ROMAN CATHOLICISM
The large number of Lichfield cathedral clergy
deprived along with the bishop in 1559 or soon
afterwards included the dean, the precentor, and
the chancellor. (fn. 1) Although the treasurer took the
Oath of Supremacy, he resigned in 1560. In
1582 Bishop Overton complained of the lax
administration of the dean's peculiar jurisdiction in Lichfield, where there were evidently
many Roman Catholics. (fn. 2) A puritan survey of
1604 found 'many popish' there. One of the
Roman Catholic martyrs of the Elizabethan
period, St. Edmund Gennings, was born at
Lichfield in 1567 of a protestant family. Having
been converted, he was ordained abroad in 1590
and returned to Lichfield. He was captured in
London and executed in 1591.
Four papists were listed in St. Mary's parish
in 1705, all 'of a mean condition', and a 'very
poor' widow in the Close was also recorded as a
papist. In 1706 there were two papists in the
Close, a German and a Frenchman who were
servants of Lord Stanhope; a charwoman in
Stowe Street was a reputed papist. The bailiffs
and justices certified in the earlier 1740s that
there were no papists in the city 'save only two
or three women'. (fn. 3) In 1767 four women in St.
Mary's parish were returned as papists and two
in St. Chad's. There were 19 in St. Michael's
parish, which included the Roman Catholic
centre at Pipe Hall in Burntwood. All 19 were
farmers and servants except Miss Teresa Wakeman, described as a young lady of fortune and
therefore probably living in the city; she had a
resident priest, the Franciscan Thomas Hall,
also known as Laurence Loraine. Thirteen
Roman Catholics took the oath of allegiance at
Lichfield quarter sessions in 1778 under the
terms of the Catholic Relief Act of that year; six
appear to have been among those listed in St.
Michael's in 1767. (fn. 4) About a dozen people from
Lichfield attended the chapel at Pipe Hall in the
early 1790s.
The chapel was closed when Thomas Weld
sold the hall in 1800. He gave the vestments and
other items belonging to the chapel and £200 to
Thomas Clifford of Tixall. Clifford raised a
further £400 and bought a house on the corner
of Bore Street and Breadmarket Street occupied
by a Roman Catholic baker. It provided lodgings for a priest, and a chapel was formed by
throwing two rooms together. John Kirk, who
had been the priest at Pipe Hall from 1788 to
1792, was appointed to Lichfield by the vicar
apostolic of the Midland District in 1801 with a
stipend of £60 a year. (fn. 5)
Kirk considered the house inconvenient and
meanly situated. In particular the sanctuary of
the chapel was directly over the baker's oven,
and the heat was almost unbearable. In 1802 he
bought land in Upper St. John Street and built a
chapel and house there, completed in 1803.
Subscriptions were raised from the Catholic
nobility, gentry, and clergy. (fn. 6) The chapel was
originally dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, but
when it was enlarged in 1834 the dedication was
changed to Holy Cross. At the time of the
founding of the Lichfield mission there were 60
adult communicants. (fn. 7) By 1810 there 75 communicants. The numbers included Catholics of
the Tamworth area, for whom Kirk was responsible until the later 1820s, and also French
émigrés and prisoners of war. (fn. 8) By 1841 the
Lichfield congregation averaged c. 90, some of
them people travelling from Liverpool to
London; in summer numbers were increased by
'hundreds of Irish'. Most of the congregation
were very poor. On Census Sunday 1851 attendances at Holy Cross were 70 in the morning
and 20 in the afternoon; it was claimed that the
average morning attendance was 100 with 20
Sunday school children in addition, while the
evening attendance averaged 50. (fn. 9) There was by
then an Irish community in Sandford Street,
still in existence in 1888 when the poor attended
by the superintendent of the Lichfield nursing
association included 'the lowest Irish in Sandford Street'. (fn. 10) Kirk died in 1851, aged 91, and
was buried in the chapel. Joseph Parkes, his
assistant for 10 years, succeeded him.
