Bootle Miscellanea - 3

LADY HUNTINGDONS CONNEXION & BOOTLE CHAPEL   1780 - 1980

The story of a "dissenting chapel", built and endowed by Joseph Whitridge, a native of Bootle, Cumberland. It was one of 64 Chapels of a branch of the Methodist Movement known as "Lady Huntingdon's Connexion". In later years it joined the Congregational Union and is today a member of the United Reformed Church.
 
Background to the Chapel

Whilst all the military and political activity occupied the Government of the day, almost imnoticed the great non-conformist movement was growing rapidly. The years l700 - 1800 encompass the lives of the Wesley brothers and it is to them we must turn to trace the origins of Bootle chapel.

Prior to 1780 Cumberland and Westmorland had been extensively evangelized by Benjamin Ingham and he had set up some twenty or thirty chapels in the counties. When he withdrew from field work he handed these communities over to the Moravian Church to administer and cherish. This was a central European non-conformist sect which had settled in England, however administration was not its strong point. John Wesley who had at first welcomed then had broken his connection with them and also with Ingham who had known Wesley for years and mach admired him.
The non-conformist movement was by now attracting what we would call lower middle class, shopkeepers, superior tradesmen and other small independent business people.  It made little contact with either the exploited working class of the Industrial Revolution or the aristocracy who governed the country.
There were however exceptions. Ingham had married Lady Mary Hastings, one of four well connected sisters who supported the new faith and his wife's eldest sister, Lady Selina, was now the wealthy widow of the Earl of Huntingdon. The Wesleyan movement had its London headquarters in her house. Wesley himself lived there when not on tour, George Whitfield was her personal chaplain and amongst other interested parties who followed Wesley and was always welcome at Lady Huntingdon's dwelling was a prosperous silk merchant of London, but a native of Cumberland, Mr.Joseph Whitridge. He had been born in Bootle in 1735 and having moved to London at an early age had made good there, married a London girl in 1767 and in due course died in April 1809 without issue. 
About this time also Whitridge's family on the farm in Cumberland had been much impressed by several travelling preachers, listening in barns and other places to the evangelists. Amongst these were the Reverend George Burton or Burden, Mr. Romaine and Mr.De Courcy.
Thus by a happy chance the two branches of the Whitridge family, three hundred miles apart, were both introduced to the non-conformist message at the same time with fruitful results.  

The founding of the chapel and its progress

The appearance of non-conformist travelling Weslyan preachers in Cumberland followed the collapse of the "Inghamite" sect and these worthy men were able to revive the seed sown some twenty years earlier. Nevertheless they had their problems, largely, atrocious conditions of travel and uncertainty of a place to preach on arrival.

  The Whitridge family, together with a Mr. Parke, had occasionally managed to get a minister into the parish church to preach. Amasingly this was strongly resented by many of the ordinary folk. On one occasion the local blacksmith arranged to have the church locked on such an occasion. On this particular day hovever Mr.Romaine was too astute and gained entry despite the blacksmith's efforts. Such occasions must have been rare, the then Rector of Bootle, the Reverend Thomas Smith, being very anti non-conformity. In his 1789 visitation return to him Bishop in Chester he referred to "a chapel built by Lady Huningdon's fanatical society who took much pains to pervert the whole parish to their idle notions which cost the lurtil minister miach trouble". 

The "fanatical society" however persisted and after first registering a private house and then a barn as a place of worship a commodious meeting house together with a manse and schoolroom was built at the expense of Joseph Whitridge, the London silk manufacturer. It opened on 30 July 1780, the Reverend Daniel Gibbons from Ulverston preaching the first sermon, which was later published under the title "A true guide to happiness."

  The first minister settled over this congregation was Mr. Derbyshire who had studied at Lady Huntingdon's non-conformist training college at Trevecca in South Wales; The Reverend Daniel Gray, also from Trevecca, arrived in 1782 later taking aver the ministry until his death in 1808. He was succeeded by his son, but he, after about three years' ministry, took orders in the established church and left.
At this time the chapel remained the private property of Joseph Whitridge and on his death in April 1806 passed to his brother. ln 1822 however it passed into the bands of a board of trustees and this is still the case today. The trust deed of 1822 is still in existence and is held by the current chairman of the Board. Apart from the title to the meeting house the board also became the administrators of one thousand pounds invested in Government stock and the interest from this sum (after income tax) is still used to support the chapel - although today it is not sufficient to pay the stipend of a resident minister.

After the setting up of the board of trustees in 1822 there is little evidence of the detailed progress of the chapel except the record of the graves in its small burial ground. The last minister thus recorded is the Reverend King who died in 1949.

It would appear that the 64 chapels of Lady Huntingdon's  Connexion soon lost their link with each other following the deaths of both Lady Huntingdon and John Wesley in 1791. Most of them by 1840 had joined the Congregational Union and Bootle Chapel was no exception, eventually amalgamating into the United Reformed Church.

The Whitridge family who had done so much to support and encourage non-conformity in their native town finally left the district on the sale of the Millholme estate in 1854.

