PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
The
puritan opposition to the vicar of Isleworth before
the Civil War may well have been revived after he
was reinstated in 1660. (fn. 78) In 1664 the vicar listed 174
persons who had not received the sacrament for four
years, and nine who had not been to church at all
in that time. (fn. 79) But, as with those presented for recusancy, (fn. 80) the motives of the persons concerned are
unknown. The house of William Vincent at Hounslow was licensed for Presbyterian preaching in 1672,
and Philip Taverner, who had been ejected from
the living of Hillingdon in 1660, received a similar
licence for his house at Isleworth in the same year.
Two other ejected ministers are said to have lived in
Isleworth after the Restoration, though they are not
known to have ministered there. (fn. 81) The minister of a
Presbyterian meeting at Twickenham joined with
six others to register a house in Isleworth for worship in 1707. (fn. 82)
According to episcopal records there were no
dissenters in Heston in the mid-18th century, and
the few dissenters recorded in 1810 were probably
chiefly in Hounslow, where a Methodist meetinghouse had been opened some time before. Isleworth had 'some sectaries', apart from the papists,
by the late 18th century, but the only meetinghouse was that of the Friends. By 1810 there were
said to be Quakers, Baptists, and Methodists in the
parish but their numbers had rather diminished of
late. (fn. 83) From this time onwards it is possible to trace
the history of many of the more long-lived chapels,
but several registrations of congregations of Protestant dissenters between 1795 and 1882 have not
been traced to any congregation, nor have a few
chapels which are known to have existed after that
date. (fn. 84)
A Quaker living in Isleworth is mentioned in
1688 (fn. 85) and from 1706 there was a Friends' meeting at
Brentford. Since 1785 the meeting-house has been
in Isleworth, though it continued to be called the
Brentford meeting. The meeting-house built in 1785
still stood in Conduit Lane, north of the London
Road, in 1958. The burial-ground beside it was
given by Sarah Angell in 1824. Meetings were held
once a month until 1786 when they became fortnightly. (fn. 86) They were weekly by 1820. (fn. 87) In 1810
about 70 people generally attended the meetings,
according to the bishop's records. (fn. 88) In 1885 the
meeting had 33 members. The number seems to have
fluctuated around 40 until the Second World War,
and by 1958 it had risen to 97. (fn. 89)
There was a Methodist meeting-house in Hounslow by 1790. (fn. 90) This may have been the same as the
Wesleyan one registered in 1824, and as another
Wesleyan one which is known to have stood in Fair
Street and was registered in 1854. (fn. 91) A school-chapel
in Bell Road seems to have been opened in 1870, (fn. 92)
and the present church there was opened in 1879. (fn. 93)
The Fair Street chapel may have been given up at
one of these two dates.
There was said to be a congregation of about 30
Wesleyans at Isleworth in 1810, (fn. 94) but their first
proper chapel seems to have been opened in North
Street in 1829. (fn. 95) The first resident Wesleyan minister
was appointed in 1909. (fn. 96) His subsequent secession to open the South Street mission (fn. 97) weakened
the church for a time, but the congregation succeeded
in building a new chapel in 1924. (fn. 98) The old one was
sold, and in 1958 was occupied by the British
Legion. The new church is in Twickenham Road,
just south of North Street. It was probably the
Wesleyan Methodists of Isleworth who registered
a house at Smallberry Green for worship in 1840, (fn. 99)
though nothing more is known of this, or of the Wesleyan congregation at Heston which seems to have
been started in 1845 by a member of the theological college at Richmond. (fn. 1) The present Methodist
church at Heston was opened in 1935, after the
congregation had met for some years in the village
hall. It stands in Heston Road opposite the senior
school, and had over a hundred members in 1958. (fn. 2)
The latest Methodist church in the borough is that
which was opened in the Bath Road at Hounslow
West in 1956. Before this, services had been held in
the Hounslow Heath schools in Martindale Road
since about 1930. (fn. 3)
There was a Primitive Methodist chapel in
Hounslow in 1833. (fn. 4) Where it stood is unknown, but
it seems to have been rebuilt about 1874 in the
Staines Road. (fn. 5) It was presumably closed after the
reunion of Methodist churches in 1932, and in
1944, or soon after, the building was reopened as
a synagogue. (fn. 6) A primitive Methodist chapel at
Lampton was registered in 1852, but nothing more
is known of it unless it was the mission room which
was in existence in 1894 but had disappeared by
1912. (fn. 7)
The school at Holme Court, in Twickenham Road,
Isleworth, at which Vincent Van Gogh taught in
1876, belonged to a Methodist minister, but was
not connected with a congregation in the immediate
neighbourhood. (fn. 8)
The first Independent congregation in the borough
seems to have been formed at Isleworth, where a
house was registered in 1798. (fn. 9) A place of worship
for Independents is mentioned in 1831, and in 1849
the present Congregational chapel at the corner of
Twickenham Road and Worton Road was opened. (fn. 10)
A British school was attached to it from 1840 to the
eighties. (fn. 11) In 1957 the church had 51 members. (fn. 12)
There was a congregation of Independents in Hounslow by 1818, and a chapel was built in the Hanworth
Road in 1827. (fn. 13) It was replaced in 1835 by the
present Congregational church on the same site. (fn. 14)
This is said to have been enlarged in 1865 when the
congregation of the Providence Independent Chapel
was united to the one worshipping here. (fn. 15) Nothing is
known of the Providence chapel except that it was in
existence by 1845. (fn. 16) The Church House in Douglas
Road, which is used for meetings and other activities
