Stuart A Raymond - Tracing Your Nonconformist Ancestors: A Guide for Family and Local Historians

TRACING YOUR NONCONFORMIST ANCESTORS

FAMILY HISTORY FROM PEN & SWORD

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs

Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census

Tracing Your Ancestors Childhood

Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records

Tracing Your Ancestors Parish Records

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors 2nd Edition

Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Tracing Your British Indian Ancestors

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Tracing Your Edinburgh Ancestors

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Gallipoli Campaign

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: Ypres

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Tracing Your Leeds Ancestors

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Tracing Your Medical Ancestors

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Tracing Your Naval Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Tracing Your Prisoner of War Ancestors: The First World War

Tracing Your Railway Ancestors

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Tracing Your Textile Ancestors

Tracing Your Trade and Craftsmen Ancestors

Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

Wills of our Ancestors

A Guide for Family and Local Historians

Stuart A. Raymond

First published in Great Britain in 2017

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street,

Barnsley South Yorkshire, S70 2AS

Copyright Stuart A. Raymond, 2017

ISBN 978 1 47388 345 1

eISBN 978 1 47388 347 5

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47388 346 8

The right of Stuart A. Raymond to be identified as Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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The aim of this book is to introduce family and local historians to the archives of the historic Nonconformist denominations of England and Wales. It covers all of the major denominations and also includes mention of many minor denominations, such as the Christadelphians and the Muggletonians. It does not, however, deal with the numerous new denominations established in the late twentieth century, although some sources relevant to that period are mentioned.

Many website addresses (URLs) are mentioned in the following pages. However, URLs change frequently. In order to identify any websites whose URLs have changed, simply search the title of the website at www.google.com . Alternatively, you may be able to find a copy of the original webpage by searching the old URL at the Wayback Machine https://archive.org .

This book has been in preparation for almost a decade. My thanks to Roger Thorne, who greatly encouraged me when I first began writing, gave me access to his library and read an early draft. One of my former students also read an early draft and made many useful suggestions.

Jesus prayed for his followers that they may all be one. Sadly, His prayer has frequently been ignored. The church has been divided since the clash between Peter and Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Ever since that clash, both the doctrine and the practice of Christianity have been much disputed, and the fact that the Christian God is a God of love has frequently been lost sight of in bitter disputes that should have been judged in the light of that love.

In England, tradition assigns the foundation of the church to Aristobulus in the first century, although adequate evidence is lacking. Disputes wracked the Celtic church. In the late fourth century, Pelagius, who was born in Britain, denied the doctrine of original sin, caused major controversy and was denounced as a heretic. Several centuries later, when missionaries from Rome arrived in Canterbury, they found that the practices of Roman and Celtic traditions differed considerably and much bitterness was caused by a dispute over the date of Easter. By the end of the seventh century, however, the two traditions had fused and England enjoyed a remarkably long period without any serious division within the church.

That period ended at the end of the fourteenth century, with the rise of the Lollard heresy. The Lollards took their inspiration from John Wycliffe. He emphasized the individuals right to interpret the Bible for himself, challenged the privileged status of the clergy and denounced the wealth and pomp surrounding the church and its services. He was also the first person since King Alfred to attempt a translation of the Bible into English.

The Lollards, with the Continental Anabaptists of the early sixteenth century, were the spiritual forebears of those who sought separation from the established church on theological grounds. They were the original exponents of non-liturgical worship silence, prophesyings and open prayer as was subsequently practised by the Quakers. It may be that some later separatist churches were directly descended from Lollard groups. Such churches were persecuted and therefore did not keep records, but the fact that the first General Baptist church was located in Coventry, which had been a strong Lollard area, is suggestive. However, there is much academic dispute as to whether particular Lollard congregations survived until the Reformation. Local historians are well placed to search for evidence which may demonstrate continuity.