To Love and Serve the Lord. The Story of St Thomas' Lancaster, 1841-2010

By Chris Park

This book charts the history of St Thomas' Church in Lancaster, England, since its establishment in 1841. It is about the church in its widest sense; it explores both "who we are" (the people) as church and "where we go" (the building), and looks at both "what we do" (the services) and "where we belong" (the congregations). It describes the lengthy and fruitful heritage of this particular Anglican church, as well as the inevitable trials and tribulations it has coped with. It is a story of dedication, hard work, and sacrifice by many people over many generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Park
• Release date: Apr 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311918864

Chris Park

I am a retired academic with more than 30 years experience in university teaching, research and senior management in the UK. These days I enjoy spending time reading, writing, walking and travelling, but not all at the same time!

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To Love and Serve the Lord

The Story of St Thomas’ Lancaster, 1841-2010

Copyright 2015 Chris Park

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Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Pre-history: the roots of St Thomas

2. Origins: why St Thomas' was built

3. Beginnings: the building of St Thomas'

4. Joseph Armytage (1841-1845)

5. Colin Campbell (1845-1856)

6. William Ogden (1856-1858)

7. Colin Campbell Junior (1858-1871)

8. Joseph Armytage (1871-1873)

9. John Bone (1873-1906)

10. Stanley Hersee (1906-1914)

11. Robert Finlay (1915-1924)

12. Edwin Towndrow (1924-1929)

13. Samuel Latham (1929-1948)

14. Harold Wallwork (1948-1957)

15. Stanley Duthie (1958-1973)

16. Cyril Ashton (1974-1991)

17. Peter Guinness (1991-2010)

18. The seasonally changing vine

Sources and references

Introduction

"The life and identity of every local church is bound up with its past, as well as its present. … churches with an informed understanding of their own history [have] a stronger and healthier sense of identity and shared purpose." Neil Evans and John Maiden (2012, p.4)

The title of this book - To love and serve the Lord - is borrowed from the blessing said at the close of a service, where we are called upon to Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Christ, amen. The text comes from Deuteronomy 10: 12-13 and it captures the essence of why St Thomas’ exists, and what each of us is called to do as we walk out of church after each service and into the world outside.

This is the first time the history of the church has been written, and it gives us an opportunity to see where we have come from and how we have got to where we are today. The story is very much one of adapting to changing times and changing needs and opportunities, as a community of believers have taken seriously the calling to love and serve the Lord in this particular place.

The church celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2016, and the original idea was to tell the story up to that date. But the natural cut-off point is the end of Peter Guinness’s time as Vicar, because the arrival of Jon Scamman in 2010 marks a new season - a new chapter, literally - in the life of the church. It would make little sense to write the first part of that chapter without being able to say what happened next within Jon’s time. So, with some regrets, I’ll leave Jon’s chapter to form the opening one for whoever writes the next volume of the St Thomas’ story, hopefully less than 170 years from now.

The book is about the church in its widest sense. It explores both who we are (the people) as church and where we go (the building), and it looks at both what we do (the services) and where we belong (the congregations). It describes the lengthy and fruitful heritage of this particular church, as well as the inevitable trials and tribulations it has coped with. As we shall see, it is a story of dedication, hard work, and sacrifice by many people over many generations.

It seemed sensible to structure the chapters by Vicar rather than by theme because each Vicar has stamped his personality and left his mark on the church, some with greater strength, clarity and durability than others. I have tried to let each Vicar speak for himself - up to now they have all been men - which is why I have included so many quotations from 19thcentury local newspapers and more recent minutes of PCC meetings and Annual Church Meetings; this allows them to speak in their own voices.

I have drawn heavily on four particular sources - back copies of the Lancaster Gazette between 1801 and 1894, from the British Library Newspapers online archive which can be accessed via the Lancashire Libraries’ On-line Reference Library; minutes of Vestry Meeting and PCC meetings between 1841 and 1970, which are archived in the County Record Office at Preston; PCC minutes since 1970 which are kept on file in the church office; and the St Thomas’ Parish Box, which is archived in the office of the Diocesan Registrar in Blackburn.