The size of the congregation was greatly increased by the Irish who settled in the mining
area around Chasetown, in Burntwood, in the
later 19th century; Chasetown became a separate
mission in 1883. (fn. 11) The priest at Holy Cross was
appointed chaplain to Roman Catholics at Whittington barracks, opened in 1880; the Whittington salary and offertories brought in nearly £96
in 1892 out of the Lichfield mission's total
income of just under £216. In 1894 the Holy
Cross congregation numbered 210, with another
19 Catholics in the workhouse and 8 in the
Truant school; at Whittington barracks there
were a further 267.
In 1967 a church dedicated to SS. Peter and
Paul was opened on the corner of Dimbles Lane
and Dimbles Hill to serve the growing residential area in the north of the city. It has continued
to be served from Holy Cross. The Roman
Catholics attached to the two churches numbered 1,800 in the mid 1980s, with another 100
at Whittington barracks. A parish hall, built in
the garden of the Holy Cross presbytery, was
opened in 1955. (fn. 12) In 1987 Holly Cottage in
Chapel Lane near Holy Cross became the presbytery. The other house remained in use for
meetings and office purposes. (fn. 13)
The church of Holy Cross is a brick building
in a Gothic style with an entrance front and
turret of Tixall stone in a mixed Romanesque
and Gothic style. (fn. 14) Fearing possible hostility in
a cathedral city, Kirk originally built the chapel
and the house under the same roof to give the
overall impression simply of a dwelling house.
In 1834, however, the entrance front was added,
giving the building the appearance of a chapel; it
was designed by Joseph Potter of Lichfield
(probably Joseph the younger). (fn. 15) The sanctuary
was built at the same time. An organ and gallery
had been installed in 1823. A transept (liturgically north, in fact south-west) was added in
1895, and it was evidently then that the altarpiece, a painting of the Crucifixion by the Flemish artist Nicolaes de Bruyn (d. 1656), was
removed. It had probably come from the Pipe
Hall chapel. (fn. 16) In 1922 a new altar was consecrated in memory of Kirk and of Hugh McCarten, the priest in charge of the mission
1882–1911. (fn. 17)
The church of SS. Peter and Paul was designed in a modern style by Gwilliam & Armstrong of Sutton Coldfield (Warws.). It is built
of blue brick and has seating for the congregation on three sides of a centrally placed altar. (fn. 18)
PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY
Dissent from the established Church developed in Lichfield in the 1650s. In 1669 Bishop
Hacket complained that Dean Wood, 1664–71,
was 'a professed favourer of nonconformists'
and that 'puritanism has spread excessively in
our city, not only by his sufferance but by his
furtherance'. (fn. 19) Dean Addison, 1683–1703, in
contrast was a vigorous upholder of the established Church, and in 1684 he reported to
Archbishop Sancroft that he had 'so thoroughly
practised the nonconformist dissenters as to
bring them all to holy communion except three
or four Anabaptists and one Quaker'. (fn. 20) Presbyterians, however, retained a meeting house,
which was still open in 1743 when the corporation claimed that there was not 'any Quaker or
above two dissenters from the established
Church of England, under any denomination
whatsoever'. (fn. 21) Congregationalists were active at
the beginning of the 19th century, and their
meetings caused Anna Seward in 1809 to deplore the end of Lichfield's 'happy exemption
from the ravings of religious enthusiasm'. (fn. 22) Besides chapels for Wesleyan, New Connexion,
and Primitive Methodists and for Congregationalists, there were also in the 1820s and 1830s
several meeting places registered for unidentified congregations. (fn. 23) The challenge to the
Church of England was met notably by Henry
Lonsdale, vicar of St. Mary's 1830–51, who
according to his daughter found 14 'flourishing
dissenting chapels firmly established in Lichfield and fairly emptied the lot'. (fn. 24) The claim was
exaggerated, but the number of nonconformists
attending evening services on Census Sunday in
1851 was only 263, compared with 1,957 worshippers at the afternoon and evening Church of
England services in the city. (fn. 25)
BAPTISTS.
