THE SHROPSHIRE GROUP
OF BAPTIST CHURCHES

SHROPSHIRE BAPTIST HISTORY
INTRODUCTION

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Continued - Page 4

In some cases the call to ministry enabled men to leave situations of abject poverty and improve their circumstances. For instance, D. L. Pughe of Newtown whose work as a weaver 'could hardly procure him the bare necessities of life' was encouraged to train at Pontypool Academy and subsequently served in a number of Baptist pastorates. Thomas Brocas, who criticised John Palmer for preaching Calvinism, observed that Baptist lay preachers like Everal and Frances, earned as much in one week preaching Calvinism as they used to earn in a month or six weeks weaving flannel. John Harrison from The Bog in West Shropshire came to Sarn in 1864 and for the first time he was able to send his children to school.

There were several Baptist ministers who received no stipend as they were of independent means, such as Rev. Joseph Jones at Maesyrhelem. In Wales many of the ministers were farmers and so they had horses which enabled them to move around the countryside. Sometimes churches would pay the wage of a farm labourer to work on a farm while the farmer was engaged in his ministerial duties.

Churches were at first unable to provide accommodation for ministers and their families. Dawley Baptist Church provided a house for its minister when the chapel was erected in 1846, while Sarn Baptist Church did not provide a manse until 1866. Little is recorded about the willingness of ministers' wives to accept privation for themselves and their families. However, the Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth Wycherley, the wife of Thomas E. Wycherley who had served at Donnington Wood, mentions that her husband 'was enabled to labour there for about six years, notwithstanding the trifling aid he received from the people, through her self-denying labours'. Later on in the nineteenth century Rev. John Jones (known as 'John the Rock') wrote:

Although he was commenting on the situation in Radnorshire similar remarks could no doubt have been made about the situation of ministers' wives in rural areas of England.

In England some Anglican landlords did not want Baptist chapels on their estates and it was probably the inability of the Baptists at Chirbury to obtain a site for a chapel which led to the closure of the work there. At Snailbeach Baptists had identified a suitable site for the erection of chapel but the 4th Marquis of Bath refused to allow them to build on his land. However, they approached another local landowner, the 6th Earl of Tankerville, in the hope that a recent dispute with Lord Bath over shooting rights would make him more sympathetic. Sure enough he provided them with land for the building of Lord's Hill Chapel in 1876 - just across the stream which formed the boundary between his land and that of the Lord Bath. Lord Tankerville was probably sympathetic as he was an evangelical Christian and he served as Vice President of the Trinitarian Bible Society from 1884 until 1899, the year of his death. Baptists at Brockton also had difficulty in obtaining a site as a consequence of opposition by local Anglicans.

Even when Baptists were able to obtain suitable sites for the erection of chapels the cost involved was often a heavy drain on their resources. Sometimes wealthy Baptists built chapels at their own expense as at Broseley in 1742 and again in 1803 at Birch Meadow, at Sarn in 1827, at Ightfield in 1844, and at Craven Arms in 1872.

Debts caused the closure of the churches at Market Drayton and Welshpool in the 1840's and the chapels passed out of Baptist hands, although in both cases the properties were later recovered for use by the denomination.

Baptists because of their rejection of infant baptism faced much criticism from Anglicans, Independents and Wesleyan Methodists. In 1776 Rev. Samuel Medley of Liverpool visited the Baptist society meeting in High Street, Shrewsbury, and baptized some believers. Controversy began when Rev. Richard De Courcy, Vicar of the nearby St. Alkmund's church, wrote and published in 1776 a tract entitled 'Letter to a Baptist minister relating to his conduct in the Baptisation of Certain Adults at S --- y'. Mr. Phillips, a deacon of the Baptist church then published an Address he had given at the church under the pseudonym 'Parmenas'. This resulted in two rejoinders from the Vicar. Mr. Medley was then drawn into the controversy, as was Rev. Benjamin Francis, of Horsley, who wrote under the pseudonym 'John the Dipper from Enon, near Salim' a satirical poem entitled The Salopian Zealot, or the Good Vicar in a Bad Mood. Other publications followed, including one by Rev. Joseph Jenkins of Wrexham, who was one of the few Baptist ministers with a university education. R. F. Skinner, who has summarized the controversy concluded:

In 1693 James Owen of Oswestry, an Independent minister, published a tract in defence of infant baptism. As the Welsh Baptists had no one ready to cross swords with him, his tract, in translation, was sent to Benjamin Keach and his reply, translated into Welsh, appeared in 1696. A hundred years later in 1795 Peter Edwards, the Independent minister in Wem, wrote Candid Reasons for Renouncing the Principles of Antipædobaptism, in which he explained his reasons for changing his views on baptism. It was a formidable attack on the Baptist position, since Edwards had been a Baptist minister at Portsmouth for ten to eleven years before going to Wem. This came to the notice of James Dore, of London, who in 1795 published Abraham Booth's The Principles of Antipædobaptism. Edwards renewed his criticism in 1822 in The Baptists System, its own condemnation. Wherein is shown the delusive cast of the Baptist scheme and in 1829 Abraham's Booth's reply was republished. In a sermon a Wesleyan minister in Shrewsbury attacked Particular Baptist theology. This led William Hawkins of Castle Foregate, Shrewsbury, to deliver a deliver a series of Lectures replying to his criticisms and also those of Thomas Brocas.

