NONCONFORMITY.
Dissent was strong
from the late 17th century, and Burwell had four
chapels open, c. 1850-1930. (fn. 17) About 1873 there
were altogether 700-800 dissenters, two fifths of
the population. (fn. 18)
In 1676 the vicar reported 33 dissenters, (fn. 19) and
five husbandmen received indulgence as such in
1687. (fn. 20) There had been Baptists in the late
1650s. (fn. 21) A Scots Presbyterian, preaching at
Burwell c. 1690, left, discouraged by his hearers'
many 'odd opinions'. (fn. 22) Burwell's oldest surviving
congregation was one of Independents, for whose
worship a house on High Town may have been
licensed in 1672. (fn. 23) George Doughty, who had
long preached in the area, became the leader of
the Independent meeting organized, with 15
people covenanting, in 1692; he was formally
ordained as their pastor, 1693-4. At first Burwell
and Reach provided the largest individual contingents among its members, though it recruited
widely over North-East Cambridgeshire. When
its covenant was renewed in stricter terms in
1707, there were 36 full members, half women,
and c. 135 'hearers'. It regularly excommunicated
members, not only for absence from its weekly
assemblies for 'breaking of bread' and for such
failings as drunkenness, swearing, fighting, and
'vain singing', but also for attending the 'human'
services at the parish church. It insisted on marriages only within the congregation. From the
1690s members' children were regularly baptised
as infants, a practice formally accepted in 1707,
despite some disquiet. (fn. 24)
What later became the Isleham Independent
church also initially provided services at
Burwell. It had included seven members from
Doughty's congregation when formed there in
1693, and over half its 23 members came from
that village when it was reorganized in 1706; into
the late 1710s it admitted one to three members
a year from Burwell, where it held meetings for
'breaking of bread' monthly by 1709. Eventually
most of its Burwell members probably joined
the Burwell Independents who had formally
separated from Doughty's, by then Sohambased, church in 1712. (fn. 25) It was presumably for
that newly distinct group that three Burwell
houses were successively registered for worship
between 1711 and 1718, two by a tailor and a
tanner from Bury St. Edmunds (Suff.). (fn. 26) In the
1740s three barns were similarly registered, one
in 1746 on North Street. (fn. 27) There was a regular
series of Independent ministers from 1712: the
first c. 1716 claimed 320 hearers at Burwell and
Kirtling. His successor served 1745-96. (fn. 28) The
Burwell Independent meeting house, built c.
1747, in which a gallery was installed in 1798, (fn. 29)
stood in 1841 on ¼ a. east of High Town, facing
Meeting House Lane across the high street. (fn. 30)
After 1800 the vicars claimed that attendance
at that meeting house, whose congregation,
including few of standing, was of 'quiet life', was
diminishing. (fn. 31) It was soon revitalized, partly by
the support of the Balls, Burwell's leading merchants and manufacturers. (fn. 32) By the 1850s it had
a Sunday school. (fn. 33) When in 1862 a minister
would not resign, though three quarters of the
congregation demanded it, up to 80 people
seceded. The Balls allowed them to hold services
for a year at the British school, soon filled to
hear a young revivalist preacher brought from
their Reach chapel. Reunited after the minister
left c. 1865, the Congregationalists built on the
same site a new and larger chapel, opened in
1866. (fn. 34) The square, greybrick building, facing
downhill towards the street over a graveyard
enlarged in 1893, (fn. 35) has a five-bayed parapeted
front, with tall round-headed windows and a
central pediment. In 1895 it seated 420. (fn. 36) It continued to have resident ministers, holding three
Sunday services in 1873, (fn. 37) for whom a manse
across the street was acquired in 1881, (fn. 38) until
the 1960s. Some were locally prominent: one,
J. W. Upton, 1881-1923, chaired the parish
council, 1896-1921. After falling by a quarter
from the 121 of 1905 by 1915, membership was
stable at 60-70 from the 1920s to the 1960s. (fn. 39)
Linked to the United Reformed Church from
1972, the congregation, served from Newmarket
by 1975, moved its services in 1976 across the
street to the one-storeyed Sunday school building, of grey brick trimmed in red, opened in
1907. (fn. 40) In 1988, with membership reduced to
32, they merged with the Burwell Methodists to
form Burwell Trinity Church. The united congregation still worshipped, using their two traditions' liturgies alternately, (fn. 41) in the former
school in 1994, when a third of the 35 members
were former Congregationalists. (fn. 42) Their large
disused chapel was sold by 1990 for business
purposes. (fn. 43)
Methodism at Burwell, for which a minister
from Bury St. Edmunds possibly registered a
barn in 1816, (fn. 44) was certainly established in the
1830s. (fn. 45) In 1834-5 (fn. 46) Wesleyans from Fordham
and Thetford (Suff.) built east of the Causeway
a chapel, originally of three bays, gradually
enlarged in 1884 and 1913 to a square shape.
Attached from 1839 to their Mildenhall circuit,
it was served after 1938 from Newmarket. In
1851, when it could hold 140, the average
attendance was up to 55, besides c. 45 Sundayschool children. (fn. 47) A hall for a Sunday school
held in a gallery by 1877 was added in 1940. (fn. 48)
In 1836 the Primitive Methodists had established on North Street a chapel, rebuilt or
refronted in 1864, (fn. 49) usually part of their Soham
circuit, except when worked from Ely, 1857-85.
They were holding camp meetings nearby in
1863. (fn. 50) The two Methodist congregations united
in 1939 at the Wesleyan chapel, the other being
sold for industrial use in 1940. (fn. 51) E. W. Peachey
by will proved 1929, besides leaving £100 for
the Wesleyan chapel fabric, gave £50 to assist
five Wesleyans and five Primitives yearly. (fn. 52) The
Methodists had 48 members in 1976, but only
12 by 1988, when they joined the new Trinity
Church. Their chapel, abandoned c. 1986, was
sold in 1987 for housing. (fn. 53)
The Burwell Baptist congregation, still independent in the 1990s, was started by four men
baptized in the 1790s, who quitting the Soham
Baptists c. 1815 registered in 1818 a leased house
on North Street, burnt down in 1835. Its site
was later bought and a Particular Baptist chapel
built there in 1846 with a three-bayed, twotiered brick front, the sides of clunch. It had 250
sittings, 150 free, in 1851 when a separate congregation was formally organized; the minister,
who came from Fordham, then had on average
up to 130 adult worshippers, with 50 children. (fn. 54)
It held public baptisms in Burwell streams, also
sponsored c. 1862 by the revivalist from Reach,
until after 1900. (fn. 55) Membership of the chapel,
which had a continuous series of resident ministers, occupying a manse nearby on Toyse Lane,
into the late 20th century, gradually declined
from over 100 before 1900 to c. 45 about 1930. (fn. 56)
It revived from the 1940s, usually standing,
1955-75, at c. 65, and reached 93 in 1985,
besides over 100 children at a Sunday school
using a schoolroom built behind the chapel in
1882. (fn. 57) The chapel, renovated in 1968, (fn. 58) was still
open in 1994. (fn. 59)
The Mordens, a gentry family in the early
17th century, (fn. 60) were suspected as Catholic recusants in 1611. (fn. 61) In the 1970s quarterly masses
were said at the 19th-century St. Andrew's
Anglican church. (fn. 62)