A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Lancashire has played a decisive part both in the origin of the main 

 constituent of this church and in the accomplishment of the hnal union. But 

 in the want of a connexional history it is impossible to detail the progressive 

 growth of the body in the county. The chronological course of ctrcutt 

 growth and subdivision is the only guide to that history. 



Other Churches 



Many other religious organizations will be found at work in the county, 

 such as the Irvingites, the Swedenborgians, ' Churches of Christ,' Plymouth 

 Brethren, and others. Non-christian bodies are also represented, as 

 Mormons, Jews, and Mohammedans, but it is not possible to give their local 

 history in this place. They have had no perceptible influence on the fortunes 

 of religion in this county nor any distinctly organic connexion with the 

 history of the county as a whole. 



The Roman Catholics 



With the last of the Methodist bodies we bid adieu to the ultimate form 

 of free church life in Lancashire. There remains, in order to complete the 

 view of the religious history of the county, only the story of the two parent or 

 original stems, the Roman Catholic and the Episcopal Churches. As to the 

 former of these its history during the remainder of the seventeenth century, 

 and through the whole of the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth is the 

 history of a mission church lurking in secret with more or less of toleration 

 or persecution according to the fluctuating spirit of the time. The mission 

 side of Roman Catholic history has been already outlined, and until the 

 separate history of these missions is given to the world*'" it is impossible to 

 say more than that the majority of them survived all through the period of 

 repression. How closely kept and secret they were is proved by the fact 

 that when in i 669 a return of conventicles was furnished to Sheldon there is 

 a reference to ' Papists ' only at 



Brindle (a weekly meeting), Oldham (a conventicle of Papists to the number of 20 or 30), 

 Walton (a conventicle of Papists consisting of about the better part of 1 00 of divers 

 qualities), Halsall (a meeting). North Meols (several Papists), Ormskirk, Altcar (many public 

 meetings of Papists), Tunstal (several Papists), Claughton (about 20 Papists), and Kirkham 

 (a conventical of Papists at Westhall, whither visibly and ordinarily resort some hundreds : 

 another at Mowbrick : another at Plumpton : another at Salwick Hall, others at 

 Singleton). 



A comparison of this meagre and merely skeleton list with the list of the 

 Jesuit missions alone *'' will serve to show how comparatively ignorant the 

 government was of the ramifications of the Roman Catholic missions in this 

 county. 



In the absence, however, of reliable details as to the individual life of 

 these missions through the eighteenth century we are obliged to content 

 ourselves with the general account of the Roman Catholic organization of the 

 county as a whole until the hierarchy was re-established in 1850. The 



" Notes of some of them will be found in Foley, Rec. Engl. Prov. of S.J. (vol. v), also in the Liverpool 

 Cath. Annual. Kelly, /////. Diet, of Engl. Cath. Missions (1907)13 defective and unsatisfactory. The Rev. 

 Robert Smith of Nelson is about to publish a history of the Catholic missions in Salford Diocese. 



"' The list of 1 701 shows twenty-five of these ; Foley, Rec. S.J. v, 320. 



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