THE SHROPSHIRE GROUP
OF BAPTIST CHURCHES

SHROPSHIRE BAPTIST HISTORY
INTRODUCTION

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Continued - Page 3

Baptists in Shropshire and the surrounding areas

The Particular Baptist church at Hill Cliffe, Cheshire, can with some justification claim to be one of the oldest continuing Baptist churches in England as it was founded c.1649. By 1661 the church had secured its burial ground and in Shropshire it seems that Stoke-upon-Tern was developing as a centre of Particular Baptist witness. There was a Baptist church at Stafford c.1650 and one of its members was Col. Henry Danvers, then military governor of Stafford, who became a Baptist during his residence there. W.T. Whitley suggested that Baptist beliefs spread from Stafford to Nantwich and possibly to Shrewsbury. By 1653 people at Shrewsbury who wished to be baptized travelled to Nantwich. The formation of the first Baptist church in Shrewsbury can be assigned to the period of the Commonwealth. Churches, which would now be called 'General Baptist', were also formed in Bridgnorth and Ludlow in the 1650s.

During the years 1659-1686 Dissenters faced active persecution and Baptists in Shrewsbury were frequently prosecuted for their nonconformity. Following the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 a number of Presbyterian and Independent meeting houses in Shropshire were licensed for worship. The house of Widow Zanchay in Church Stretton was licensed for use by Independents. According to some notes left by A. J. Klaiber, the house was used as a Baptist meeting house but evidence for this has not been found.

Garth Fawr in 1895
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William and John Price, who were Baptists, were forced to leave their home in Bucknell, Shropshire, about 1713 because of religious hostility and they moved to Garth Fawr, Montgomeryshire.

Rev. John Evans, the minister of Hand Alley Presbyterian congregation in London compiled a List of Dissenting Congregations and Ministers based on information supplied to him, chiefly by Presbyterian ministers. The List, known as the 'Evans List,' was compiled for the most part in the years 1716, 1717 and the early part of 1718. In the case of the County of Salop (as Shropshire was then known) the only Baptist congregations known to Rev. John Reynolds, who supplied the information to John Evans, were at Bridgnorth (then spelt Bridgenorth), Salop (Shrewsbury) and Shifnal (then spelt Shiffnall). In Cheshire there were three 'Anabaptist' congregations, while in Radnorshire there were two Baptist groups. One of these groups was not confined to the county having meetings at Pentre in Brecknockshire and at Blaneglay in Montgomeryshire. Blaneglay should be identified as Blaenglyn on the road from Beulah to Llanidloes.

Broseley Chapel
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The Bridgnorth church became Particular Baptist c.1700, while most of the members of the Shrewsbury church were Particular Baptist in belief by the 1750's. During the eighteenth century the Shifnal church also became Particular Baptist. A Particular Baptist society was formed at Broseley in the Coalbrookdale coalfield in 1741. A chapel was opened on 2 February 1742. It is the oldest Baptist chapel in Shropshire still used for worship.

In 1790 Dr. John Rippon in The Baptist Annual Register published a list of the Particular Baptist Churches in England and Wales. In Shropshire there were churches at Bridgnorth, Broseley, Shifnal, and Shrewsbury, while only the churches at Bridgnorth and Broseley had pastors.

The Shrewsbury church was without a settled pastor from 1789 to 1794 and financial problems resulted in the meeting house being shut. There was an outstanding debt and it seemed that the building would have to be sold. The outlook for the church was dramatically changed when, at the request of the remaining congregation a young man, John Palmer, began to preach to them. He was then employed by Mr. Tudor, an apothecary in the town. Palmer was asked to undertake the pastoral duties for a year and then in 1793 he was ordained as pastor. He went to London to raise money to clear the church's debt and also to attend lectures at the London Hospitals. He was able to collect £172 for this purpose, apparently a larger sum than anyone else had been able to collect.

From the beginning of his ministry John Palmer was concerned with preaching the Gospel in the villages surrounding Shrewsbury. As early as 1794 he preached in Minsterley and he invited Independent ministers to join him in the work there. Arising out of their efforts an Independent church was formed there in 1805 and a Baptist church in 1817. On his return to Shrewsbury from London John Palmer spent Sunday and the greater part of Monday at home so that he might attend to his patients. He then took a circuit round the country preaching wherever the opportunity offered, returning on Thursday evenings to preach the lecture at home.

