NONCONFORMITY.
Late in 1660 a Soham
man approached several craftsmen there, when
seeking to recruit men and horses for a plot to
seize Charles II as part of a projected Puritan
uprising. He was soon informed on. (fn. 37) Protestant
dissenters were active at Soham from the 1660s,
when some people refused to come to church.
In 1682 Quakers and others would not pay rates.
A Quaker had been arrested at Soham, perhaps
for preaching, in 1655, and there was a Quaker
meeting by 1666, not formally 'discontinued'
until 1756. (fn. 38) In 1676 the vicar reported 21 dissenters, (fn. 39) probably including the Presbyterians
for whose meetings Thomas Malden, of a family
still prominent among Soham's dissenters in the
early 19th century, registered his house in
1672. (fn. 40) A newly exiled Huguenot congregation
worshipped at Soham in 1687-8 before moving
to London by 1690. (fn. 41)
Dissent, sometimes of uncertain denomination, remained lively at Soham in the 18th and
early 19th centuries. Several houses were registered for worship, some by outsiders: in 1705 by
a man from Bury St. Edmunds (Suff.), in 1738
on Sand Street by a local yeoman, and in 1758
on Brook Street by a tanner. (fn. 42) Ministers from
Thetford (Norf.) registered in 1801 a barn and
a room off Bull Lane. (fn. 43) Bury St. Edmunds shoemakers registered a house in Middle Fen in 1807
and a barn on Brook Street in 1816, (fn. 44) and ministers from Bury were using a house at Crow Hall
in 1817 and a building off Brook Street in 1824. (fn. 45)
Another house on Qua Fen was registered in
1806, and further out in the fen houses at
Henney in 1816 by a yeoman living there, and
at Barway in 1822. (fn. 46)
About 1810 Soham's dissenters, estimated as
a fifth of the population, were mainly drawn
from its husbandmen, tradesmen, and labourers. (fn. 47) In the mid 19th century they were united
by their opposition to its Anglicans over control
of the parish's government, schooling, and
charities. (fn. 48) They accordingly sometimes cooperated religiously, even sharing pulpits, in harvest
festivals and school festivities, by 1900 also in
missions, (fn. 49) and probably in the Temperance
movement; a dissenting Temperance Society
founded in 1841-2 flourished until the 1890s. (fn. 50)
In the late 19th century the number of dissenters
sometimes almost equalled that of Anglicans. In
1873, when 350 children went to the four dissenting Sunday schools compared with c. 260 at
the Church one, the vicar believed that a third
of those worshipping regularly were dissenters.
In 1885 and 1897 his successor reckoned their
numbers as 1,800, compared to 1,900 churchgoers. (fn. 51)
Of the four dissenting chapels well established
at Soham in the 19th and 20th centuries, (fn. 52) that
with the longest tradition was the Independent,
later Congregational, one. It derived from a dissenting group already well established by c.
1690, when a minister who also served Fordham
and Burwell quitted them. Thereupon they
sought assistance from the 'mechanic' preacher
George Doughty, (fn. 53) under whom they combined
with the Burwell congregation that he founded
in 1692. Especially in the late 1690s it attracted
new members at Soham, where its Sunday services were held as often as at Burwell from
1696-7. Doughty eventually concentrated on
Soham, where after his Burwell followers broke
away in 1712 he still had c. 200 'hearers' in 1716.
About 1720 another Soham preacher, possibly
a Presbyterian, had 250 hearers, some at
Fordham. (fn. 54) After Doughty died c. 1738 his
already dwindling congregation, increasingly
recruited from baptized children rather than
adult converts, broke up according to its constituent places and its beliefs. The Soham portion was supposedly served 1740-60 by seven
transient pastors. (fn. 55) Formally re-established in
1762 by former Presbyterians and Independents, the Soham Independent church, which
under its 'pious and learned' minister maintained friendly relations with the Isleham one,
had only three full members at Soham when he
died in 1782. (fn. 56) Robert Root, his successor from
1783, whose followers were described in 1806 as
quiet and orderly, registered in 1803 the
Independent meeting house built to replace a
barn c. 1801, at which he served until 1827. (fn. 57) A
new chapel was opened in 1841, built north of
Cock Lane, later Station Road. (fn. 58) Of grey brick,
its sides have four bays, all with square-headed
windows, in two storeys; the three-bayed front
has a pediment over pilasters, with a wooden
doorway on Ionic columns. A smaller building
of 1881 to the north-west served a longestablished Sunday school. (fn. 59) A manse on Pratt
Street was apparently provided for the minister
from c. 1850. (fn. 60)
In 1851 the resident minister, who served
until c. 1860, claimed an average attendance at
the three Sunday services then held that rose
from c. 400 in the morning to almost 500 in the
evening, besides 50-60 Sunday-school children. (fn. 61) Under a minister who served c. 1874-95,
the chapel, where two Sunday services were held
in 1873, (fn. 62) could seat 450. Although it had a resident minister until the 1960s, its membership
gradually declined from 90-100 c. 1900-20 (fn. 63) to
50-60 in the 1920s and 1930s (fn. 64) and c. 35 after
1945. (fn. 65) When it joined the United Reformed
Church in the 1970s there were only 19 members and by 1985 only ten. (fn. 66) With only five left,
the chapel was closed in 1994. The building was
for sale for domestic use in 1997. (fn. 67)
Late in 1693 Soham was chosen for its central
position as one of two meeting places for a congregation, then Baptist, drawn mainly from surrounding villages; Soham itself produced only