of the Hanworth Road church, was built in 1910. (fn. 17)
The church had 189 members in 1957. (fn. 18)
Independent congregations in Heston were registered in 1814 and 1819, and the second of these
seems to have had its own minister. (fn. 19) One at Sutton
was registered in 1832 by Herbert Mayo, who also
registered a congregation of unspecified dissenters
there in 1828, and another at Whitton in 1829. (fn. 20)
Another Independent meeting at Lampton was
registered in 1844. (fn. 21) The Hounslow Congregational
Church established a congregation in Heston which
was formed into a church in 1920. The present
church at the north end of Vicarage Farm Road was
opened in 1932. Before this services had been held
in a hut beside it. (fn. 22) There were 115 members in
1957. (fn. 23)
In 1818 there was a meeting-house on the south
side of Hounslow High Street approximately
opposite the site of the Dominion Cinema. (fn. 24) The
Providence Baptist chapel is known to have been
here by 1865 and is said to have been converted
from two cottages. (fn. 25) A church was not officially
formed until 1868, and a new chapel on the same
site was opened in 1871. At about this time the
congregation was deeply divided on the issue of
giving full membership to the unbaptized, but the
movement to do so was eventually defeated, as was
a similar one in the 1920's. A full-time minister
was appointed in 1878, but in the next few years,
as disputes over baptism continued, membership
dropped to less than a dozen. Towards the end of
the century the church revived. A new chapel on
the north of the High Street, which is now called the
Broadway Baptist Church, was opened in 1929. It
was damaged by bombing in 1941, and in 1943
narrowly escaped the same fate as Holy Trinity and
All Saints' churches. (fn. 26) There were 93 members in
1957. (fn. 27) Although the church has kept closed membership, its communions are open and it is a member
of the Baptist Union. The Zoar Baptist Church, on
the other hand, is a Strict Baptist church which has
remained outside the union. The two do not seem to
have ever been connected, though their first places
of meeting were close together. Zoar originated when
James Jeffs started holding Baptist meetings in his
house on Sunday afternoons. They were addressed
by the minister of a Baptist chapel at Old Brentford
of which Jeffs was a member. Jeffs's house was in
Hounslow High Street opposite the King's Arms, a
little west of the Providence chapel. It was licensed for
the meetings in 1837. A church was formed in 1849
and used various buildings in the town until 1853,
when the present Sunday school of the Zoar church
in the Staines Road was opened as a chapel. Soon after
this the church ran into difficulties and was closed
for a few years, opening again in 1863 with twelve
members. It was without a settled minister for some
years at the end of the century. (fn. 28) The present church
was built in front of the old one in 1912. (fn. 29) It had
67 members in 1957. (fn. 30)
The Emmanuel Baptist church is also outside the
Baptist Union, and belongs to the Federation of
Independent Evangelical Churches. It has an open
table, like the Broadway church, from which, however, the members of Emmanuel originally seceded. (fn. 31)
The church was apparently formed in 1910, (fn. 32) and a
building was erected in 1912 on the south side of the
Staines Road a little west of the Zoar church. Here
too the original church is now a Sunday school, a
new one having been built in 1933. (fn. 33) There were
75 members in 1957. (fn. 34)
The Cranford Baptist church has always been
just inside Heston parish, but is discussed with the
history of Cranford. (fn. 35)
Christian Brethren registered a mission room in
the Staines Road in 1868. (fn. 36) Plymouth Brethren were
meeting in Hanworth Road in 1890 but seem to have
moved to Fair Street by 1926. (fn. 37) Another mission
hall was registered by Brethren in Wellington Road
North in 1917. This was an open meeting in 1958,
while there was a meeting of exclusive Brethren at
no. 31 Bath Road. (fn. 38)
The corrugated-iron building of the Hounslow
West Evangelical Church was erected in Vicarage
Farm Road in the early years of the century. (fn. 39) A new
brick church was being built beside it in 1958. The
Hounslow Evangelical Church in Treaty Road was
built in 1910. (fn. 40) It holds fundamentalist doctrines. (fn. 41)
In 1911 an undenominational mission hall was built
in South Street, Isleworth, by a group of persons,
many of whom were members of the Church of
England, and whose leader had formerly been the
minister of the Wesleyan church in North Street. In
1915 the members, then numbering 46, decided to
hand the mission over to the Established Church and
the missioner decided to seek ordination. The hall
was accordingly transferred in 1922 and a new one
was built; it was used as a parish hall by All Saints'
Church in 1958. (fn. 42) The Maswell Park Hall on the
corner of Inwood Road and Heath Road is another
undenominational church. It was registered in 1928. (fn. 43)
The Syon Mission Church, Beech Avenue, was
founded by the Shaftesbury Society and built in
1934. (fn. 44)
The Salvation Army Hall in Inwood Road was
opened in 1882. (fn. 45) It then had the words 'Blood and
Fire' inscribed on it. (fn. 46)
Jehovah's Witnesses registered the Kingdom Hall
in Byfield Road in 1942. (fn. 47) The Assemblies of God
registered a chapel called Bethel at 78A Staines Road,
in 1945: (fn. 48) this could not be traced in 1958, but the
Pentecostal Hall in Hanworth Road then belonged to
this denomination. (fn. 49) A Christian Scientist church in
the Staines Road registered in 1946 had been closed
by 1952, (fn. 50) but another was opened in The Grove at
about the same time. (fn. 51) Christadelphians met in the
High Street in 1933 and had been meeting for some
years at 35 Bath Road, by 1958. (fn. 52)
In 1925 the Providence Baptist chapel suggested
that a free church council should be formed. One
for Hounslow and district had been in existence for
many years by 1946. (fn. 53)