Search:

CHURCHES, CHAPELS AND PARISH COMMUNITIES IN LINCOLNSHIRE, 1660-1900 - R W Ambler

Review by Professor N J G Pounds, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, Volume 36 (2001)

In May 1660, Charles II returned to the country which he had left only nine years earlier and, in his wake, came the bishops and courtiers and the ‘suffering’ clergy who had been ejected from their livings during the interregnum. So, too, returned the apparatus of church courts and the determination to use them to suppress all practices contrary to the law of the church established. But it was not possible to go back to the days before the Long Parliament, when Archbishop Laud ruled the church with a vigour few other primates have displayed. The changes accomplished during the period the Commonwealth had been too significant. Nonconformist groups, if they had not altogether come of age, had grown significantly in both numbers and cohesion. Attempts to maintain the exclusivity of the Established Church failed and, with the Toleration Act of 1689, were for practical purposes abandoned. The following two centuries were marked by the gradual erosion of the remaining constraints – legal, social, economic – on Nonconformity.

This book is essentially a record of the growth and proliferation of Nonconformist societies and, as such, it is a full, detailed and well-supported narrative, illustrated by an abundance of well-drawn and informative maps. Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Independents and Methodists are in turn examined. Their numbers and the building of their places of worship are traced with an abundance of statistical detail and humorous incident and with great sympathy. Many interesting sidelights emerge. The earliest congregations in most denominations met in private houses. The Lady of the house was almost always present and this contributed to the greater role of women in Nonconformist churches than in those of the Established Church. The exuberant conduct of some worshippers, such as the Ranters, comes in for comment, as does ‘some little drowsiness’ which was apt to characterise Quaker meetings.

But the Nonconformist groups had emerged within the structural and spiritual framework of the Anglican church. The county of Lincolnshire was heavily Nonconformist, but, in the mid-nineteenth century, the con-conforming churches attracted only about half the church-going population. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the Anglican Church appears to have been given short shrift. One looks in vain for any significant discussion of the important difference between rectory and vicarage, of the role of lay rectors – after all, the control exercised by patrons over some parishes and not over others was due to this – and the contribution of tithe and glebe to the income of the Church. The hostility of Nonconformists was intensified by their obligations in these respects. There is little on the income of parochial clergy, despite the fact that the value of livings was widely advertised in such compilations as that of Ecton at the beginning of the eighteenth century. There is only a passing reference to the part played by Queen Anne’s Bounty, established in 1704, to the income of the poorer clergy.

The parochial structure was, even under the Commonwealth, out of harmony with the distribution of population. About 1650 plans were made for the restructuring of parishes, but foundered on the vested interest of patrons, lay rectors and tithe holders. Plans were made in some parts of England, but this reviewer does not know and was unable to learn from this book how much progress was made in this respect in Lincolnshire. The early years of the nineteenth century again saw plans – less ambitious and more easily achieved – for parochial reorganisation. This movement receives only scant reference by comparison with the exhaustive discussion of the building of Nonconformist chapels.

This volume brings to a conclusion the ambitious programme of publishing A History of Lincolnshire, which would make amends for the lack of a Victoria County History. The medieval and early modern history of the church and parish have been admirably covered in the volumes by, respectively, Dorothy M Owen and G A J Hodgett. This final volume, excellent as it is, fails to present as balanced a picture as its predecessors.