ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



gelical revival, and, strengthened by the Oxford movement, no longer allows 

 dissenters to appear, as they did often in the eighteenth century, as the only 

 conspicuous examples of religious zeal, while in the rural districts the extinc- 

 tion of the yeoman class and the rural exodus have in the last sixty years 

 weakened Nonconformity more than any other form of religion. Although 

 possessing a fair supply of earnest and adequate leaders for local purposes, the 

 Nonconformity of the county has not produced within the last loo years any 

 man of wide repute beyond its border. The only name that merits mention 

 in this chapter is that of the Rev. J. T. Brown, for fifty years the Baptist 

 minister of College Street, Northampton, whose union of administrative 

 powers with remarkable eloquence and literary feeling, recall to some extent 

 the type of the great eighteenth-century leaders. 



The Congregationalists have fifty-eight churches in Northamptonshire, 

 the oldest are: — Rothwell, 1655; Crick, Kettering (now the 'Toller 

 Church'), Kilsby, Northampton (Doddridge), Wellingborough, and Yard- 

 ley - Hastings, 1662; Weedon and Floore, forming one congregation, 

 1668; Creaton, 1670; Daventry, 1672; Ashley, 1673; Oundle and 

 Paulerspury, 1690 ; Welford, 1700. The Baptists have sixty-four churches 

 in the county, the earliest of their foundations being : — Ravensthorpe, 

 1649, according to tradition ; Queen Street, Peterborough, 1653 ; Weston- 

 by-Welland, earlier than 1681 ; Kettering (now the 'Fuller Church'), 1696 ; 

 College Street, Northampton, earlier than 1697 ; Braunston, 1710 ; and 

 Ringstead, 1714.^ The Methodist places of worship number 134, including 

 Wesleyans, ninety-two : Primitive Methodists, thirty-one ; Wesleyan Re- 

 formers, six ; Free Methodists, three ; and Independent Wesleyans, two. 



APPENDIX 



ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS 



The varying limits of the dioceses in which Northamptonshire has from time to time found a 

 place have already been discussed. Not long after the Conquest we hear of the institution of per- 

 manent archdeaconries in the diocese of Lincoln, during the episcopate of Remigius. Henry of 

 Huntingdon, who had special local knowledge, names in his De Contemptu Alundi^ one Nigel as the 

 first archdeacon of Northampton. His successor, he adds, was Robert, who in turn gave place to 

 William, 'the excellent nephew of our Bishop Alexander.' 



In the days before the great changes of the sixteenth century the archdeaconry of Northampton 

 was often held by ecclesiastics of note, more than once by Roman cardinals, and for a short time by 

 the celebrated William of Wykeham. Amongst several instances of this archdeaconry formino- 

 a stepping-stone to higher promotion may be remembered those of Robert Grossetete and 

 John Buckingham, who both served in the practical exercise of their archidiaconal duties an 

 apprenticeship to the higher responsibilities of the see of Lincoln. On the creation of the see of 

 Peterborough it included only one archdeaconry, that of Northampton, which comprised Rutland as 

 well as the shire which gave it a title. It was not until 1839 that the archdeaconry of Leicester 

 was severed from the diocese of Lincoln and added to Peterborough, while in 1875,' by a 

 further change, the archdeaconry of Oakham was formed out of the old archdeaconry of Northampton, 

 and comprises in our county the first and second deaneries of Peterborough, Oundle, Weldon, and 

 Higham Ferrers. 



' These dates of origin are derived from the various' Church Books,' confirmed by Coleman op. cit. /^//(ot, 

 as regards the Independents, and by the annual report of the County Association of Baptists-Independents 

 (Congregationalists). The Methodists' returns are from their Year Books. 



' (Rolls Ser.), 302. 



' Peterborough Dioc. Cal. (1906), 106. 



75 



