THE SHROPSHIRE GROUP
OF BAPTIST CHURCHES

SHROPSHIRE BAPTIST HISTORY
INTRODUCTION

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Continued Page 5

In view of the responsibility given to Association Secretaries of recommending the names of ministers for inclusion on the Baptist Union's accredited List, it is not surprising that Associations felt that they had responsibility, together with the churches, of encouraging and giving guidance to prospective ministers. The Minutes of the Shropshire Association record, for example, how the Association sought to give guidance to Mr. Amos Alfred Blacklidge, who had become a member of Donnington Wood Baptist Church following his baptism by Rev. Josephus Judson in June 1905.

A. A. Blacklidge entered Pastors' College in 1909 and left in 1912. Although originally a member of Donnington Wood, he was a member of Oakengates Church by the time he entered College. He made a notable contribution to Baptist life in the East Midlands.

In addition to A. A. Blacklidge at least eight other men from Shropshire churches are known to have trained at Baptist Colleges, prior to entering the Baptist ministry:

Mr. Alfred Edward Walley, who served as Lay Pastor at Wem for thirty years, trained at Manchester with a view to training for service with the Baptist Missionary Society but was unable to proceed to the mission field for health reasons. Andrew Grice from Claremont, Shrewsbury, began a course at Bristol Baptist College as a ministerial student in 2004. In the twentieth-century many Baptist ministers were trained at the London Bible College (now London School of Theology), including Joseph Brian Edwards, a member of Claremont, Shrewsbury.

During the nineteenth-century distances between the Baptist colleges and the Shropshire churches meant that it was difficult for tutors or students to supply the churches, although in the summer vacation students might have a 'summer pastorate' at a church. However, Rev. Gethin Davies, Classical Tutor at Llangollen, was able to serve as the pastor of the Welsh church at Oswestry 1870-1874, while Benjamin Lewis from the College was apparently 'student pastor' there 1888-1889. Improved transport in the twentieth-century made it possible for students at Manchester Baptist College to supply some Shropshire churches on a regular basis.

It was not until 1956 that the first deaconesses were appointed to churches in Shropshire, namely Sister Constance Nash at Donnington Wood, and Sister Margaret Jarman with the Pontesbury Group. Sister Heather Hunt assumed responsibility for Crowmoor Mission in 1962, while Sister Margaret Popham was called to Ludlow in 1961, Sister Joan Magill to Ludlow in 1964, and Sister Winifred Russell to Madeley and Broseley in 1965. In 2000 a Shropshire church had for the first time a woman minister, when Wellington, Union Free Church, called Rev. Mary Stringer.

The Baptist Union also contributed to the raising of standards of lay ministry by introducing schemes for the national recognition of lay pastors and lay preachers. Ministers like Rev. Eric Hayden, who served at Shrewsbury from 1952 to 1956, arranged classes for lay preachers. Mr. George Roberts served as a lay preacher for over fifty years and became a recognised lay preacher in 1962 but by June 2001 Mr. Clifford Challinor was the only recognised lay preacher in active service in Shropshire. There are, however, other lay preachers who serve the churches but have not sought national recognition.

Baptist Churches in Wales were slower to adopt open communion than the churches in England. By the 1890's there were some churches in the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Baptist Association which were admitting to the Lord's Table those who had not been baptised as believers. In 1899 the Association Annual Meeting passed by a large majority a Rule restricting admission to communion to those who had been baptized on profession of faith. This Rule was not acceptable to the church at Sarn, which withdrew from the Welsh Association and joined the Shropshire Association. Its sister church at Cwm also joined the Shropshire Association while retaining its membership of the Welsh Association. In 1918 the Montgomery church transferred its membership from the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Baptist Association to the West Midland Baptist Association.

