A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



down Road chapel dates from 1 897. There is another 

 in Lark Lane. Mission halls are Templar Hall and 

 Hutchinson Hall. Mount Zion in Prince's Avenue 

 is for Welsh-speaking Methodists ; a previous chapel 

 was in Chester Street. The New Connexion have a 

 church in Park Place. The United Free Methodists 

 have two places of worship. 



The Baptists have three churches : the Tabernacle 

 in Park Road, built in 1S71 ; Prince's Gate chapel, 

 1881 ; and Windsor Street Welsh chapel. This last, 

 built in 1872, represents a congregation formed in 

 Gore Street in 1827. 



The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists have churches in 

 Prince's Road and David Street. They had a 

 chapel called Ebenezer in Bedford or Beaufort Street, 

 Toxteth, as early as 1805.' 



As a result of a ' tent mission ' begun in the year 

 1823, a Congregational church was formed in 1827. 

 now represented by the Berkley Street church.' The 

 same body opened Toxteth chapel in 1 8 3 1 ; this 

 building was replaced in 1S72 by that at the corner 

 of Aigburth Road. In 188 1-5 a school chapel was 

 built in Hartington Road.' In Park Road is a chapel 

 for Welsh-speaking Congregationalists.* 



There is a Church of Christ in Windsor Street. 

 The Presbyterians have four churches. The senior 

 is that in Belvedere Road, known as Trinity, erected 

 in 1857. The important church by the Sefton Park 

 gates, where Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) was 

 minister, was built in 1879. In the same year a 

 church was built in Prince's Road, replacing a tem- 

 porary one founded by the United Presbyterians in 

 1864.. St. Columba's, Smithdown Road, was opened 

 in 1897. 



The ' ancient chapel ' of Toxteth Park is supposed 

 to have been built about the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century by the tenants and farmers of the 

 park.' It was probably never consecrated, and it is 

 not known whether the Anglican services were ever 

 used in it. The commissioners of 1650 noticed it, 

 and recommended that it should have a parish assigned 



to it.' In I 7 1 8 Bishop Gastrell recorded that it was 

 uncertain whether the Park was extra-parochial or in 

 the parish of Lancaster ; that the chapel was held by 

 the Dissenters under a lease from Lord Molyneux, 

 whose agents returned it as a house belonging to his 

 lordship when as a ' papist ' his estates were regis- 

 tered.' A similar statement had been made in 

 167 1— 2, on the Declaration of Indulgence, the chapel 

 being then licensed for worship.' At that time it was 

 said that ' there was neither a Churchman nor a 

 Catholic' here.' About 17 16 a sum of j^3 00 was 

 bequeathed to the township by John Burgess and others, 

 of which the interest on ^£'260 was considered to 

 belong to the 'orthodox minister' and the rest to the 

 poor.'" 



Richard Mather, the first minister, is said to have 

 settled in Toxteth as a schoolmaster about 1612 ; 

 showing aptitude he was sent up to Brasenose College, 

 Oxford ; afterwards he was minister at Toxteth and 

 Prescot, until silenced in 1633 by the archbishop of 

 York for his nonconformity. In 1635 he emigrated 

 to New England." From his departure until 1646 

 nothing is known of the chapel's history ; in the 

 latter year Robert Port was minister ; " Thomas Hig- 

 gins in 1650 ;" and Thomas Crompton in 1657.'* 

 No doubt regular public services had to be discon- 

 tinued for a time after 1662. Michael Briscoe, 

 ejected from Walmsley, was minister at Toxteth at 

 his death in 1685," and was followed by Christopher 

 Richardson, ejected at Kirkheaton.'* About a hundred 

 years afterwards the minister and most of the congre- 

 gation, like the English Presbyterians in general, had 

 adopted Unitarian tenets," and the building continues 

 to be used as a Unitarian place of worship. Another 

 Unitarian church has been built in Ullet Road ;" and 

 there is a mission in Mill Street. 



The Society of Friends have a burial-ground in 

 Smithdown Road. 



The first Roman Catholic church erected in Tox- 

 teth was St. Patrick's, Park Place, begun in 182 1 and 

 opened in 1827." Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 



^ Sec Trans. Hist, Sac, v, 50, 



^ A schoolroom was first used as a 

 place of meeting. Three years later a 

 removal was made to Hanover Chapel, at 

 the comer of Mill Street and Warwick 

 Street. The work did not progress, and 

 in 1839 the chapel was closed for a time. 