Of recent years however thanks to much patient research by one of their number some 37 descendants have been located, some in Australia, and are kept in touch with Cumbrian affairs. A few years ago they contributed generously to an appeal with regard to the repair of one of the Whitridge family memorial stones. A number have made a pilgrimage to Far End farm, Bootle, the family birth place.

The chapel today although with a reduced following still survives to play its part in a rural community.

NR: Information taken from a booklet printed by the members of Bootle Chapel circa 1980.The Joseph Whitridge, the London Silk Merchant, who paid for the Bootle chapel in 1780 was the seventh child of Stephen & Jennet (Huddleston) of Bootle bapt. 4 May 1735.

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More on BOOTLE Chapel

Both    Wesley and Whitfield preached a good deal in and around London, and both were well acquainted with Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. This lady appears to have been quite remarkable, both as a noblewoman and as a devout Christian. Among her best remembered acts are her gifts of substantial sums of money to build and support Non-Conformist chapels and meeting houses in many parts of the kingdom. A number of her chapels survive to this day as churches of the 'Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion'.

Into this scene came, inevitably, a native of Bootle in the remote and barbarous county of Cumberland. Sometime around the middle of the 18th Century Joseph Whitridge of Millholme, Bootle, had traveled to London and, by trading as a silk merchant, had accumulated a respectable fortune. At the time of his death he was worth, in today's terms, a million pounds or so. Joseph was certainly acquainted with Wesley, and must also have been acquainted with both Whitfield and Selina, Countess of Huntingdon.

In 1780 he followed the example of Selina and, with his own money, paid for the erection of a Chapel in his home village of Bootle. He also paid for a minister for the Chapel, and provided in his Will for an endowment of £1000 to be invested and to be used for the support of future ministers. The Chapel he left to his brother William Whitridge, no doubt with instructions about its future use.

Joseph died in 1809, whereupon it became clear that things were not as simple as he had intended. His brother William had died some time before Joseph himself, although it seemed fairly clear that Joseph had intended William to pass the Chapel on for the future use of the people of Bootle, neither of them had recorded their intentions properly in their Wills.

For the next thirteen years a string of High Court law suits rumbled on. By 1817 it had been decided that the Chapel had been inherited by one Stephen Whitridge, Manufacturer, of Bolton. However, even though ownership of the Chapel itself had been lost the £1000 for the Minister was preserved as intended.

In 1819 four inhabitants of Bootle decided to solve the problem and bought the Chapel back from Stephen Whitridge using their own money. They were (another) William Whitridge, Jane Whitridge, James Brockbank and John Grindall. Throughout all this the Chapel appears to have remained in use.

By 1820 the legal situation was almost sorted out when the second William Whitridge died. The family seem to have learned ..................................

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More on Captain Shaw's School

Isaac Shaw was the ninth and youngest child of farmer William, and his wife Hannah, and was born at Well House, Bootle, on 29 July 1780.

At the    age of twelve he enlisted in the navy and was to remain in active service for twenty years.

He served on various ships from Newfoundland to the North Sea, to the Cape of Good Hope. After Trafalgar his ship towed the Victory to Gibraltar. Finally, he commanded the frigate H.M.S. Volontaire off the South of France. He retired to Bootle and bought Underwood Cottage and built a fine Georgian mansion, Underwood House. He became a magistrate and was prominent in village life, in extending the Church and building the new school which still bears his name.

On the 28th May 1830, a trust deed was drawn up and nine trustees paid five shillings each and became the trustees of Bootle School. At this time the school consisted of two large rooms, one upstairs for the girls and one downstairs for the boys. However, by 1920 the bottom room was no longer used for teaching. A corner of the upstairs room was boarded off for infants and heated, by a stove, described by the Inspector as "positively dangerous." heating the school remained a real problem until 1970 when storage heaters were installed and Captain Shaw's ceased being described a 'cold spot.'
Before 1870 the provision of educational facilities had been left to private It was not until after this date and the Education Act that voluntary and Church. Schools were assisted by grants. It was required that the head teacher of gr schools kept a log book. This has been done at Captain Shaw's since 1874, and provides a good picture of school life and current events of the day. As a result of the Elementary Code of 1882, a new method of paying grants to schools was devised, based on the Inspector's classification of the work as fair to excellent. This became known as 'payment by results.' The Inspector Visited the schools once a year to assess the work for grant payment. The first Inspector's report dated 25th July, 1884, referred to poor work but good order in,1890 Captain Shaw's received a £12 per year grant to strengthen the staff. Earlier a pupil/teacher system had become a common practice, a child of thirteen was chosen and then 'served a five year apprenticeship. ' Many pupil / teachers 'served their time' at Captain Shaw's School.

The school was founded 'to give Religious instruction to the youth of both sexes, to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, ancient and modern literature and for the girls, plain sewing and such things as are suitable for female education.'

By 1887 the curriculum included poetry and object lessons for infants. The infants were to have slates for writing on and beads and bricks to play with plus smaller sized desks. By1889, drill and music were added to the curriculum. In 1903 Captain Shaw's passed into the control of Cumberland County Council.

    NR: Based upon an account published by Captains Shaw School

Nev.Ramsden 2013