During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the membership of English churches began to decline. Over the period 1880-1900 the churches at Bridgnorth, Dawley, Oswestry and Wellington grew but by 1900 there was only one Baptist church at Shrewsbury as the church at St. John's Hill had amalgamated with the Claremont Street church in 1872 and the Wyle Cop church had closed in 1885. In 1899 during the ministry of Rev. David Morgan Davies an effort was made by the Baptist Union to inaugurate a 'Forward Movement', apparently with the object of forming a second Baptist church at Wyle Cop, but after many meetings and much correspondence the scheme was abandoned. The Baptist Union had supported the work of the ministry in the Madeley Group of Baptist churches but the membership at Madeley had declined from 24 in 1880 to 10 in 1900. The churches at Oakengates, Pontesbury, Wem, and Whitchurch had also declined in size.

In 1900 Rev. D. M. Davies caused controversy at the Shropshire Baptist Association by his Presidential address on the subject 'The position of Baptists in the forthcoming century'.

Mr. Davies' views were not acceptable to most of those present. He was thanked for his address but the Assembly took the unprecedented step of declining to include his address in the Annual Report, which said that it was 'an able address, but bristling with points not in harmony with the views of most of the brethren present.'

Davies, who was 'gifted in Welsh, Greek and Hebrew', was probably aware of the interest in theological circles in Wales in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In 1896 Y Greal contained both a review of the book by Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, called The Ministry of the Spirit, and an article about Dr. Gordon, of Boston, who was described as one of the truly great men of the century. The significance of Gordon's book was that he viewed the church as a body designed for the Holy Spirit. This was an aspect of the doctrine that Western theologians had shown little interest in, preferring to concentrate on the relationship of the Spirit to the other persons of the Trinity and the nature of his work in the life of the individual. Gordon held that 'it seems clear from the Scriptures that it is still the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they received Jesus Christ'. There seems little doubt that D. M. Davies also held that the Baptism of the Holy Ghost was a post-conversion experience.

In Wales at the beginning of the twentieth-century there was a widespread feeling that there was need for revival in the churches. At the quarterly meeting of the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Baptist Association in April that year Mr E. P. Morris, Llandrindod, presented a paper entitled 'Is there a dearth of conversions?' The title of the paper suggests that there was such a dearth.

Shortly before his death in January 1903 David Howell, the evangelical Dean of St. David's Cathedral, who was better known in Wales under his bardic name Llawdden, wrote and article entitled 'The great need of Wales', in which he declared:

Fachen Pool in 2004
Click image to enlarge

Similar views were expressed in June 1903 by Mr. C. E. Pryce in his Presidential Address to the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Baptist Association. The 1904-06 Revival began in the Calvinistic Methodist Church at New Quay, Carmarthenshire in February 1904. However, prior to this date there had been localized revivals in other places. For instance at Mochdre, Montgomeryshire, there was a revival following a mission conducted by Rev. David Davies, Maesyrhelem. Rev. George Phillips, Newtown and Rev. Ben Withers, New Wells. Over 50 people were baptized. Subsequently, in the Welsh revival nearly a hundred were added to the church at Maesyrhelem and over 50 to Pound Aloes. At Rhydfelin Rev. J.L. Bowen, of Mochdre, baptized 15 young people in Fachen Pool. However, the churches at Bettws-y-Crwyn and Coxall seem to have been the only Baptist church in Shropshire to be affected by the Revival.

By the end of the nineteenth century it was apparent to some that the Shropshire Baptist Association would need to merge with another Association. In 1899 there were informal discussions with the Secretary of the North Wales English Union about a possible amalgamation but the Association Committee was against this proposal and the matter was dropped. However in 1905 Rev. Josephus Judson and Rev. Edwin Hardin from Wellington Baptist Church proposed that the Shropshire Baptist Association should merge with the West Midland Baptist Association, which had been formed in 1892 by the merger of the General and Particular Baptist Associations in the West Midlands. Although the proposal was not accepted at the time, the merger did take place in 1916. The final Annual Meeting of the Shropshire Association was held at Wrexham in May 1916 and Rev. Isaac Brook delivered the last Shropshire President's Address choosing as his subject 'The Relation of the Church to the Life of the Nation'. The churches in the Wrexham area joined the North Wales English Union, which since 1913 had been part of the Lancashire and Cheshire Baptist Association. The remaining churches of the former Shropshire Association, including the church at Victoria Road, Knighton, formed a District of the West Midland Association and Mr. Brook became Chairman of the District.