At the outset this choice of sources gave me a decision rule to keep the coverage as objective as possible - if something appears in these sources it can be included in the book, if it doesn’t then it can’t. Of course the history of a church is much more than the history of its meetings, but I intentionally avoided including recollections and reminiscences from individual people because they can be patchy, selective and partisan, and they don’t take us very far back through the 170 year history of the church.

All Bible verses quoted in this book are from the New International Version (UKNIV), rather than the Bible translation in use at the time, which often was the King James Version. This makes it more consistent and easier to follow, because it is written in the language of today.

Where sums of money are mentioned in the text - such as the cost of building the church, amounts raised through various means, and money given to good causes - I have included both the amount at the time, and [in square brackets] an estimate of what that would have been in 2010. There are at least five different ways of computing the relative value of a UK pound at different points in time, so to keep the conversion consistent I have used one source throughout (http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare), based on real price commodity values updated to 2010, taking the most conservative of a range of relative values in each case. Sums of money before decimalisation was introduced in February 1971 are usually rounded to the nearest shilling (20s = £1).

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1. Pre-history: the roots of St Thomas'

Late in 1835 a new clergyman arrived in Lancaster, with high hopes and a strong sense of God’s calling. He had crossed the Pennines from Yorkshire to take up the post of Curate at St Mary’s, Lancaster’s parish church that dominated both the skyline and the church life of the town.

Within six years he would be standing inside St Thomas’ Church, newly built at the southern edge of the town as it then was, taking part in the opening ceremony as its first Vicar. What happened to bring this about? To understand this, we need to understand three things - who this man was and what was important to him, what Lancaster was like at that time, and what was then happening in the Church of England. We’ll look at the first two in this chapter, and then explore the third in Chapter 2.

New kid on the block

Joseph North Green Armytage was born on the 2nd of April 1805 in Wasbro dale in Yorkshire. He attended Leeds Grammar School, graduated from St John’s College at Cambridge University with a BA degree in 1830 and an MA in 1834, and was ordained deacon in 1831 and priest in 1832. For the next two years he served as a Curate in Almondbury and two other villages near Holmfirth just outside Huddersfield, back in his home county.

He arrived in Lancaster as a thirty year old bachelor and lived near the parish church in a house in Castle Park, between a lady of independent means and an elderly shoemaker and his wife. Less than two years later, on the 6th of December 1837 he married a local lady, Harriet Dodson, a spinster then living in St Leonardsgate, at St Mary’s. Their family would grow with the birth of three children during his time at St Mary’s - a son, North Green (1839), and two daughters, Josephine (1840) and Harriet (1841).

Joseph wasted no time getting down to work after he arrived in Lancaster. He was full of energy and enthusiasm, and soon got involved in local church groups, meetings and activities. He was very much a man on a mission. A key role of the Curate in those days was to share with the Vicar and a team of voluntary (almost entirely female) District Visitors the task of visiting all of the people who lived within the parish (not just the church-goers), in their houses, at least once each year, and reporting to the Vicar cases of sickness, poverty and distress. The new Curate would have walked many miles through the streets of Lancaster fulfilling this duty, and would have developed a good sense of the diversity of people living within his patch.

He preached his first sermon at St Mary’s on the morning of Sunday the 17th of January 1836, based on Micah 4: 5: All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. (NIV) He got off to a good start; a report in the Lancaster Gazette the following Saturday gave the sermon a ringing endorsement, announcing a more powerful, more eloquent, or more scriptural discourse, we never heard. The same reporter looked forward to more great things from the new Curate, writing that from the opportunities already afforded us, we have thus early our best hopes awakened, that he will carry on the good works as actively pursued and supported by his excellent predecessor; and most heartily do we congratulate our fellow-townsmen on the prospect.

Joseph Armytage was pinning his colours firmly to the mast with that choice of text for his first sermon at St Mary’s, declaring confidently his faith in God even as others put their trust in different gods. It was a theme that would underpin and colour all he did during his time in Lancaster. We learn some important things about him from contemporary reports in the Lancaster Gazette.

