PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
A group
of Quakers was established at Tetbury from the mid
1650s. The leading member was Nathaniel Cripps, a
justice of the peace, whose house at Upton became
the meeting-place and was visited several times by
George Fox. Cripps and some other members were
persecuted and imprisoned in 1660 but the meeting
was still held in the 1670s. (fn. 47) A piece of ground
owned by Cripps, adjoining the Bristol road south of
the town, was used as a burial ground, and in 1691 a
meeting-house was built on it. (fn. 48) The meeting
flourished in the early 18th century when the leading
members were tradesmen of the Lockey and Wilkins
families (fn. 49) and Hopeful Vokins (d. c. 1730), who
charged his Hillsome farm estate with £1 a year for
poor members of the meeting. (fn. 50) The circular yearly
meeting was held at the market-house in 1732. (fn. 51) In
1735 the Tetbury meeting had 22 members, (fn. 52) but it
later declined and was discontinued altogether
c. 1780. (fn. 53) The meeting-house was sold in 1811. (fn. 54)
Jonathan Smith, who was ejected from the living
of Hempsted in 1660, licensed his house at Tetbury
for use by Congregationalists in 1672. (fn. 55) Presbyterians under a minister, Thomas Jones, built a
chapel below the Chipping c. 1705, (fn. 56) and other
houses were registered in 1710 and 1724; (fn. 57) there
were 235 Presbyterians at Tetbury in 1735. (fn. 58) Houses
were registered in the name of Congregationalists in
1758 and of Independents from 1765 (fn. 59) but little is
known of the fortunes of the chapel until 1851 when,
styled Independent, it had a congregation of c. 130. (fn. 60)
It was then in a period of decline which lasted until a
change of minister in 1857. A new Congregational
chapel, near the south-west corner of the Chipping,
was opened in 1862 and had a congregation of over
200 in 1866. (fn. 61) In 1974 as the Tetbury United
Reformed church it had a congregation of about 50. (fn. 62)
The Baptists, who were meeting in the town by
1725, (fn. 63) numbered 38 in 1735 (fn. 64) and had a minister,
Nathaniel Overbury, in 1751. (fn. 65) In 1779 they built a
chapel in Church Street. (fn. 66) It had congregations of
over 200 in 1851, (fn. 67) but by 1974 there was no longer
a settled minister and the congregation rarely
numbered more than 12. (fn. 68) A group of strict Baptists
or Calvinists was established in the town by the
1860s and built a chapel at the Green in 1872. (fn. 69) The
sect survived until c. 1940, and later the chapel was
used by the Roman Catholics. (fn. 70)
In the early 19th century there were fairly frequent registrations of houses for dissenting worship,
including one in 1823 by a group of Tent or
Independent Methodists. (fn. 71) Wesleyan Methodists
built a chapel on the east side of Gumstool Hill in
1827 (fn. 72) but it attracted congregations of only c. 28 in
1851. (fn. 73) By 1897 the Wesleyans had moved to a
building at the south end of Bath Bridge, which they
used (fn. 74) until 1909 when they built the hall in Long
Street (fn. 75) which remained in use in 1974. The
Primitive Methodists built a chapel on Gumstool
Hill above the workhouse in 1870 (fn. 76) and occupied it
until the union with the Wesleyans in 1932. (fn. 77)
Latter Day Saints, numbering c. 43, met in
Harper Street in 1851, and there was then also a sect
describing itself as 'Catholic but not Roman' with a
meeting-room in the Bath road. (fn. 78) The Plymouth
Brethren were established in the town by 1856 and
built a meeting-room in Chipping Street in 1860; (fn. 79)
later they moved to the former Wesleyan chapel by
Bath Bridge. (fn. 80) The Mullerites recorded in Long
Street from 1897 were apparently the group later
called Open Brethren. (fn. 81)