a church trial for Thomas Abbott, who apparently withheld contributions from
the church or failed to help the congregation in some way. The minutes are very sparse, but the
case lasted until 1709. It is never clear what they finally concluded because they only discussed
the importance of unity in dealing with this issue.104
The next meeting book began with similar
issues. In fact, the majority of entries focused on sins committed against members by other
members. They strove for unity of mind and purpose, and to achieve that, they needed to
confront issues of sin. When they excommunicated a member in 1758, it was a very solemn
occasion. One young, unmarried woman’s excommunication was typical, although rare:
Catherine Powel has been guilty of willful, deliberate, and reiterated lying and
defrauding. She has broken the grand Fundamental Rules of our LORD and King, Christ
Jesus: we do therefore in his Name and Presence declare that such a Person is now no
longer a Member of this Church, but by the Laws and Institutions of Christ in that case
made and provided excommunication, or separation from all special Relations to the
same and divested of all Interest in the special Privileges of this Church as a Part of the
visible Kingdom of Christ and consequently hence forth to be accounted and treated by
Us, as one of the world, the Kingdom of the Devil until she repent.105
The church placed great importance upon these acts of excommunication. Throughout both
minute books, the Baptists did not mention any tensions with the government or the Anglican
Church, suggesting that their only real issues at the time were internal. While the lack of
evidence is clearly a negative argument from silence, the sheer absence of any tensions speaks to
103
“Baptist minutes 1697-1710,” WCRO CR 1010/1.
104
Ibid.
105
“Baptists minutes 1714-1759,” WCRO CR 1010/2.

Morey 37
the fact that the people of Warwick tolerated the Baptists in a time of national intolerance of
Dissenters.
In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Baptist church’s biggest challenge came
from members dying out and not enough new members joining. The Baptist church fluctuated in
size over the first half of the eighteenth century. While 200 people attended the church in 1715,
in 1725, ninety-seven people attended the church. Thirteen died over the next eleven years. By
1746, only thirty people attended the church, but by 1754 the congregation grew to fifty-nine
members, causing the church to revisit its statement of faith for those new people. Young people
clearly joined the church, because they recorded the birth of sixty-two children to members
between 1746 and 1754.106
In fact, the congregation likely had more children than adults
attending. All this is to say that while the congregation size fluctuated, it generally started to
grow from mid-century.
Around the middle of the eighteenth century, Back Hill Baptist Church got a new pastor,
named John Ryland. He went to school in Bristol and served as an assistant pastor in London
before moving to Warwick to be Back Hill’s minister, and he remained their pastor until 1759.
Very little is recorded, however, for the next fifty years. Around 1820, the church began taking
regular minutes again, commenting that posterity might understand their lives and their church.
From 1825 to 1826, the church lacked a pastor and general supply. At the end of 1826, the
church invited Mr. Lincoln to come preach, and they eventually asked him to remain as pastor.
That same year, the church added seven members. Around this time, it is clear from the minutes
that a new secretary began taking notes, because they include quite a bit more detail than the
previous seventy years. Interestingly, for the first year Mr. Lincoln served as minister, no one
bothered to give him a list of all the church members. They decided to celebrate Communion and
106
Ibid.

Morey 38
recorded twenty-six members that actually showed up to receive. The next year, the congregation
unraveled.107
The year 1828 proved to be a tumultuous one for the members of Back Hill Baptist
Church, adding to the long history of internal discord in the congregation. The anonymous author
of the minutes begrudgingly wrote:
The occurrences attending the relationship existing between the Pastor of the Church and
the people of his charge were during the whole of this year of a character to need
concealment rather than notice in the Church Book. The Minister however feels that he
should be deficient in his duty towards his office, and towards those who may succeed
him in it if he did not make an impartial and faithful though brief record of transactions
that deeply afflicted his mind.
At the beginning of the year, a member of the church told Lincoln that a group of people in the
congregation was forming against him because he kept a day school and an evening school open,
which occupied much of his time. A female member named Lucy Key began belittling him, so
Lincoln decided to stop going to church meetings, “as it was not his duty to submit to be treated
with low, vulgar scurrility.” After further drama, the church leaders that originally hired Lincoln
began leaving the church “because they were made uncomfortable by these unchristian and
discordant proceedings.” Their absence created a problem because they no longer gave money to
the church, violating “truth and fidelity, entirely unmerited and unprovoked by the Minister, for
none of these unruly seceders even pretended that they had anything to object against the
Minister’s doctrine or moral conduct.” The situation all came to a head one Sunday at the Lord’s
Supper, when Lucy Key and Greet, “her willing tool,” arrived. Lincoln refused to serve them
communion because of the discord they had sown, and they hurled further accusations at him.
Nevertheless, he refused to give them the sacrament. Later in the year, Lincoln tried to patch
things up with Key, but she still insisted on causing discord. Several members left in 1829, but
107
“Baptist minutes (Back Hill Church) 1795-1834,” WCRO CR 1010/3.