Francis Silvester and Robert Prittie of Lichfield were among the signatories of a
letter of advice sent to Oliver Cromwell by
Baptist churches in the Midlands in 1651. By
1654 there was a Baptist minister in the city,
Thomas Pollard, but apparently only three or
four Anabaptists were living there in the mid
1680s. (fn. 26) They probably attended meetings led
by Lawrence Spooner, a Baptist who held a
conventicle at his house in Curborough in
1683. (fn. 27) It was almost certainly Spooner who
gave hospitality to two Baptists visiting Lichfield in 1690. The city congregation then
included Particular Baptists. (fn. 28) An Anabaptist
named Thomas Fullelove or Fullelowe was living in St. Mary's parish in the mid 1720s; he
joined the saddlers' trade company in 1726. (fn. 29)
There was probably a Baptist congregation in
Lichfield in 1861 when a Baptist minister was
living in Gresley Row. (fn. 30)
CHRISTADELPHIANS.
In 1870 the recently
appointed headmistress of St. Chad's school was
forced to resign because of her Christadelphian
beliefs. Thomas Sykes, who had formed a small
Christadelphian community at Bourton on the
Water (Glos.), moved to Lichfield in 1874. By
1885 eight Christadelphians were meeting in
each other's houses, and in 1890 a meeting room
was opened above Sykes's shop in Tamworth
Street. In 1902 the vicar of St. Mary's, C. N.
Bolton, denounced the sect as heretical, and a
public meeting followed at which the members
defended their beliefs. Their numbers increased, and from 1903 meetings were held in
St. James's Hall in Bore Street. After the hall
was converted into a cinema in 1912, the society
of over 40 members built its own hall in Station
Road; it was opened in 1914 and extended in
1959. (fn. 31) The society still met there in the late
1980s.
CONGREGATIONALISTS, LATER UNITED REFORMED CHURCH.
In 1790
Congregationalists met in Tunstalls Yard at the
west end of Sandford Street, using a barn owned
by Bradbury Tunstall, a sailcloth manufacturer
and a sympathizer. Meetings ceased in 1796 but
were restarted in 1802, and by 1808 there were
sufficient numbers to constitute a church. (fn. 32) A
brick chapel was opened in Wade Street in 1812,
and a house for the minister, paid for mostly by
a Miss Newnham of Birmingham, was added
behind it in 1813. A gallery was added at the
north end of the chapel in 1815, and side galleries were erected in 1824 and 1837. (fn. 33) There was a
Sunday school by 1837. (fn. 34) On Census Sunday
1851 there were attendances of 115 in the morning and 120 in the evening, with 26 Sunday
school children in the morning. (fn. 35) A hall was built
in Frog Lane behind the chapel in 1932. (fn. 36) The
chapel remained in use in the late 1980s.
FRIENDS.
The Quaker George Fox visited
Lichfield after his release from Derby gaol in
1651. (fn. 37) As the result of a vision he walked
barefoot through the streets and the market
place crying 'Woe unto the bloody city of Lichfield'. No one hindered him, and he afterwards concluded that he had been sent by God
to 'raise up' the blood of the 999 Christian
martyrs who had, according to legend, been
slain in the Lichfield area under the emperor
Diocletian. (fn. 38) In 1655 two Quakers, Alexander
Parker and Thomas Taylor, held a meeting in a
house belonging to Humphrey Beeland. Many
of their hearers were 'rude and brutish people',
but others were 'very tender and much convinced'. A disputation between a Quaker and the
Muggletonian Thomas Tomkinson took place at
a Lichfield inn, apparently in the late 1670s. (fn. 39)
The Lichfield converts probably met at the
house of William Reading of Lynn in Shenstone. He became a Quaker in 1654 and held
meetings at his house by the early 1670s. The
meeting place was moved to Chesterfield, also in
Shenstone, in the early 1680s. The opposition of
the Church of England prevented the Quakers
from meeting in the city, and in 1684 Dean
Addison reported that there was only one
Quaker there. An unsuccessful attempt was
made in 1703–4 to secure a meeting place in the
city, evidently in a building occupied by a
Friend, Richard Palmer. His son William was
also a Friend, and when chosen constable of
Lichfield manor in 1716 he refused to take the
oath of office. William attended the Chesterfield
meeting until it failed through lack of support in
the 1720s.
