Little Wilbraham : Nonconformity

A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire). Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 2002.

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'Little Wilbraham : Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire), (London, 2002) pp. 330. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol10/p330 [accessed 19 April 2024]

NONCONFORMITY.

Four dissenters were reported in 1676, (fn. 1) probably an under-estimate, for in 1675 c. 16 people were presented for not coming to church. Most of them, including the Prime and Crabb families, attended conventicles. The Primes adhered to the Fulbourn Quakers from 1674, while the miller, Moses Crabb, then held a conventicle attended by c. 20 people, mostly outsiders and styled Anabaptists. Crabb's descendants were still dissenters in the 1720s, being linked to the Cambridge Independents. (fn. 2)

Few dissenters were reported in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (fn. 3) In 1851, however, 60 people attended a local out-station of the Fulbourn Independents. (fn. 4) In the 1870s 12 people went to its services in a cottage, perhaps the 'chapel house' on Green Street mentioned in 1881. In 1897, when there were 40 dissenters, but the cottage was no longer used: Congregationalists then, and possibly until after 1920, met at the non-denominational Six Mile Bottom school, lent by W. H. Hall. (fn. 5)

Footnotes

  • 1. Compton Census, ed. Whiteman, 164.
  • 2. C.U.L., E.D.R., B 2/66, ff. 13-14; Proc. C.A.S. lxi. 82-3, 92-3; Orig. Rec. of Early Nonconf. ed. G.L. Turner, ii. 872.
  • 3. e.g. C.U.L., E.D.R., C 1/4; C 1/6.
  • 4. P.R.O., HO 129/186 (2), f. 17; cf. Congregational Year Bk. (1855), 114; (1865), 107.
  • 5. C.U.L., E.D.R., C 3/24; C 3/31; C 3/39; P.R.O., RG 11/1661, f. 121; Cong. Year Bk. (1895), 252; Stokes, Wilbrahams, 153; cf. Kelly's Dir. Cambs. (1912-29).