five members in 1706. After 1750 that became
the Isleham Independent church, (fn. 68) which long
maintained a branch and admitted members at
Soham. It still held monthly services there in
the early 1740s. (fn. 69) A minority at Soham who still
supported its original practice of adult baptism
seceded from it in 1748, after 'watermen'
advocating such baptism were barred from
preaching. In 1752, with support from Cambridge Baptists, they formed a Baptist congregation under a High Calvinist minister who
served until 1771. In 1774 he was succeeded as
minister, following disputes on free will, by the
young Wicken-born Andrew Fuller, baptized in
1770, after a youth of wrestling and gaming, in
the river at Soham. Fuller, chosen for his rhetorical gifts, served at Soham until 1782. In 1783 he
registered the Baptists' newly built meeting
house on Clay Street. (fn. 70) Another minister, newly
arrived, registered a house in 1806. (fn. 71) His successor, a 'pious but cheerful' shopkeeper, died in
1836. (fn. 72) The chapel, rebuilt in 1837, (fn. 73) which still
in the 1990s stood north of Clay Street, is a plain
two-storeyed building of grey brick, slated, with
corner pilasters. In 1815 it was attended by 65 or
more people. (fn. 74) It was reckoned to seat 450 people
in 1875, when there were c. 160 members (fn. 75) and
two Sunday services were held. (fn. 76) From c. 1825
the Baptists ran a Sunday school, still kept up in
the 1970s. (fn. 77) From 1856 they provided a house
on the Fordham road for their ministers, previously in rented housing, (fn. 78) of whom there was a
continuous succession from the mid 19th century
into the early 20th. There were 170 members in
1885 and still often 90-100 in the early 20th century (fn. 79) and 60 c. 1960. (fn. 80) The chapel, which celebrated a '215th' anniversary in 1967, (fn. 81) still had
its own pastor in the 1990s. (fn. 82) About 1959 the
Baptists opened on the Downfield council estate
a mission hall, closed 1967 × 1976. (fn. 83)
Soon after 1800 a Society of Unitarians at
London sent to Soham a teacher, who built in
1809 a Unitarian chapel, a wide apparently
apsed building, which stood north-east of the
link between Pratt and Hall Streets. It was little
frequented in 1820. In 1851, when it had 200
sittings, 70 free, its resident minister, a native
of Soham, had an average morning attendance
of only 20, doubled, however, in the afternoons,
with c. 20 Sunday-school pupils. (fn. 84) After a year's
closure he re-opened it, maintaining links with
an East London society, in 1861, but, despite
good initial attendances, (fn. 85) the smallness of its
congregation led to its closure c. 1870. (fn. 86)
Methodism also reached Soham in the early
19th century. In 1815 the Wesleyans built a
chapel at the junction of Cock and Fountain
Lanes, in 1851 seating 200 and attended by up
to that number, with almost 70 Sunday-school
children. In 1841 the Primitive Methodists
erected south of Bury Croft another chapel,
holding 250, which in 1851 had average afternoon and evening attendances of 230. (fn. 87) By then
it had a resident minister; in 1871 another
lived at Bury Croft. (fn. 88) In 1843 the Primitive
Methodists also built, c. 3 miles north of the
village, on the west side of Great Fen Drove, a
subsidiary chapel with 80 sittings, attended in
1851 by up to 35-40 people. Rebuilt in 1872 in
brick with 164 sittings, it was served in 1897 by
a local preacher. (fn. 89) From the 1850s both branches
of Methodism drew such local preachers from
the village tradesmen: the Wesleyans employed
a blacksmith in 1861, the Primitives a pork
butcher in the fen in 1881. (fn. 90) In 1869 the
Primitive Methodists rebuilt their main chapel
in the village, in grey brick trimmed in red, in
four bays with round-headed windows and a
three-bayed north front. A gallery was installed
in 1883. A similar building for their Sunday
school was put up to the west in 1890. In the
1850s the chapel had belonged to the Primitive
Methodists' Ely circuit, but in 1886 they started
a new one centred on Soham. They continued
into the 20th century to hold occasional outdoor
'camp meetings', gaining 60 adherents at one in
1882. Their chapel, refurbished in the 1940s
when a vestry was added, (fn. 91) was chosen, because
with its 294 sittings it was the larger one, to
serve Soham's Methodists after the Methodist
re-union of 1932. The Wesleyan one was sold in
1942 for commercial use. (fn. 92) In the 1970s a minister still resided. From the 1980s Soham's
Methodists shared their minister with six other
chapels, including that in Soham fen, (fn. 93) still in
use, though by a small congregation, in the
1990s. (fn. 94) The Bury Croft chapel was also still
open in 1997.
Early in 1853 Soham was troubled by the
arrival of Mormon missionaries. They were
driven away within a few months both by violence, aroused by their preaching polygamy,
which damaged the fittings of their meeting
house off West Hall Lane, and by the efforts of
a travelling anti-Mormon lecturer. (fn. 95) The Salvation Army established a 'barracks' at Soham in
the 1890s. (fn. 96) Their 'citadel' south of Bushel Lane
supported a band in the 1920s and 1970s. (fn. 97)
Refurbished in 1995, it was still open in 1997. (fn. 98)
In 1592-3 a prosperous yeoman from the
Cropley family was fined as a recusant. (fn. 99) A
Catholic church opened in 1875, named for St.
Etheldreda, in a plain grey brick building with
a small cupola, apparently closed in the early
20th century. (fn. 1) In 1951 Catholic services were
held in a house. A Catholic chapel of St. Felix,
opened on Brewhouse Lane in 1956, where
masses were provided monthly from Ely, closed
after 1970. (fn. 2)