Like many other Anglican clergy at that time, he saw himself as a defender of the faith, a fighter in the ongoing spiritual and intellectual battle with the ‘enemy without’ (the rise of Nonconformism and Catholicism) and the ‘enemy within’ (adoption of Catholic values and practices within the Church of England). He was a staunch defender of the faith, and worked hard to protect and promote the cause of Protestantism against what he called Romish clergy (Roman Catholic priests). In January 1841, for example, he delivered an admirable lecture to members of the Lancaster Protestant Association, based upon the five fundamental rules of the society.

Armytage took a strong stand on the matter of ‘observance of the Lord’s Day’, speaking with passion at a meeting held in April 1836 for the purpose of forming a society to promote the due observation of the Sabbath. He felt compelled to act by so indecent an outrage on public morality as the running of railway trains, and public travelling on the Lord’s Day. He put forward the resolution, which was unanimously carried, in the form of a pledge - that we will abstain, and endeavour that our families will abstain, from all employments on the Lord’s Day, which are inconsistent with its sacred character. He was more than a little disappointed that the Roman Catholic clergy in Lancaster refused to engage with him in a public discussion about the Lord’s Day, concluding in writing to the Lancaster Gazette (13th February 1841) it is the policy of the Romish Clergy … to shun the field of open controversy.

By all accounts he was a very able and popular preacher. For example, in April 1836 he preached an eloquent sermon in the Parish Church. The following month, at the Whit Monday service in the same place, he preached a most powerful sermon on Acts 10: 33, it being evident from the attentive demeanour of his auditors [those who heard him] that they were greatly impressed with what they heard. In October 1836 he preached an eloquent sermon from Psalm 1: 1-2 in the Parish Church.

Armytage was also committed to evangelism. He apparently spoke with great passion on Jesus’ Great Commission (Matthew 28: 16-20) at a service for clergy in St Mary’s on Monday the 1st of May 1837. There he urged his listeners to

"obtain, by believing, prayerful meditation, joined with humble, diligent perusal of the divine word, a clearer acquaintance with his all-sufficiency, supremacy, and love. … Being thus made personally sensible of our own necessity, and having personally partaken of the riches of his grace, we shall speak of him to others, with the persuasive power of sympathy, and the convincing clearness of experience."

Like many other churchmen of the day, he took seriously the need to help the poor, both spiritually and materially. Whilst he applauded those who gave generously to the sick and the poor, he was particularly concerned about fairness and justice. This comes through in a letter he wrote to the Lancaster Gazette in February 1838 bemoaning the cheating and corruption of some people, as a result of which the money thus thoughtlessly bestowed, not only encourages the idle and dishonest, which is itself a great evil, but actually deprives, so far, the truly needy and unobtrusive poor, of that assistance which they would otherwise obtain.

He was also a great supporter of the cause of education. For example, in November 1836 he preached sermons at St Luke’s, Skerton, and St Anne’s in town, in aid of the funds for building a Sunday School for St Luke’s. He spoke at the Boy’s National School (June 1836) and on behalf of the National Schools in Lancaster (October 1836).

Whilst we can see that he was clearly a very articulate, passionate and persuasive churchman, it is not so easy to discern his churchmanship from the few fragments of evidence that we have about him. But there is one important pointer to his sympathy with and support of the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church, even whilst he served in the relatively high Parish Church. It comes in an advert on the front page of the Lancaster Gazette on Saturday the 24th of February 1838, for the Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) a national evangelical body that had been established almost exactly two years earlier. The advert is seeking subscriptions to render aid to those Clergymen who are anxious to bring the entire population of their respective Parishes under religious culture, but who have not the means of efficiently attaining their wish; the subscriptions will be thankfully received by the Rev O’Neil of St Anne’s and the Rev Armytage of St Mary’s.

St Anne’s was the only evangelical Anglican church in Lancaster at that time, and Armytage was clearly comfortable ‘coming out’ in support of the evangelicals. Interestingly, CPAS was to re-appear in the story of St Thomas’ a number of times over the following 170 or so years, as we shall see.