In 1816 a house in Sandford Street was registered for worship by Quakers. (fn. 40) The meeting,
organized as part of the North Warwickshire
monthly meeting, was discontinued in 1829. (fn. 41)
METHODISTS.
Wesleyan.
Although John
Wesley passed through or near Lichfield in
1755, 1756, and 1777, he did not preach there. (fn. 42)
A house at Gallows wharf, where the London
road crossed the Wyrley and Essington Canal,
was registered for worship by protestant dissenters in 1811. It was almost certainly for Wesleyan Methodists: the registration was witnessed
by Joshua Kidger, presumably the J. Kedger
who in 1813 registered a Wesleyan chapel in
Lombard Street. (fn. 43) That chapel, on the south side
of the street, was actually built in 1814 or 1815 (fn. 44)
and was presumably used by the Methodist
John Kidger of Belton (Leics.) who ministered
in Lichfield between 1815 and 1818. (fn. 45) A Sunday
school had been established by 1823. (fn. 46) In 1826
the congregation was served by ministers from
neighbouring circuits, still the practice in the
earlier 1840s. (fn. 47) On Census Sunday 1851 there
were attendances of 22 in the morning and 41 in
the evening, with 51 Sunday school children in
the morning. It was claimed that during the
winter months the evening congregation numbered up to 130 people. (fn. 48) A new chapel, built to
the design of Thomas Guest of Birmingham,
was opened in Tamworth Street in 1892. (fn. 49) It
remained in use in the late 1980s. The former
chapel was used as the Sunday school until 1902
when a school was built behind the Tamworth
Street chapel. (fn. 50) From 1921 to 1979 it was used
by the Lichfield Afternoon Women's Institute,
which in 1980 sold it to the Jehovah's Witnesses. (fn. 51)
A Wesleyan chapel was established in Wade
Street in or shortly before 1815. It was still in
use in 1837. (fn. 52)
New Connexion.
In 1826 Bradbury Tunstall
registered as a chapel for worship by New
Connexion Methodists the Sandford Street barn
formerly used by the Congregationalists. (fn. 53) It
was replaced by a chapel built on the south side
of Queen Street in 1833. (fn. 54) On Census Sunday
1851 there were attendances of 32 in the morning and 45 in the evening, with 16 Sunday
school children in the morning. (fn. 55) The chapel
was sold in 1859, the congregation having disbanded. (fn. 56)
Primitive.
A Primitive Methodist missionary
preached at Greenhill on Whit Monday 1820,
and possibly as a consequence a blacksmith's
outhouse in St. Chad's parish was registered for
worship in November that year. It was presumably replaced by a schoolroom in St. Mary's
parish registered for worship in 1831. In 1836
the Darlaston and Birmingham circuits provided two missionaries for the Lichfield area,
and a chapel was opened in George Lane in
1848. (fn. 57) The attendance there on Census Sunday
1851 was 23 in the afternoon and 57 in the
evening; no morning service was held that day,
but it was stated that normally there was an
attendance of 60, with 51 Sunday school children. (fn. 58) The chapel was closed in 1934 and
reopened the following year as a Salvation Army
hall. (fn. 59) It was later bought by Frank Halfpenny, a
city councillor, and in 1958 given by him to the
Lichfield and Tamworth Constituency Labour
Party, which named it Frank Halfpenny Hall. It
was sold in 1984 to the Swinfen Broun Charitable Trust, which later let it to the Pre-School
Playgroup Association. (fn. 60)
PRESBYTERIANS.
Thomas Minors (d.