 Neit year it was re-opeoed and continued 

 in use until 1856, when it was burnt 

 down. The congregation then built the 

 chapel in Berkley Street. It has had 

 varied fortunes. Nightingale, Lanes. A'on- 

 conf. vi, 173-6. 3 Ibid. 



^ The congregation was first gathered 

 in a room over a stable in Watkinson 

 Street, in 1827 ; then a yard in Green- 

 land Street was roofed over, and here in 

 1828 a church was constituted. These 

 sites were on the Liverpool side of the 

 border. Nine years later Bethel was 

 built in Bedford (now Beaufort) Street. 

 About 1870 a new chapel was built in a 

 more suitable position in Park Road. 

 Ibid, vi, 227-9. 



5 The Rev. Valentine Davis has 

 printed an Account of the Ancient Chapel 

 of Toxteth Pari ; there is also a full 

 account in Nightingale, op. cit, vi, 66- 

 110, and references in Halley, Lanes. 

 Puritanism.. 



The chapel was rebuilt in 177+ ; it has 

 a bell dated 1 751, and some fittings of 

 the older building ; Nightingale, op. cit. 

 95. 96- 



' Commontuealth Church Sur-v. (Rec. 

 Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), 81. The dis- 

 trict is called 'Toxteth P.irk cum Smith- 

 down.' The minister had its tithes 

 allowed him, and /'lo from the rector of 

 Walton. 



' Norirjj Cestr. (Chet. Soc), ii, 1 7 1-2. 

 About 1700 there was a congregation of 

 249 persons, of whom 24 possessed county 

 votes ; O. Hey wood. Diaries, iv, 316. 



8 Baines, Lanes, (ed. 1870), ii, 385. 



» Halley, op. cit. ii, 456, quoting from 

 Dr. Raffles' Collections. 



1" Char. Com. Rep. xx. 



" Diet. Nat. Biog. He conformed so far 

 to the legally established discipline as to 

 be ordained by the bishop of Chester ; but 

 this afterwards gave him great dissatis- 

 faction. 



" Nightingale, op. cit. vi, 81 ; Robert 

 Port was a member of the fifth classis. 



" Commonwealth Church Sur-v. loc. cit. 



" Crompton was not 'ejected ' in 1662 

 for nonconformity, for the Act of Uniform- 

 ity was inapplicable to the circumstances 

 of the tenure of the building ; Nightin- 

 gale, loc. cit. He is probably the ' Mr. 

 Crompton' who married one of Sir 

 Gilbert Ireland's sisters. He was at 

 Toxteth in 1672, but retired and died 

 at Manch. in 1 699; Halley, op. cit. ii, I 56. 



•= Nightingale, op. cit. vi, 83. He was 

 an Independen^ but worked with Cromp- 

 ton, a Presbyterian, having sole charge 



44 



when the latter retired. In 1665 and 1670 

 Michael Briscoe and Thomas Crompton 

 (and in the former year Nehemiah Am- 

 brose) had a conventicle at Toxteth ; 

 Visit. Records at Chest. 



'« Nightingale, op. cit. 83-9, with 

 portraits. 



^^ The people were still Calvinists in 

 1775, when the following description was 

 given ; ' A pleasing situation and an agree- 

 able neighbourhood, but a people rather 

 stiff in their sentiments. I freely own, 

 Sir, that some of the peculiar doctrines of 

 Calvinism are too hard for my digestion ; ' 

 ibid. 98. The change took place in the 

 ministry of Hugh Anderson, 1776-1832. 

 At his appointment a number of the con- 

 gregation left and founded the Congre- 

 gational Church in Newington, Liverpool ; 

 and by 1825 the Toxteth congregation 

 had been reduced to the officials ; ibid. 

 103, 104. 



1' This represents a removal from 

 Renshaw Street, Liverpool. 



" "Twenty years later, at a time when 

 the Irish famine had driven great numbers 

 of the poor peasants to overcrowded parts 

 of Liverpool, four priests were struck 

 down by typhus, only one (Bernard 

 O'Reilly, afterwards bishop) recovering. 

 In the churchyard there is 3. cross as a 

 monument to the three victims and seven 

 other priests who died in the same way 

 in that outbreak. 