Some Anglican incumbents refused to allow the burial of Baptists in parish churchyards. This caused particular hurt when children were refused burial on the grounds that they were 'unbaptized'. So many chapels were obliged to have their own burial grounds. It was not until 1880 that the Burial Act provided that any Nonconformist minister might bury people in any parochial Churchyard and so there was no need for chapels to have their own burial grounds.

Two brothers, Thomas and William Butler, established a small congregation calling itself the 'New Testament Church' in Shrewsbury by late 1837. They had very similar views to the Sandemanian Baptists. They subsequently joined with other similar congregations to form the Association of Churches of Christ, which held its first national general meeting in 1842. The Shrewsbury congregation suddenly disintegrated in the 1870s. It is likely that the death in 1871 of Thomas Butler, the founder and elder of the church for more than 30 years precipitated its demise. The formation of the Shrewsbury church appears to have had little effect on the Baptist churches in Shrewsbury, although in 1842 Catharine Richards withdrew from the Claremont church to 'join the disciples'. However, in Wrexham in 1837 a few members of the Baptist Church in Chester Street separated themselves to form a Church of Christ congregation in Bank Street. In 1854 Rev. J.B. Rotherham resigned his pastorate at Wem to join the Disciples of Christ.

The formation of several Particular Baptist Churches in Shropshire and the Welsh Borders in the early eighteen hundreds led to the formation of a Shropshire Association of Particular Baptist churches in 1808. The Broseley (Old Meeting House), Shifnal and Shrewsbury churches left the Midland Association to become founder members of the new Association. The churches at Oswestry, Wellington and Whitchurch joined the newly formed Shropshire Association. In 1809 these six churches together had 304 members. Other churches in Shropshire subsequently joined the Shropshire Association. Churches at Burslem, Chester, Welshpool and Wrexham also joined, while the church at Oldbury (then in Shropshire) joined the Midland Association in 1812.

As early as 1813 the Shropshire Association was concerned with overseas mission and at the Annual Assembly a resolution was passed:

Two years later The Shropshire Auxiliary Society in aid of Baptist Missions and Translations was formed. The 1815 Association Circular Letter listed the 21 stations of the 'Baptist Eastern Missionary Society (i.e. the BMS) as well as the translations of Scripture by the Serampore missionaries and translations printed for the Calcutta Bible Society. However, the Shropshire Auxiliary Society was short-lived and in 1826 the Association resolved at its Annual Meeting:

The Shropshire Association had a Calvinistic Declaration of Faith, which was printed in the Association's Circular Letters. The report of the 1816 Annual Meeting of the Association in The Baptist Magazine gave the name of the Association as 'Shropshire and Cheshire' but the name was never formally changed to 'Shropshire and Cheshire'. At the 1818 Annual Meeting at Wrexham Rev. John Hinmers was appointed Association Secretary and it was agreed that he should keep a book for the minutes of the 'association and quarterly meetings.'

Midland Association Circular letter 1801
Click to enlarge

At this time Welsh was understood and spoken by many in Shropshire. So at the Annual Assembly of the Midland Association held at Shrewsbury (Amwythig in Welsh) in May 1801 when John Palmer was the Moderator, Thomas Jones, minister of the church at Glynceiriog, Denbighshire, preached in Welsh. Likewise in 1810 at the Annual Assembly of the Shropshire Association in Oswestry Thomas Jones by then minister of Rhydwilym, Carmarthenshire, prayed in Welsh and Thomas Davies of New Bridge, Denbighshire, preached in Welsh. In 1815 the Quarterly Meeting was held at Oswestry and Samuel Edwards of Glynceiriog preached in Welsh. In Radnorshire there was a gradual decline in the use of Welsh, although Welsh services at Nantgwyn Chapel continued until about 1860. However, the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Association continued to publish its Circular Letters in both English and Welsh until the early years of the twentieth century and at its Association meetings to hold some services in Welsh until 1930. Some of the ministers who served the Shropshire churches were Welsh speakers such as Richard Richards, who served at Wem (1876-80) and was subsequently pastor of the Welsh church at Birmingham.

The theological divisions among Particular Baptists surfaced in Shropshire during the ministry of Rev. Abraham Webster at Broseley. The church members anxious to 'keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace' agreed to dissolve their 'Society (as the church was then called).' A new Society was then formed on 27 December 1801 with a set of articles of faith that did not differ in material points from those already held. Those who did not join the new Society withdrew to form the Strict and Particular Baptist Church at the top of Birch Meadow.

