50 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to erect a new church, had far less to do with the want of church 
accommodation in the town (the population of which had been 
greatly reduced by pestilence) than with the want of Puritan 
preaching. Wilson could not be got rid of, the lecturer was of 
the same type ; what more ready mode of solving the difficulty 
than the erection of another place of worship ? At any rate the 
church was built, largely if not wholly out of the rates of the 
town ; and since the Civil "War not only delayed its progress, but 
prevented its consecration until the Restoration, and in the interval 
it was used for Presbyterian worship, there is a sense in which 
Charles Church may fairly be called our oldest Nonconformist 
meeting. 
During the siege in the wars of the Commonwealth (1642-46) 
there were several religious assemblies in the town, and not only 
Presbyterians, but Baptists, Independents, and Fifth Monarchy 
men, were represented. Plymouth, moreover, was then the refuge 
of many of the ministers of the adjoining parishes, who could not 
exercise their functions in the presence of the Royalist soldiery ; 
as it was likewise the prison of not a few Episcopal clergy, whose 
zeal for the Royal cause brought them into the arena of political 
conflict. 
There is little to record concerning the progress of Noncon- 
formity here during the Commonwealth, when Presbyterianism 
was the established faith. St. Andrew was occupied by the Rev. 
George Hughes, leader of the Devonshire Puritan clergy, a man of 
high character, unblemished reputation, sincere piety, and great 
ability. The liturgy had been abandoned before his time by 
Prancis Porter, preacher of Charles. There were two Noncon- 
forming congregations. The oldest, the Baptist, is now repre- 
sented by the Baptist Churches of George Street and Mutley, of 
Devonport, and of many other places in the neighbourhood. A care- 
ful, detailed, and interesting history of this Church has been written 
by my friend Mr. H. M. Nicholson. It sprung from the mixed 
congregation of Baptists and Independents already mentioned, and 
its records date back to 1648. In that year Abraham Cheare,* a 
native of Plymouth, and a fuller, was baptized, and shortly after- 
wards received an invitation to the pastorate, which he accepted in 
* Cheare I take to have been of an Exeter f amity. There was buried at 
St. Andrew, April 30th, 1588, "Mighele Cheere, of Exon;" and two years 
later a daughter of Joan Sheere was interred. 