Morey 39
they reconciled towards the end of the year, with everyone willing to forgive and forget.108
This
little episode further demonstrated how the Warwick Baptist church seemed much more prone to
internal conflict and dispute than to external persecution from the Anglicans in town.
The beginning of the 1830s failed to see improvement in the affairs of the Baptist
Church. In 1830, several more people departed the congregation. Some people needed to move
for work, while others died. As people from other areas passed through Warwick on their way to
industrial centers, some stayed at Back Hill temporarily. The minister used these opportunities to
share the Gospel with these people, in a sense performing his own type of revivalism. In 1831,
Mr. Wood and his wife stormed out of a church service, refusing to come back. They had
previously left the church but reconciled shortly thereafter. This time, however, Wood and
several other members convinced most of the congregation to transfer to the Independent
Chapel’s Sunday School, and the Independents made no effort to convince these people to
remain with the Baptist Church. Mr. Lincoln took this turn of events rather hard. However, even
though many members kept leaving the church, the author of the minutes said regular attendance
did not change much because they always had a fair number of strangers visiting the church.
These people treated Mr. Lincoln and the congregation quite well, unlike many of the church’s
members. Because the church continued to prosper, the former members became jealous and
sometimes returned to cause trouble. Their actions and vulgar speech eventually caused the
strangers to stop attending Back Hill.
In the middle of the 1830s, the Warwick Baptists finally experienced a conclusion to the
drama unfolding in their church. In 1834, Lincoln traveled to London to visit a bookseller that
printed some of his books. During his absence, he asked some preachers from Coventry, a city
with a strong Dissenting background, to fill in for him. Many of the former members used
108
Ibid.

Morey 40
Lincoln’s time away to slander him further.109
With this final entry, the minute book ended with
many pages left blank. The next minute book began in different handwriting with the comment,
“This Book was commenced as consequence of the books and documents belonging to this place
of worship having been taken away by Mr. Lincoln and the improbability of at present getting
them again.” The author of this set of minutes claimed the congregation removed Mr. Lincoln
because he refused to administer the Lord’s Supper.110
In all likelihood, Lincoln probably left
because he grew tired of the bickering, infighting, and slander. In the end, the members that left
the church got what they wanted, for Lincoln left Warwick, never to return.
The Warwick Baptist congregation continued to have problems with unity over the next
few decades. In 1841, Mr. Campbell resigned the pastorate, and in 1856, Thomas Nash resigned
as pastor after thirteen years of service, citing a lack of peace over the last several years of his
time there. Around this time, in 1851, a little over 400 people attended the church regularly.111
After Campbell and Nash resigned, the Church seemed to straighten out a bit. On February 28,
1861, the Baptists changed their name to Castle Hill Baptist, which the congregation holds as
their name to this day.112
In November 1864, Frank Overbury accepted the pastorate of Castle
Hill Baptist. In 1866, the church received a letter from a gentleman that acquired the old church
minute books from Mr. Lincoln, who took them to London in 1834. Still alive thirty years later,
he agreed to return them to the Baptists in Warwick. The church experienced relative stability
until the 1880s, when they went through several pastors. Rev. David Jennings retired after three
years due to ill health, while the invitation of T. N. Smith to the pastorate caused Deacon Davis
to resign his position. Yet again, a spirit of disunity cropped up in the congregation. In 1885, the
109
Ibid.
110
“Baptist minutes 1835-1856.”
111
Census, 1851, 78.
112
Letter from the Superintendent Registrars District of Warwick to Rev. Thomas Aston Binns, February
28, 1861, WCRO CR 1010/12.