Those who founded the Baptist churches which belonged to the first Shropshire Association were Calvinistic in theology but it is not known how many of them followed Andrew Fuller in their thinking. Richard Pryce, who served at Wrexham, came from Newtown Baptist Church and studied under Dr. George Lewis at the Independent Academy at Wrexham. Lewis was a staunch Calvinist who taught that the universal invitation of the gospel was consistent with the doctrine of personal election and limited atonement. There were also tensions at the Shrewsbury Church during the ministry of John Palmer's successor, Manoah Kent (1823-1844), and this led to the formation of a second church in the town at Castle Foregate in 1828. Another church was also formed at Shrewsbury in 1834 but it closed in 1842. The church at Welshpool was dissolved because of internal dissent in 1833 as was the church at Pontesbury in 1841, and the churches were then reformed but in Pontesbury a second church was also formed in the village. It met in a private house. The original Shifnal church in Aston Street left the Shropshire Association in 1828 and a second Baptist church was formed in 1842. In 1840 the churches at Broseley, Birch Meadow, Market Drayton, Oldbury, Shrewsbury, Castle Foregate, Pontesbury, 2nd church, together with churches at Bilston and Wolverhampton, formed the Strict Baptist West Midland Baptist Association. This Association was short-lived and only the church at Broseley, Birch Meadow, survived into the twentieth century.

Although the Strict Baptists came to regard themselves as another denomination, in the early years of the nineteenth century the division among Particular Baptists was not as marked as it was to be later in the century. So in October 1808 Mr. Price, the pastor of the Birch Meadow Chapel, preached at the Quarterly Meeting of the Shropshire Association and in 1824 when Mr. Thomas Jones was ordained pastor of Birch Meadow Chapel the ministers of Broseley (Old Meeting House), of Oswestry and Donnington Wood took part in the service. The second Baptist church at Shrewsbury joined the Shropshire Association in 1830. In 1871 on the Sunday following the opening of the new chapel at Wem, 'two eloquent and impressive sermons were preached by the Rev. W. Stokes', who was a strict communionist. The Wem church adopted open communion one month later but it seems that they wished to express their agreement on the essentials of the Gospel by extending an invitation to him.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century all the Baptist churches in Shropshire practised close communion but gradually the churches adopted open communion. The church at Market Drayton, which was formed as result of the initiative of the Association, was formed as an open communion church in 1857. Shrewsbury, St. John's Hill, remained a Strict Baptist cause until about 1870, while Bridgnorth called John Boyd Warren, a Strict Baptist, in 1870. The 1862 Trust Deed of the church at Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, gave the church the right, if it so desired, to admit to the Lord's Supper 'any person or persons professing repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ'. Claremont Street, Shrewsbury, did not adopt open communion until 1903 and it restricted church membership to those baptized as believers until March 2005. By the beginning of the twentieth-first century only the Lord's Hill and Snailbeach church still observed closed communion.

The theological disagreements and the decline of some churches meant that by 1844 the Shropshire Association had ceased to exist. An attempt was made to reorganize the Association at the end of 1848 but without success and for several years no Association of Baptist churches existed in the County. In the absence of an Association it was support for the Baptist Missionary Society that provided the focus for the co-operation of Baptist churches in the County.

In September 1853 the church at Claremont Street, Shrewsbury wrote to other churches inviting them to meet there to consider reviving the Association. This resulted in thirteen churches forming the second Shropshire Baptist Association in October that year. One significant difference with the earlier Association of Particular Baptists was the absence of a Calvinistic Declaration of Faith, although the Secretary of the Association, Rev. David Crumpton of Oswestry, was a staunch Calvinist. Each church contributed to an Association Fund, one object of which was 'To encourage the preaching of the gospel in new stations, under the direction of any of the churches of the Association'. The Association established preaching stations in Madeley and Market Drayton and this led to the formation of Particular Baptist churches in these towns.

The Association ceased to meet after June 1865. So the three Baptist ministers in Shrewsbury issued an invitation to churches to attend a Conference in Shrewsbury on 16 May 1867 to discuss the possibility of reviving the Association. As a result the following month eighteen churches joined the new Shropshire Association. The Rules of the new Association set out its purpose as follows:

As the interests of the Association included Foreign Missions, a Secretary for the Baptist Missionary Society for the County was appointed.

Table 6 below lists the churches in membership with the Shropshire Association in 1839 and those that joined the reorganized Associations in 1853 and 1867. It will be seen that only eight churches belonged to all three Associations at these dates, namely the chapels at Broseley (Old Chapel), Oswestry, Pontesbury, Shrewsbury (Claremont Street), Snailbeach, Wellington, Wem and Wrexham. However, the Snailbeach church did not provide the Association with a Statistical Return in 1878 and seems to have taken no part in Association life. In 1869 the church, then known as the Lord's Hill church, called to the pastorate Rev. William Jenkins and the church joined the Old Welsh Association. It remained a member of this Association until 1887 when it rejoined the Shropshire Association.

The only Shropshire church to join the Baptist Union in 1832 was Whitchurch, which did not belong to the Association. The first church belonging to the Association to join the Baptist Union was the church at Llandrinio, Montgomeryshire, which had joined by 1839. By 1840 the church at Burslem, by then in the Lancashire and Cheshire Association, had joined the Baptist Union and by 1843 the church at Wrexham had also joined the Union and it was the first Baptist church in Denbighshire to do so. There seems to have been considerable resistance by most churches in Shropshire to joining the Baptist Union and they did not become members until 1870 when the Shropshire Association itself joined the Union.

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