1677), a mercer who was M.P. for Lichfield
1654–60 and a prominent member of the corporation at that time, was also a leading Presbyterrian. Among his proteges were John Butler,
minister at St. Chad's in 1651 and minister at
St. Mary's by 1656, and Thomas Miles, Butler's
successor at St. Chad's. (fn. 61) Both Butler and Miles
were ejected in 1662, and Miles evidently
formed a Presbyterian congregation, holding
services in a Curborough farmhouse; some 40
people presented for non-attendance at St.
Chad's in 1665 were possibly members of that
meeting. Miles was licensed as a Presbyterian
teacher in 1672, but nothing further is known of
him. (fn. 62)
The Presbyterians remained powerful in the
city after the Restoration. Bishop Hacket complained that 'the Presbyterians of the city do
what they list, come not to the holy communion,
baptize in hugger-mugger, are presented for
their faults but no order taken with them', and
Dean Wood allotted prominent seats in the
cathedral to Thomas Minors and his brother-inlaw William Jesson. (fn. 63) Presbyterian influence extended in 1667 to the election as M.P. of
Richard Dyott, who Hacket believed was completely under their control. (fn. 64) In July 1669
Minors and Jesson were summoned before the
Privy Council for holding a conventicle in
Minors's house. They moved the meeting to a
farmhouse at Elmhurst, where a conventicle
later the same month lasted most of the day.
According to Hacket it was attended by some 80
people, of whom the ringleader was a Lichfield
carrier named James Rixam (or Rixom), a man
'no way fit for that trust, being a transcendent
schismatic'. Minors and Jesson subsequently
appeared before the Council but were discharged. (fn. 65)
Five houses in Lichfield were licensed for
Presbyterian worship in 1672; they included
Minors's house and that of John Barker, another
mercer who was later one of the trustees of the
English school in Bore Street established under
Minors's will. (fn. 66) By 1695 a Presbyterian minister, Robert Travers, was working in the area,
with a chapel at Longdon Green. He baptized at
Lichfield in 1700, and there was a meeting house
in the city by 1707. (fn. 67) It was burnt down during
riots in 1715 but had been rebuilt by 1718. (fn. 68) In
1720 Travers was living in the house of Elizabeth Jesson, possibly in Saddler Street. (fn. 69) In
1738 his own house in Lichfield was licensed for
worship. (fn. 70) He may still have been active in 1747,
but by April 1748 the congregation was served
by Samuel Stubbs. (fn. 71) The Lichfield chapel was
closed in 1753, (fn. 72) but the congregation continued
to meet at Longdon Green.
OTHER DENOMINATIONS.
There was a
meeting room for Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in Sandford Street in 1861. (fn. 73) Nothing
further is known about it. The present Mormon church in Purcell Avenue was registered
in 1972. (fn. 74) Between 1972 and 1977 the headquarters of the Mormons' English church was
in Lichfield. (fn. 75)
In 1887 the Salvation Army took a year's lease
of part of the Corn Exchange in which to hold
services. In 1935 the former Primitive Methodist chapel in George Lane was acquired for the
same purpose. (fn. 76)
A group of Open Brethren was established in
Lichfield shortly before or during the First
World War. The members met in a room in the
former militia barracks in Victoria Square, and
there was a Sunday school. The group ceased to
meet in the late 1930s. (fn. 77)
Jehovah's Witnesses have met in Lichfield at
least from 1956. Their Kingdom Hall in Lombard Street, registered in 1980, occupies the
former Wesleyan chapel. (fn. 78) A Pentecostalist
church was formed in 1961 and met in Frank
Halfpenny Hall in George Lane until 1969,
when the Emmanuel Pentecostal church in
Nether Stowe was opened. Its name was later
changed to the Emmanuel Christian Centre, and
the congregation still met there in the late
1980s. (fn. 79) A Spiritualist church was formed in
Lichfield in 1986; members at first met in the
Friary school and later in Cruck House in Stowe
Street. (fn. 80) A group of Brethren formed the
Lichfield Christian Centre in 1986; they met
first in rooms in Bore Street and later in Cruck
House. (fn. 81)