A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Calvinists.'^ Twice over in the House of Lords motions were made objecting 

 to the enforcement of these questions, but on each occasion they were rejected 

 after powerful speeches by the bishop. In other ways he was an admirable 

 bishop, taking a new and necessary line in enforcing residence and discou- 

 raging pluralities, while to him is owing also the revival of the ofBce of 

 rural dean. From his day till the present, the Church of England in 

 Northamptonshire has steadily increased in usefulness and influence, and this 

 notwithstanding the loss in rural villages of much of those material resources 

 which had so developed in the previous century ; while the actual area of the 

 diocese has been largely extended by the detachment of Leicestershire from 

 the see of Lincoln in 1839. The Oxford movement has left its deep 

 impression here as elsewhere, and though no names of special distinction 

 have any local tie, Sykes of Guilsborough and Crawley of Heyford, 

 may be recalled as among the most vigorous and well equipped of its 

 early supporters. 



The successors of Bishop Marsh have been men of varied but great 

 eminence. Bishop Davys' long episcopate, 1839-64, won him great and 

 profound respect; that of Bishop Jeune, 1864-8, was not too short to reveal 

 his brilliance and charm to the county; while in Bishop Magee, 1868-91, the 

 church found an orator and ecclesiastical statesman with gifts amounting to 

 genius; and in Bishop Creighton, 189 1-7, the most alert intellect and 

 versatile scholar of his day. Early in the nineteenth century a determined 

 effort was made to provide larger church accommodation for the county 

 town. St. Katharine's church was erected in 1839, St. Andrew's in 1842, 

 St. Edmund's in 1852, and St. James's in 1871. In 1875 Bishop Magee 

 founded the Northampton Church Extension Society, which in fifteen years 

 (at a cost of ^38,000) inaugurated four new churches in Northampton — 

 St. Laurence consecrated in 1878, St. Michael 1882, St. Mary (Far Cotton) 

 1885, and St. Paul's five years later. In 1885 the church of St. Crispin was 

 erected in St. Sepulchre's parish, largely by the efforts of working men ; 

 while St. Matthew's, the gift of a wealthy Northampton family (the Phipps) 

 was opened in 1893. 



Since 1890 the Church Extension Society has inaugurated three new 

 (temporary) churches — St. Gabriel's (1894), Holy Trinity and Christchurch 

 (1898). In June, 1904, the foundation stone of a permanent building for 

 Christchurch was laid by Lady Mary Glyn, and the first section of the work 

 was consecrated 31 May, 1906. 



At Peterborough five new churches have been built — St. Mark's (1856), 

 St. Mary's (1859), St. Paul's (1868), All Saints' (1886), and St. Barnabas' 

 (1902) ; while at Kettering three new churches have been erected, and at 

 Wellingborough two. 



At the present time the county contains besides Peterborough Cathedral 

 (the Right Rev. the Hon. E. C. Carr Glyn, Bishop ; the Very Rev. T. 

 Barlow, Dean), 321 parish churches. 



From the reign of Charles II to the nineteenth century, the Roman 

 Catholic Church has in Northamptonshire little history, and the numbers of 

 its adherents, as already seen in the religious census of 1676, were very few. 

 The parish of Aston Le Walls, the property of the Plowdens since 1617, is 



^Edinburgh Reviezv, 1822, which contains Sydney Smith's article on ' Persecuting Bishops ' 



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