PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
The
vicar held exercises in his house in 1636. (fn. 13) A
Presbyterian classis had been established by
1647, a Baptist meeting by 1653, and a Quaker
meeting by 1670. (fn. 14) In 1669 there were conventicles in 8 houses under 11 teachers attended by
260 people. Among the teachers, many of them
ejected from livings in other parts of Somerset,
were John Gardner, a Presbyterian, and Tobias
Wells (d. 1692), a Baptist. (fn. 15) Five meetings (three
Presbyterian, two Baptist) were licensed in
1672, (fn. 16) three in 1689, and five, of unspecified
denomination, 1710-19. (fn. 17)
Humphrey and Robert Blake and the town's
recorder, Sir Thomas Wroth, were members of
the classis in 1647, (fn. 18) and John Norman, vicar
1647-60, was associated with a Presbyterian
meeting from 1662. (fn. 19) In 1672 Presbyterians were
meeting in the houses of David Bailey, Roger
Hoar, and Robert Balch. (fn. 20) In 1683 Lord Stawell
with his militia confined 'fanatics' to their
homes and demolished a meeting house in the
town, a building 'made round like a cockpit' with
room for 400 people; the furniture, piled high in
the Cornhill and topped by the pulpit and
cushion, was burned. (fn. 21) The building is likely to
have belonged to Presbyterians. In 1687 Robert
Balch and Roger Hoar were acting as trustees of
a house in Dampiet Street, (fn. 22) probably the building described as a meeting house from which
stones were carried in 1688 for the reconstruction of the mill dam. (fn. 23) The meeting house was
evidently being rebuilt at the time, and in 1689
it was licensed for worship as Christ Church. (fn. 24)
An academy was established there by John
Moore the elder, and by 1718 there were c. 600
members. (fn. 25) A new Presbyterian meeting house
in Friarn Street, evidently the result of secession, was licensed in 1760. (fn. 26) Presbyterians were
said to be numerous in the town in the 1770s. (fn. 27)
The theology of the congregation became increasingly Unitarian. From 1809 meetings of the
Western Unitarian Society were held at Bridgwater, (fn. 28) and since 1815 the church and
congregation have been Unitarian. (fn. 29)
Christ Church is plain and largely of brick but
with older stone courses in the lower part of its
south wall. The shell hood over the entrance and
the main structure belong to the building of
1688, but the church has been several times
remodelled, notably in 1788. A gallery pew
formerly reserved for the mayor and other members of the corporation was converted for a
Sunday school in 1833. Most of the internal
fittings date from the 19th century. A plaque
beside the entrance records the visit of S. T.
Coleridge as preacher in 1797. (fn. 30)
Baptists, meeting since 1653, (fn. 31) registered two
meetings in 1672, (fn. 32) were said to have built a
chapel in 1687, and claimed c. 50 members. (fn. 33)
They built a chapel in St. Mary Street in 1692, (fn. 34)
and they claimed 200 members in 1718. (fn. 35) In the
1760s the minister purged the church of Arminians, and by 1780 there were only 29 members.
In 1781 the remaining members signed a Calvinist declaration and in 1791 church
membership had fallen still further. The chapel
was demolished and replaced in 1837. Some
members seceded to the Unitarians in 1853 but
numbers increased from the 1870s and cottage
meetings were held in Albert and Union streets.
In the 1880s the church opened a house for
sailors on West Quay and formed a temperance
association. Membership reached 336 in 1907,
and 739 children attended the Sunday school. (fn. 36)
Northgate mission had opened by 1914 in some
cottages, but both the mission and its Sunday
school closed in 1927. (fn. 37) A chapel in Moorland
Road, on the Sydenham estate, was acquired in
1965 and closed in 1972. (fn. 38) The membership of
the chapel in St. Mary Street was 173 in 1982. (fn. 39)
The chapel of 1837, designed by Edwin Down,
is of brick, with a stone front formed by a giant
pedimented entrance with plain Ionic columns,
and was originally hidden from the street by
cottages. Galleries were added in the 1870s, and
the chapel was enlarged and the Sunday school
rebuilt. (fn. 40)
In 1658 John Anderdon, a goldsmith, became
a Quaker, and meetings were held at his house
by 1670. (fn. 41) A meeting house was licensed in
1689. (fn. 42) William Penn held a meeting in the town
hall in 1694, (fn. 43) and a meeting house for 200 was
built in Friarn Street in 1722. (fn. 44) In 1737 the
assize hall was licensed for use by Quakers. In
1776 Quakers used a temporary booth in the
castle bailey; the licence was issued to eight
individuals, all from Glastonbury or Street, (fn. 45)
and about the same time there was said to be
only one family of Quakers in the parish. (fn. 46) In
1801 the Friarn Street meeting house was enlarged and improved. (fn. 47) It was still open in 1991,
occupying a brick building, no. 10 Friarn Street.