When Palmer was in London in 1797 The Baptist Society in London for the Encouragement and Support of Itinerant Preaching was formed. On his return to Shrewsbury he gave himself to regular preaching throughout Shropshire and within about eight years he wrote that the church had 'upwards of 70 that do not reside within ten miles of us mostly the fruit of village preaching.' In 1797-1798 he was employed by the Itinerant Society in 'preaching through some parts of Wales, where he was known as 'John the Baptist', and the adjoining English counties [including Herefordshire]'. On these visits Rev. Abraham Webster of Broseley accompanied him in 1797 and Rev. Thomas Smith of Coseley, Staffordshire, in 1798. In 1800 Palmer preached at Kington, Herefordshire, where a Baptist church was formed in 1805. In 1801 John Palmer spent two months in Ireland at the invitation of the Evangelical Society in Dublin.

Dr. John Palmer
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An insight into Palmer's pastoral and evangelistic activity is provided by a letter he wrote to The Baptist Magazine in June 1811, in which he described the effect of a storm on Monday, 27 May which had caused loss of life and considerable damage to property in the Stiperstones area. A relief fund was set up and Palmer sought gifts for the fund. He was unable to make a 'general survey' of the area until Monday, 10 June. At Snailbeach there had been no fatalities but much damage to houses and he preached in the evening in a crowded house on Isaiah 32:2, A Man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the Storm, &c. At Minsterley there had been fatalities and almost the whole of the Angel Inn had been swept away by the flood waters. In the afternoon Palmer preached in the village to many who had lost friends and goods on On Job 1:21, The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.. He administered 'the supper ordinance' and 23 out of 25 partook. In the evening he visited 'Abberley' (the spelling reflecting the Shropshire pronunciation of 'Habberley'). There the flood waters were very high but there had been little damage. He preached there on Isaiah 59: 19, When the enemy shall come in like a flood, &c. Palmer was 'strongly requested' to visit 'a considerable village called Worthier (i.e. Worthen)'. The village had not been much affected by the flood and on Wednesday afternoon he 'addressed more than 100 very attentive persons in the street'. He was not interrupted on what was 'the first attempt to introduce the Gospel.' On Thursday he went to Pontesford, where nine people had been swept to death by the flood waters. Three had been saved from the part of the bridge that remained standing. In the afternoon Palmer stood on the remains of the bridge and 'addressed a large and very attentive company from James 4: 14, Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, &c.'

To aid the work of village preaching Palmer formed an Itinerant Society for Shropshire and this enabled payments to be made to preachers for supplying preaching stations. At least five of these preachers became ordained pastors, Joseph Ashford at Welshpool, David Crumpton at Llandrinio and Sweeney Mountain, W. Mayberry at Minsterley, William Owen at Madley, Herefordshire, while Edward Evans, an assistant preacher of the Newtown church, became the pastor at Snailbeach.

In addition to registering his cottage 'Enon' for nonconformist worship in 1803, John Palmer registered meeting houses at Bishop's Castle and Ellesmere in 1798, a meeting house at Hookagate in the parish at St. Chads, Shrewsbury in 1807. By 1814 he had formed churches at Oswestry (1806), Wellington (1807) Whitchurch (1808), and Wem (1814). He had a significant role in the formation of a church at Ludlow in 1812, but the church had closed by 1823, and may have closed as early as 1815. Palmer co-operated with the (Calvinistic) Independents commencing a work at Minsterley, which led to the formation of an Independent church there in 1805 and a Baptist church in 1817.

Palmer's influence was not confined to Shropshire. In Wales Palmer reformed the church at Wrexham, Denbighshire (1805), formed a church at Welshpool, Montgomeryshire (1820) and commenced the work at Llandrinio, Montgomeryshire. On a visit to Aberystwyth he baptized converts in the River Rheidol. He made frequent visits to Liverpool and he was one of the first to have a ministry among seamen. He was one of the group of ministers who took part, in 1812, in the discussions which led to the formation of the Baptist Union the following year. He was a supporter of the Baptist Missionary Society: in 1815 he was elected to the Society's Committee and he also became Treasurer of The Shropshire Auxiliary Society in aid of Baptist Missions and Translations when it was formed that year. He preached at the quarterly meeting of the (Welsh) South-east Baptist Association in 1808 and the annual meetings in 1818 and 1819.