Morey 41
church hired John Hutchinson as their pastor, but by the end of the decade, a money issue caused
problems between him and the congregation. Management of resources became such a problem
that the church decided to have the Midland Baptist Association come in and sort things out.
After this controversy, Castle Hill closed the nineteenth century in relative peace.113
The Baptist Church in Warwick experienced substantial internal disunity and turmoil in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is no indication that they had any issues
with the local Anglicans or with the local government. The story of Back Hill Baptist and Castle
Hill Baptist is rather ironic, since in their early history they strived so hard to achieve unity.
Perhaps they emphasized unity so much that they created dissension through suppression of
other ideas and opinions. The problems the Baptists of Warwick experienced would likely not
have happened without the freedom from Anglican persecution that they enjoyed. Had they faced
active persecution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they probably would not have
worried about those issues that eventually became large problems for the congregation.
Quakers: The Fading Minority
Much like the Congregationalist and the Baptists, the Quakers have a long history in the
town of Warwick, dating back to George Fox, the founder of the movement. In 1655, Fox held a
meeting of Friends at a widow’s house in Warwick. They began meeting, but their church burned
down in the fire of 1694. The replacement church they built in 1695 stands to this day.
Throughout the eighteenth century, according to William White, most of the Quakers in
Warwick “were engaged in farming, some cultivated their own freeholds, others were millers,
and those resident in the town followed some of the trades usual in country towns.”114
As the
century progressed, the group gradually grew smaller, while at their peak the group claimed
113
Baptist minutes 1857-1904, WCRO CR 1292/1.
114
William White, Friends in Warwickshire, in the 17th
and 18th
Centuries (Birmingham: White and Pike,
1873), 127-124.

Morey 42
1,200 members throughout Warwickshire. Part of their challenge came from their own actions,
since they disowned many of their members for marrying non-Quakers. Others from Warwick
moved to Pennsylvania. Despite these losses, the Quakers in Warwick valued unity, and they did
their best to restore fellowship with people that sinned against them. White wrote, “Some of the
testimonies of disownment show, however, the patience of Friends with offenders, as well as
their earnest desires for their restoration to unity with the body.”115
Despite attempts at
reconciliation, the Quakers continued to lose members.
While Quakerism in Warwick declined throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, the congregations in the county managed to distinguish themselves from much of the
rest of England. White wrote, “In many parts of the kingdom the ‘Women’s Meetings,’ had
almost fallen into disuse, but they appear to have been held regularly in this county, and form [in
1873] a favorable feature amidst much declension in other particulars.” The Friends of Warwick
also concerned themselves with the welfare of their youth. To make sure they led their youth
along the right path, they held occasional meetings and gave counsel to the young in how to
proceed in marriage and how to live Christ-like lives. The ministers instructed the elderly to
participate in guiding the young people in the way they should go.116
The Quakers took their
roles as Christians very seriously and desired to live their lives in a biblical manner.
Despite a few bright spots, the Quakers continued to have problems. In the middle of the
eighteenth century, several successive Quaker ministers died, and there were few available to
take their place. This loss merely accelerated the congregation’s shrinking. As the century
closed, fewer people attended the meetings, and church discipline suffered accordingly.117
By
115
Ibid., 69.
116
White, 53-55.
117
Ibid., 75-76, 82.