George Whitefield was welcomed to the town
by the vicar in 1739 but suffered popular abuse
there. John Wesley preached on several occasions between 1746 and 1769, and a house was
licensed for worship by Methodists in 1753. (fn. 48)
Bridgwater formed part of the Somerset circuit
in 1777 and the Taunton circuit until 1840, when
a new circuit was formed based on Bridgwater.
There was a chapel in Eastover, with a Sunday
school, by 1800. (fn. 49) A chapel was built in King
Street in 1816 which by 1860 had been twice
enlarged and seated 420. A Sunday school was
added in 1924 with seating for 300, and by 1961
the premises included a gymnasium. In 1960
average attendance was 73 at morning service
and 118 in the evening. (fn. 50) The chapel closed in
1980, and in 1988 was used as a furniture store.
It is a plain building of brick, the main entrance
through a portico added in 1860.
A Primitive Methodist chapel had been opened
in Angel Crescent by 1852, and another in West
Street by 1861. (fn. 51) One of them was still in use in
1875, but by 1880 that in West Street was being
used by the Salvation Army, and the Primitive
Methodists were meeting in St. John Street,
probably in the Mariners Christian chapel. The
cause had probably ceased by 1881. (fn. 52)
Wesleyan Reformers met in the market house
in 1851, later in Gloucester Place, and from 1855
in St. Mary Street, where their chapel was
enlarged in 1858. (fn. 53) The congregation became
part of the United Methodist Free Church in
1857. The chapel closed in 1907 when the
United Methodists joined the Bible Christians.
The combined congregation used the Bible
Christian chapel until 1911 when a new chapel
was built in Monmouth Street. After Methodist
union in 1932 Monmouth Street chapel became
the head of a small circuit, which was united
with the former Wesleyan circuit based on the
King Street chapel in 1951. In 1960 average
attendance at Monmouth Street was 74 at morning service and 114 in the evening. The chapel,
of brick with Bath stone dressings, and designed
by W. H. Dinsley, (fn. 54) was open in 1991. The
chapel in St. Mary Street was after 1907 converted to a cinema, and in 1982 was part of a
private club. (fn. 55) The United Methodist Free
Church also had a chapel in Polden Street,
recorded c. 1886. It closed probably before 1904,
and the site was occupied in 1982 by a workshop. (fn. 56)
Bible Christians began their mission in the
town in 1866 in an iron chapel in Bath Road.
Cottage meetings held from 1873 in Chedzoy
Lane increased the need for new premises and
a chapel was built in Polden Street in 1876.
Preaching was also undertaken at the docks in
the 1880s. (fn. 57) In 1907 the Bible Christians joined
the United Methodists. Until 1911 the combined congregation used the Polden Street
chapel, which was then sold for use as an
engineering workshop. (fn. 58)
A meeting house for Independents, in St.
Mary Street near the south gate, was licensed in
1787, and another, possibly for the same congregation, in 1792. A different Independent
congregation met in a disused malthouse in
Friarn Street, which was also licensed in 1792. (fn. 59)
Yet another group of Independents met in a
malthouse in Salmon Lane, on the east bank of
the Parrett, but in 1817 their leader took over
the Friarn Street meeting house and the two
congregations probably united. A Sunday school
was added in 1818 and the chapel, known as
Zion, was rebuilt in 1822. (fn. 60) It was closed in 1865
and was used as a skating rink before being taken
over by the Salvation Army in 1881. (fn. 61)
A new chapel was begun in Fore Street in 1862
and was opened in 1864. Fore Street Congregational chapel was built in a Decorated style in
grey limestone with Bath stone dressings, and
had seating for 900. Lecture rooms were added
in 1877. (fn. 62) The chapel was demolished after
closure in 1964, and the congregation moved in
1966 to a new building known as Westfield
Congregational chapel (later Westfield United
Reformed church) in West Street, next to St.