As a consequence of Rev. Michael Taylor's address to the 1971 Baptist Union Assembly the churches at Grosvenor Road, Chester, and Bradley Road, Wrexham, withdrew from the Baptist Union and also the Lancashire and Cheshire Baptist Association, while the new Baptist church at Crowmoor, Shrewsbury delayed joining the Union for a number of years.

Claremont, Shrewsbury, was one of the churches that took no action about the Inter-Church Process, choosing rather to ignore it. Some churches, like that at Donnington Wood, chose to have their names published in The Spirit of '88 Directory that lists churches and organizations that had opted out of the Inter-Church Process.

The West Midland Baptist Association sought to encourage mission in the churches by the appointment of Rev. Andy Bruce as Association Missioner in 1989. The nineties were designated by most Christian communions as 'A Decade of Evangelism (or Evangelisation)'. Mr. Bruce encouraged individual churches to develop their own strategies for mission. At the Autumn Assembly held at Queens Road Baptist Church, Coventry, on Saturday 23 November 1991 churches met together with other churches in their District to discuss their strategies and to see where they might work together. Nine churches were represented but the churches of Bridgnorth, Chorley, Lord's Hill, Sarn and Crowmoor, Shrewsbury, were not. The small church at Ludlow reported that there was the exciting prospect of a partnership between the church and the South Shropshire District Council, which led to the erection of The Rockspring Centre in 1995.

Table 7 lists the churches that belonged to the Shropshire Association in 1900 and those that belonged to the Shropshire District / Cluster of the West Midland Baptist Association in 1917 and 2000.

In Shropshire in 1900 there were 16 Baptist churches together with 9 branch churches, plus the churches at Bettws-y-Crwyn and Coxall which were in membership with the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Association. During the twentieth-century new churches were formed at Crowmere Road, Shrewsbury and Newport, while the branch churches at Chorley and Donnington Wood became independent. The church at Wellington merged with Wellington Congregational Church to form Wellington, Union Free Church. The churches at Aston-on-Clun, Bettws-y-Crwyn, Market Drayton, Oakengates, Shifnal and Whitchurch closed, together with nine branch churches. The churches at Brockton and Wem left the denomination. Amongst the Welsh churches the church at Cwm closed, while that at Bradley Road, Wrexham, left the denomination. Chester Street, Wrexham, left the Shropshire Association and is now in membership with the (English) North Western Baptist Association.

On 1 January 2001 the West Midland Association merged with the Worcestershire Association to form the Heart of England Baptist Association. All but two of the Baptist churches of the Shropshire District (then known as the Shropshire Cluster) joined the new Regional Association. The name of the Shropshire Cluster was then changed to the 'Shropshire Group of Baptist Churches'. The church at Lord's Hill and Snailbeach, which had played little part in Association life in recent years, decided that it would not belong to any Association, while the church at Sarn re-joined the Radnorshire and Montgomeryshire Association.

One consequence of the formation of the new Regional Associations was that the office of Area Superintendent was abolished on 31 December 2001 and Regional Ministers now carry out their work. The former Area Superintendent, Rev. Brian Nicholls, was appointed Regional Minister for Mission Development and Team Leader, while the former Association Secretary, Rev. Barrie Smith, was appointed Regional Minister for Pastoral Care. During his time as Area Superintendent Mr. Nicholls developed the concept of Pastoral Ministers, who would help him in his work of caring for Ministers and other Church Leaders. They were appointed after consultation with the Ministers and other Pastoral Leaders of the churches in the area. Rev. Alan Edwards was appointed the Pastoral Minister for Shropshire.

Rev. Brian Nicholls returned to the pastorate in 2005 and the Association was reorganized with regional ministers being appointed to geographical areas rather than to specialist tasks with Rev. Keith Judson as Regional Minister Team Leader.

Rev. Michael Collis, < michaelj.collis@virgin.net >

Some useful Maps

Baptist Chapels and Meeting Houses near the Welsh Border.

Shropshire showing Baptist Places of Worship, county boundaries as in 1840.

Thomas Conder's Map of Shropshire in 1784.

History Continued - Page 1 2 3 4 <

churches@shropshirebaptist.org.uk

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