Stanwell: Nonconformity

A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1962.

This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.

'Stanwell: Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3, Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington, (London, 1962) pp. 49. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/p49 [accessed 24 March 2024]

NONCONFORMITY.

The constable of Stanwell refused to execute a warrant for the apprehending of Papists in 1611. (fn. 1) Except that mass was said at the union workhouse in the 1880's, there are no other known references to Roman Catholicism in the parish. (fn. 2) In 1778 there were said to be very few dissenters; by 1810 there were three families of Quakers as well as a few Independents and Methodists. (fn. 3)

In 1810 a small Independent chapel was opened in Stanwell village. (fn. 4) The building still stood in Oaks Road in 1956, but it was used as a garage. It seems to have been still a chapel in 1865, but was probably closed soon afterwards. (fn. 5)

The congregation of Independents at Poyle was established in 1807 by East and Ibbotson who worked Poyle mill and set aside a room in it for services. (fn. 6) The present Congregational chapel nearby in Poyle Road was opened in 1823, with the help of the Ibbotson family. (fn. 7) It is of brick with small turrets on either side of the front gable. A resident minister was appointed in 1826. (fn. 8) There was no resident minister for some years after 1889 and in 1956 the church was in the care of a lay pastor. It then had 54 members, as well as 26 children in the Sunday school. (fn. 9)

The Stanwell Congregational Church, in Viola Avenue, was opened in 1940 as the Albion Mission, and was dedicated as a church in 1956. It was a corrugated iron building, which was damaged in the Second World War. In 1956 it was served from Ashford, though it had generally had a resident layreader in the past. In 1956 there were 195 children in the Sunday school. (fn. 10)

A house in Stanwellmoor was registered for religious worship in 1848. (fn. 11) In 1904 the Staines meeting of the Society of Friends erected an iron mission-room at Stanwellmoor. They had then been conducting a mission in Stanwellmoor for some time. (fn. 12) In 1912 the building was transferred to the Established Church, who still used it in 1956. (fn. 13)

Footnotes

  • 1. Mdx. Cty. Recs. ii. 216.
  • 2. See p. 30.
  • 3. Guildhall MS. 9558.
  • 4. Inscription on building.
  • 5. O.S. Map 1/2,500 Mdx. xix. 11 (1st edn.); Kelly's Dir. Mdx. (1866).
  • 6. Guildhall MS. 9580/3, 20 June 1807.
  • 7. W. H. Summers, Hist. Congreg. Chs. in Berks., S. Oxon. and S. Bucks. Assoc. 58.
  • 8. Ibid.
  • 9. Congreg. Year Bk. (1956), 206.
  • 10. Congreg. Year Bk. (1956), 195, and local inf. A permanent church was being built in 1959.
  • 11. Guildhall MS. 9580/9, p. 3.
  • 12. Friends' Ho., Tracts 540. 16.
  • 13. Deeds among Par. Rec.