Matthew's Field. (fn. 63) It was open in 1991.
A nonconformist mission for seamen was said
to have started in 1817. In 1837 the Mariners
chapel was built in St. John Street by a former
Primitive Methodist minister, and in the following year was vested in the Mariners Christian
Society. (fn. 64) The society had apparently ceased by
1857, but the chapel continued in use. (fn. 65) In 1885
the Congregationalists tried to take over, but in
the next year the minister and members asked
help from the Wesleyans and invited preachers
from the United Methodists in St. Mary Street.
From 1889 the chapel was considered to be
Congregationalist, although some of the trustees
were Baptists. (fn. 66) A Sunday school was begun in
the 1880s, and a schoolroom was built in 1911.
The chapel continued in use until 1960 when it
was sold and converted to a motor cycle shop.
In 1961 work began on a new Mariners Christian
chapel in Moorland Road, registered in 1963.
Ownership and direction were transferred to the
Baptists in 1965. (fn. 67)
Services of the Catholic Apostolic church,
whose leader Henry Drummond visited the
town, were held in the Grand Jury room of the
town hall before 1840, when there was a chapel
in Dampiet Street. Meetings were also held on
West Quay. By 1889 the congregation had
removed to King Street, and the chapel appears
to have closed c. 1908. (fn. 68)
Plymouth Brethren came to the town in the
1840s and held their first meetings in Gloucester Place. By 1868 they had moved to Friarn
Street, and meetings of Open Brethren were still
held there in 1988. (fn. 69) The Brethern also had a
meeting place in George Street by 1883, a
Gospel Hall in West Street and rooms in Northgate by 1897, a meeting room in King's Place by
1906, and another in Court Street in the 1920s.
The Gospel Hall was still in use in 1939, but the
room in King's Place had recently been given
up. The meeting place in George Street was
licensed until 1954. (fn. 70)
The Salvation Army 'opened fire' in the town
in 1880 with violently opposed meetings at the
former Primitive Methodist chapel in West
Street. (fn. 71) In 1881 they took over Zion chapel in
Friarn Street as their citadel, and remained there
until 1970. (fn. 72) The building was demolished in
1971, and in 1972 the Army acquired the former
Baptist chapel in Moorland Road, which was
their citadel in 1991. (fn. 73)
A National Spiritualist church was established
in King's Place by 1937, possibly where the
Brethren had met. A Christian Spiritualist
church was meeting in the same year and by
1968 occupied a building in Queen Street, (fn. 74)
which it still occupied in 1991. The Spiritualist
National Union church was meeting in Green
Dragon Lane in 1954. (fn. 75)
The Bridgwater Central Mission operated
from St. Mary Street by 1937, but it had moved
to Green Dragon Lane by 1954, when it was run
by the Independent Pentecostal Fellowship. (fn. 76) By
1973 the Elim Pentecostal church had opened in
George Street, and the cause continued in
1991. (fn. 77) The Bridgwater Evangelical church was
founded in 1969, and in 1982 was meeting in the
youth hut at Sydenham school. (fn. 78) Kingdom Hall,
the meeting place of the Jehovah's Witnesses in
Old Taunton Road, was licensed in 1971. It was
replaced by a new building in the Drove in
1986. (fn. 79)
Between 1843 and 1851 six licences were issued
for meeting houses of unspecified denominations, in Ball's Lane (later King Street), Friarn
Street, King Square, Hamp, and a warehouse
near the quay. (fn. 80) The Princeites held a service in
Dunwear in 1872, (fn. 81) but evidently made no headway. A town missionary based in Friarn Street,
possibly in connexion with the Brethern, was
working in 1878 and 1882. (fn. 82) Other places of
worship included a Gospel Union mission on West
Quay in 1897, a Labour church at Docker's Hall
in 1918, and a meeting room in Westonzoyland
Road for 'Christians not otherwise designated'
in 1971. (fn. 83)