A contemporary assessment of Palmer's influence was given in Hulbert's History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury:

His wife, Susannah [neée, Tovey] came from Wallingford, Berkshire, and on her husband's death, she returned to Wallingford. However, Palmer's ministry was not without its critics. Thomas Brocas, a member of the Methodist society at Shrewsbury, wrote to him in 1815 strongly criticizing his views of predestination and saying 'it is well for the character of God that there is no such thing in the bible.'

No information is available for the work of the Baptist Itinerant Society from 1798 to 1813 but the report of the Society published in 1814 states that help had been given to 'worthy, laborious ministers' in various counties, including Shropshire. As the work grew, auxiliary societies were formed to support the work similar to those established to support the work of the Baptist Missionary Society. The name of the Society was changed to The Baptist Itinerant and Home Mission Society and abbreviated in 1822 to The Baptist Home Mission Society. In 1846 the aim of Society was changed from the encouragement of itinerant preaching to the formation of Baptist churches where there had been none.

Edward Goff, who was a native of Huntingdon in west Herefordshire, moved to London where he became a wealthy coal merchant. He left money for the promoting or establishing of schools for poor children in Herefordshire and surrounding counties. Under the usual arrangements made by his trustees, it was customary for the schoolmaster also to be the village pastor. John Palmer had preached at Tenbury, Worcestershire, his birthplace, but it had not resulted in the formation of a church. However, in 1819 Goff's Trustees opened a school there and it served as the Baptist chapel on Sundays. At Pontesbury a Baptist chapel was opened in 1828 and it was used during the week as a Goff's School.

A Baptist congregation was established in Shropshire c.1817 at Dawley Bank by a Baptist evangelist who regularly travelled from Birmingham. However the church at Dawley was listed in the Baptist Manual until 1849. Other Baptist churches in Shropshire were formed at Oldbury (1815), Market Drayton (1818), Donnington Wood (1820), and Welshampton (1820), but the Market Drayton church closed in 1843. There was a Baptist congregation in Hadley from 1816 and a small Baptist chapel was built there in 1831.

Table 1 shows that the number of Baptist congregations in Shropshire grew from 11 in 1811 to 21 in 1831.

In 1812 David Bogue and James Bennett in their History of Dissenters reported that in Shropshire there were 3 Presbyterian churches, 20 Independent churches and 11 Baptist churches.

In the 1835 List of the Evangelical Baptist Churches, published in The Baptist Magazine, only three of the seventeen Shropshire churches reported their statistics. They show that, as elsewhere in England, attendance was significantly greater than the church membership, no doubt because admission to church membership required baptism as a believer.

Table 3 lists the twenty five Baptist churches in Shropshire in 1839. Eleven churches had Sunday Schools. Oswestry was the largest church, although the two churches in Shrewsbury had together a greater membership. The Wem church had the greatest number of preaching stations.

By 1839 there was anxiety in Shropshire churches about the state and progress of their churches and the need for Revival. At the Claremont Street Church in Shrewsbury a series of revival meetings was held in 1839 and this led to a large accession of members. In two years 107 were added by baptism alone. The Association Annual Meeting was held at Oswestry 28-30 June 1840 and the programme consisted of 'a series of revival services'. On the final evening of the Association Meeting one man and two women were baptized and they were received into membership at Oswestry on 11 July.

According to the Baptist Union Proceedings 1843 a second Baptist church was formed at Bridgnorth in 1841, presumably as a result of a disagreement at the Castle Street church, but this church did not survive and nothing further is known about its history.

The Religious Census in 1851 showed that Baptists were relatively weak in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire. In Table 4 we list the Shropshire congregations which made a Census return, together with statistical information about Baptist churches taken from The Baptist Manual 1852.

The Market Drayton church was reopened in 1857 and churches were formed at Madeley in 1858 and in Shrewsbury at Coleham in 1859, while in the border town of Oswestry (Croesoswallt in Welsh) the Welsh Baptists opened a church in 1860. The Rev. Thomas How in his address to the Shropshire Association in 1862 drew attention to the lack of growth of the number of Baptist churches in Shropshire compared to the progress made by Independent churches. He pointed out that in 1790 there were 4 Baptist churches while in 1861 there were 24. The Independents had about 6 chapels but by 1862 they had about 60. He attributed the slower growth of Baptist churches to 'the almost entire lack of suitable machinery for Home Missionary purposes'. However, new churches were formed at Oakengates (1862) and Coxall on the Welsh border (1870).