Morey 43
1851, only ten to fifteen people attended the Quaker church in Warwick.118
Due to the small size
of the congregation, very few nineteenth century records remain from this church. If only a
handful of people attended the church regularly, they likely saw no need to record detailed
minutes. An article in the Warwick Advertiser from June 5, 1869, accused the Friends of not
supporting their poor members due to the small size of their group. They simply could not
support each other because they did not have sufficient resources. Overall, by the nineteenth
century, the Quaker Church in Warwick was essentially irrelevant, and they closed in 1909. Very
few records exist to suggest that they were persecuted for their beliefs, but records from other
churches also fail to mention any tensions with the Quakers, apart from minor annoyances with
them recorded in the local newspaper.
Methodism Comes to Warwick
Methodism emerged much later in Warwick than in other areas of England. John Wesley
never mentioned visiting Warwick in his extensive journal, and no records in the town mention a
visit. It is understandable that he never visited Warwick since the town is in the heart of the rural
Midlands, and Wesley focused his mission on the densely populated areas. Thomas Facer, a
stonemason from Yorkshire, moved to Warwick to work on the Earl’s building projects in 1801,
and he formally introduced Methodism to the town.119
By embracing Wesley’s goal of spreading
the Gospel from heart to heart, Facer brought the Evangelical Methodist message to the sleepy
town of Warwick. While the movement spread rapidly throughout the industrial regions in the
mid to late eighteenth century, Methodism did not officially appear in Warwick until 1804 at the
118
Census, 1851, 78.
119
Paul Bolitho, The Story of Warwick Methodism A Centenary Celebration of Two Hundred Years
(Coventry: Dial House Press, 1993), 1-2.

Morey 44
very earliest, when a man named Henry Chlist licensed his home for worship.120
In 1810, the
small group of Methodists from Warwick and nearby Leamington Spa founded a society, and
they held services above a carpenter’s shop. In 1817, the small church became part of the
Coventry circuit.121
By 1820 the membership of the Methodist congregation grew to the point that they
decided to build their own church on Chapel Street. However, due to the closing of a wool
factory, the congregation lost many members, and they sold their building in 1834. In 1862, they
wrote, “Some years ago the Wesleyan Methodists in Warwick were obliged to sell their Chapel
at about one third of its original cost, and to build one in a situation very inconvenient for the
attendance of the majority of the congregation and the prosecution of the one object of their
labours – the Salvation of the Souls of the People.”122
In the following years, the congregation
shrank to just three women. Due to the graciousness of the Baptist minister, those women met at
the local Baptist Church. In 1839, a new Methodist church opened. In 1840, they added a chapel
in Emscote on the way to Leamington Spa. The new building in Warwick proper served as their
home until 1863, when they relocated to a new building, funded by Miss Sarah Harvey.123
Harvey, a resident of Leamington, donated £500 to the project, as well as the deed for the land.
The sale of the previous chapel amounted to merely £40, while the Methodist Corporation and
building committee supplied another £100.124
The same year the Market Street Chapel opened, a
Methodist Church opened on Avon Street in Emscote as well. Clearly there was enough demand
120
Number of Dissenting Meeting Places 1760-1829, WCRO QS 10/2; Paul Bolitho, “Early Warwick
Methodism,” Wesley Historical Society West Midlands Branch Bulletin 4, no. 8 (Autumn, 1986): 112.
121
Northgate Methodist Church leaflet celebrating 150 years of Methodism in Warwick, 1951, WCRO
CR 2526/21.
122
Documents found under foundation stone of Market Street Schoolroom at the time of demolition in
1962, 1863, WCRO CR 1064/4.
123
Bolitho, Story of Warwick Methodism, 3-7.
124
Warwick Wesleyan Methodist Chapels 1778-1951, WCRO CR 2526/18.

Morey 45
in the area for another Methodist congregation. This particular church closed its doors in 1968.125
With Methodism thriving in Warwick, the churches continued to expand to reach more people.
By 1878, the Market Street Chapel started to fall apart, creating the need for a new
church building. The response came over a decade later with the construction of Northgate
Church. The foundation stones were laid on June 15, 1892, and the church opened on May 25,
1893.126
They sold their old building to the Primitive Methodists. Northgate serves as the
Methodist church in Warwick to this day. At the time of construction, 200 people attended the
Methodist church, while the population of Warwick was around 11,900. The new church
building accommodated 253 people, allowing room for growth.127
The construction of Northgate
Methodist vaguely marked the end of the nineteenth century for the Methodists. The previous
ninety years found the church struggling to find a proper place of worship, and in 1893 they
finally had their permanent home.
A few years after the construction of Northgate Methodist, the minute book recorded an
interesting example of the openness of the town of Warwick. In a meeting held on March 12,
1896, the trustees resolved to ask the Earl of Warwick to take the chair at their next public
meeting, scheduled for April 14.128
The fact that they felt free to request that the Earl attend the
meeting implies that they did not fear any possible resistance or persecution for being Methodist.
By this point in time, Nonconformity clearly experienced open and legal freedom throughout the
country. However, it is interesting that the Methodists appealed to the Anglican establishment,
and the request also demonstrated their loyalty to the Earl, even though they were
Nonconformists. The Earl almost certainly did not attend the meeting, however, because the
125
Bolitho, Story of Warwick Methodism, 8, 11-12.
126
Ibid., 18, 20.
127
Application to build Northgate Church, 1892, WCRO CR 1046/5.
128
“Northgate Minute Book 1890-1920,” WCRO CR 2526/17.

