Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
The 18th century was a period when "alternative" religions began to emerge in earnest. These religious societies often started out as groups of students who met for Bible study. They were composed of laymen and so were often not favoured by the Anglican Church. At the start nearly everyone in these Bible study groups still took their orders from the Established Church, and most carried out good deeds in their parishes.
However, these groups began to become more and more disillusioned with the Anglican ministry. They felt that the church was neglecting its duties and its members. In Essex, of the 310 churches only 102 had services on a Sunday and some only had a service once a month. These Bible Groups recognised the shortcomings of the established Church and the need for a revival became pressing.
In 1739 Methodism emerged, inspired by the teachings of John and Charles Wesley. Their evangelism had an extraordinary impact on the working classes whose conditions of living predisposed them to enthusiasm and the quest for Utopia. Methodism had many different branches but in 1932 these joined to form the Methodist Church.
The Church of England remained the dominant religion throughout the 18th century, with 90% of the population swearing at least nominal allegiance.
Universities were Anglican and dissenters were kept out with the intention of keeping their education at a basic level. The Anglican clergy performed and recorded all baptisms and burials, and church courts still had jurisdiction over wills and marriage disputes.
Seeing the inequality in religion offered to the various social classes of England, some Non-conformists set up their own schools, with the religious minister acting as schoolmaster. The Baptist minister Edward Goff (or Gough) was born in Huntington in Herefordshire in 1738, the son of a farm labourer. In his early life he worked as a farm hand before becoming dissatisfied and moving to London, where he was employed as a coalheaver. He was such a hard-working and honest man that his master eventually passed the business over to him. Edward Goff had no formal schooling and had taught himself to read and write. He was an active member of the Baptist Church and left money to found schools in Herefordshire and the surrounding counties for the education of the poor.
In Herefordshire these schools were set up in Huntington, Fownhope and Madley. Goff died in 1813 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Hay churchyard.
At the beginning of the 18th century the population of England was approximately 5,826,000; by the end of the century this had risen to 9,156,000. Industry was developing and new towns and villages were growing all over the country. A class divide soon began to develop between the landed gentry, the factory owners and the workers. This "new" commercial and industrial society was governed by a liberal national state based upon the principles of political equality and popular sovereignty.
The 18th century was a period when rioting was endemic. The working classes felt that they were being oppressed and there were riots against the Corn Law and Turnpike taxes. Methodism fully erupted in Britain in the midst of this disharmony, especially during the wage riots of the 1760s. The revolution in nearby France had brought about the overthrow of the Roman Catholic Church, and now people unhappy with the standard of religion in England could see that there was an alternative, that ordinary people had the right to assert their freedom of choice.
The dissenting religions offered ordinary people the chance to seek a better life. They were religions accessible to the humble and unsophisticated. Salvation could not be bought, learnt or inherited; it had to be earned by conduct and morals. Membership of these churches was not dependent on your birth or land ownership, it was voluntary and required only commitment and piety. This is partly why many of the Non-conformist religions practise adult baptism. They do not see membership of the church as a birthright but something that has to be earned and professed to when old enough to understand the implications of your faith.
The Sunday Schools attached to many of the Dissenting chapels provided a system whereby ordinary people, who were unable to attend other educational institutions, could learn to read and write.
One of the few members of the aristocracy who became a Baptist minister was the 16th Lord Teynham, who before he succeeded to the peerage was a Baptist minister and was responsible for the founding of Ledbury Baptist Chapel in 1832. He left the Baptist ministry in 1842 and made his maiden speech to the House of Lords on 7th March 1843.
During the 19th century matters of morals and religion profoundly influenced English society. For millions of men and women religion gave them rules by which to live their life. It determined who they should marry, and conditioned the way they brought up their children.
The chief characteristic of 19th century religion was Evangelicalism, the belief that every man and woman was heir to the sins of Adam and destined to spend eternity in Hell unless justified by faith. Evangelicals believed that only those who experienced a conversion and were willing to profess their faith would find Heaven after death.
Evangelicalism was mediated mainly through Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalists: the so-called "Dissenters". Not all Dissenters were Evangelicals. Many Presbyterians could trace their ancestry back to Anglican clergy who were ejected in 1662 for their refusal to consent to everything written in the Book of Common Prayer and who rejected the Trinity in favour of the Unity of God. Many Quakers also rejected Evangelicalism.
England during this period was experiencing a rapid population growth and a boom in the country's industry. Between 1773 and 1851 the population is estimated to have grown by 155%, while the numbers of Non-conformists grew by 975% in the same period. Not only had the congregation of Non-conformists increased tenfold, but the religious census of 1851 also showed that they outnumbered Anglican places of worship by 5,420.
Steadily a divide between classes was becoming more and more evident as many more people became landowners and businessmen carried along by the tide of the Industrial Revolution. The workers in the new factories often lived in appallingly cramped and squalid conditions and were expected to work long shifts to earn enough money to feed their families. These lower classes in society began to feel that they no longer fitted in with the Anglican Church with its grand architecture, procession and class-based seating orders. It was with the poor and the unsophisticated that Evangelical Non-conformity found its greatest support.
Religious instruction was evident in education, philanthropy, leisure and class, as well as political and industrial life.
The extent of popular support for Evangelical Non-conformity is evident in the unique religious census of 1851 of England and Wales. This census revealed that 40% of the population had attended a religious service on Sunday 30th March 1851, and of that 40% nearly half were Protestant Non-conformists.
It is also interesting to note that at this time 40% attendance was considered very low. It is worth noting that today the same attendance at religious services of any kind would be thought of as particularly good.
It has been suggested by Michael R.Watts (The Dissenters Volume 2) that Dissent grew up on soil that had been prepared by the Church of England but where the established church had proved incapable of reaping the harvest. Densely-populated areas with high levels of poverty already felt excluded and alienated from the Church of England. In these areas the inflexibility of the Anglican doctrine, inadequate pastoral care and unemotional moralistic theology proved insufficient to meet the spiritual needs of the people.
[Original author: Miranda Greene, 2003]