A further attempt was made to form a Baptist church at Ludlow in 1874 but the chapel had passed into the hands of the Brethren by 1893. However, by 1901 the cause had become Baptist again. In the twentieth century churches were formed at Newport (1992) and on the Crowmoor Estate at Shrewsbury (1992), while Chorley became independent of the mother church at Bridgnorth in 1948.

The years 1858-1860 marked what became known as the Second Evangelical Revival and J. Edwin Orr has traced its course and influence in Great Britain. He assumed that it was an unvarying movement that began in the south-west of Scotland before it was diffused as an unbroken movement across the rest of Britain. However, more recent studies have shown that the revival in both North-East Scotland and also in America was more diverse than hitherto supposed. In Shropshire Baptists and Congregationalists at Wellington in the Revival period increased membership by 66 per cent and Methodists by 75 per cent. Dr. J. Edward Cranage, who has been described as 'an unconventional Anglican', became a deacon of the Baptist church at Wellington in 1860. Inspired by a visit to Ireland to see the Revival there, he left the Baptist church to set up an undenominational mission among the poorer people of Wellington. However, until the end of his life, he remained a Trustee of the Baptist Church.

During the nineteenth century there was a renewal of Baptist life in Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire. In Montgomeryshire John Jones 'of Newtown', who preached in both English and Welsh, enjoyed much success as a preacher, evangelist and church planter until his untimely death, aged 49, in 1831. Through his zeal and hard work daughter congregations were formed at various places, including Caersws (1824), Sarn (1826), and Mochdre (1830). He also preached at Hen Castell (Old Castle) and this led to the formation of a church at New Wells in 1838. Thomas Thomas from Bristol College settled at Nantgwyn, where he was ordained in 1802. He planted churches at Staylittle, Llanidloes and Cwmbelan. In 1808 the great Welsh Baptist preacher Christmas Evans registered a building for worship in Trefeglwys, near Caersws. In the 1840s Baptists formed churches using buildings formerly used by the Independents in the village of Kerry and at Cwm in the parish of Mainstone.

Signature of John Jones

Signature of Benjamin Price
Cymro Bach

In Radnorshire a Baptist church was formed in 1801 at Maesyrhelem on the side of the Ithon valley, near the turnpike road that led from Builth and Llandrindod to Newtown. Maesyrhelem Chapel was erected in 1805 and took its name from the nearby farm where meetings were first held. Baptisms took place in the River Ithon. The first pastor was Rev. Joseph Jones, from New Wells, near Newtown, who was the proprietor of Maesyrhelem Farm and formerly co-pastor with James Evans at Rhydfelin. As a result of his preaching, together with that of his co-pastor at Maesyrhelem, Abraham Evans, branch churches were formed at Bettws-y-Crwyn in Shropshire and at Gravel in the parish of Llangynllo in Radnorshire.

The growth of Baptist churches in Wales was undoubtedly facilitated by churches appointing assistant preachers, who would preach in the mother church and so release their pastors to engage in evangelistic activity in other places. Assistant preachers might have oversight of branch churches and might in due course be ordained. For instance, Edward Evans, assistant preacher at Caersws became the pastor at Snailbeach in 1832, while Joseph Drew, the assistant at Welshpool in 1843, became pastor there in 1845.

Because congregations were small, churches in both England and Wales found it difficult to support their ministers and many pastors found it necessary to support themselves by secular employment. For instance, Joseph Ashford at Welshpool received no stipend and worked as a tradesman, William Bird at Chirbury as a tailor and John Williams of Coleham, Shrewsbury, as a mercer. John Jones of Newtown and James Gay of Coxall ran schools. David Crumpton worked briefly as a teacher in a free school for poor children, possibly in the short-lived Goff School at Sweeney Mountain, while at a later date Thomas Rowson was a schoolmaster. George Thorne, who founded the Baptist church at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in 1859 and subsequently reopened the Baptist church at Welshpool, worked for the Inland Revenue.

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