Morey 46
Warwick Advertiser mentioned the meeting in its April 18, 1896, edition, and it failed to mention
his attendance. Usually, the Advertiser mentioned when the Earl attended meetings or public
events, so if he had been in attendance, the newspaper would have likely mentioned it.
Methodism in Warwick certainly suggests a different picture than Methodism in the rest
of England. The various revival meetings held by Methodist ministers and revivalists all over the
country never occurred in Warwick. The rapid growth of Evangelicalism seen elsewhere did not
impact the growth of Methodism in this town until the mid-nineteenth century, which saw
possibly 1,000 Methodists worshipping in Warwick and the surrounding suburbs.129
However,
the absence of a strong Evangelical or Revival movement in Warwick strongly suggests a
different narrative than the rest of England or even the surrounding Midlands. Furthermore, there
is never any indication of tensions between the Methodists and any other religious group in
Warwick, including the Church of England.
Catholicism: A Late Arrival
Of the nineteenth-century denominations, the Roman Catholic Church established itself
the latest. Most Catholics in the area depended on local rural landowners, as they did in many
other parts of England. Judith Hurwich wrote, “Post-Reformation Catholicism in England,
especially in the North and Midlands, was dependent upon the patronage of the nobility and
gentry.” She further commented on Warwickshire in particular, “a line drawn diagonally across
the county from northwest to southeast would separate the parishes in which Catholics were
numerous from those in which Dissenters were numerous.” The northeast, where Warwick lies,
was generally Nonconformist, while the southwest tended to have a stronger Catholic presence.
The Throckmortons and the Dormers were among the prominent Catholics landowners in that
129
Census, 1851, 78.

Morey 47
area.130
The strength of Catholicism in the southeast of Warwickshire and the relative absence of
Catholics in the east and north help explain the lack of Catholics in Warwick in the eighteenth
century and for much of the nineteenth century.
The registration of Catholic places of worship began in 1791, the year the government
first gave them relief. That year, someone in Warwick registered a place of meeting in a building
called Cocksparrow Hall.131
However, it is unclear if Catholics ever worshipped there at all,
since there is no mention of this place again after it was registered. If anyone met there, they
likely did not do so for very long. Catholicism clearly did not have strongholds in the town
because most Catholics in the county were in the southwest, but this was not due to persecution.
After 1720, the people of Warwick no longer persecuted Catholics.132
The only real reaction
against Catholics in Warwick came in 1850, after the Pope tried to set up dioceses in England. In
November of that year, several articles in the Warwick Advertiser bemoaned this fact. The
discontent continued with demonstrations held in many urban areas, including violent riots in
Birmingham. A small riot broke out on Guy Fawkes Day during which the people burned an
effigy of the Pope.133
While this act had become a ritual in England every year on Guy Fawkes
Day, this particular demonstration featured more anti-Catholic sentiment than usual. This
disturbance is the only recorded act of violence directed at a religious group in the town of
Warwick in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even in this riot, the violence was not
directed at local Catholics but rather at the Pope himself.
In 1858, Fr. Thomas Longman performed the first mass in Warwick. This meeting
marked the beginning of a Catholic congregation in the town. In a letter to his mother, Longman
130
Hurwich, Study of Warwickshire, 32.
131
Registration of Catholic Meeting Houses, 1791, WCRO QS 10/3.
132
Ruth Barbour, Catholic Warwick (Birmingham, UK: Archdiocese of Birmingham Historical
Commission, 2009), 34.
133
Warwick Advertiser, November 9, 1850.

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