These examples paint a picture of a man with a deep personal faith and a willingness to share it with others, a strong commitment to help those in need, and a sense of duty to protect what he saw as the ‘true’ Church of England.

Local economy

Joseph Armytage arrived in Lancaster at a critical point in the town’s history, as the Georgian era (1714-1830) gave way to the Victorian era (1837-1901). Behind lay Lancaster’s Golden Age of prosperity, around him the town’s economy was starting to recover after a serious slump during the 1820s, and ahead lay a new season for the town as a centre of manufacturing (particularly through cotton).

The Georgian era, when Lancaster was one of the wealthiest towns in England, had left an indelible mark on the town and its people. When Daniel Defoe visited Lancaster in the 1720s, he found a town that (after much destruction during the Civil War and a major fire in 1698) lies, as it were, in its own ruins and has little to recommend it but a decayed castle and a more decayed port. … here is little or no trade, and few people. Fifty years later, in 1770, the traveller Arthur Young was able to describe a town increasing its buildings, having many new piles [buildings] superior to the old.

The engine of this economic growth was Lancaster’s booming shipping trade as the British Empire expanded. Furniture and general merchandise (including hardware, cutlery, provisions, saddlery, woollen and linen cloths, stationery, shoes, boots, hats, candles, and soaps) were exported to the colonies in West Africa, North America and the West Indies. Sugar, coffee, cotton, rum, hides, and timber (particularly mahogany) were imported from the West Indies.

The lucrative slave trade - highly controversial today, and abolished in 1807, but accepted in the 18th century as a legitimate business activity - also played its part, mainly between 1750 and 1767. Lancaster’s share of the trade was small (4 ships in 1771) compared with ports like Liverpool (107 ships). The ships sailed the ‘slave triangle’ - from England to West Africa (carrying manufactured goods, guns and ammunition), from there across the Atlantic to the Caribbean (transporting captured slaves), then back to England (with goods such as sugar, rum and exotic woods). Interestingly, the Gillow furniture-making business - which was to grow into a key part of the Lancaster economy - was established in 1728, using mahogany which arrived from the West Indies as packing material around other cargoes.

The canal between Lancaster and Preston was opened in 1792 and allowed the transport of imported produce to the growing towns further south.

Lancaster declined rapidly as a port after about 1807, facing strong competition from Liverpool and struggling with silting up; Glasson Dock was opened in 1787. This caused the closure of other local businesses like sail-cloth making, rope making, and ship-building.  By the 1820s Lancaster’s economy was stagnating, and this continued into the 1840s.

Armytage arrived in Lancaster to find a struggling economy but a rich legacy of Georgian architecture. By the river there was St George’s Quay and its warehouses (1750-55) and the old Customs House (1764). In the town it included Penny’s Hospital (almshouses) (1720) and the nearby Assembly Rooms (1759); Thomas Marton built The Music Room in Sun Street (1730s) as a summer house; the Old Town Hall was rebuilt (1781-83); a Girls’ School on Middle Street (1772, rebuilt in 1849), Gillison's Hospital (almshouses) (1790) on Common Garden Street; the Dispensary on Castle Hill (1781); the workhouse (Poor House) on Lancaster Moor (1788); the Grand Theatre (1781), originally called the Athenæum; the old Town Hall (1783), replacing an earlier one 1671); and Dalton Square, which was laid out in 1784.

The cotton industry in Lancaster began in 1802 when the White Cross Mill was opened beside the canal near Penny Street Bridge. It remained the only mill on the canal until 1819, but after that a belt of industry and low-cost housing for workers developed between Queen Street and Ridge Lane (in what after 1841 was to become St Thomas’ neighbourhood).

Seven canal-side mills were built - Moor Lane Mill in 1819, originally for worsted spinning, converted to cotton spinning in 1828; Albion Mill in 1824-25, for cotton spinning then from 1848 cotton and silk spinning; Moor Lane Mill in 1825-31, for cotton spinning and weaving; Queens Mill in 1837-40, for cotton spinning and weaving; Ridge Lane Mill in 1836-37, for silk spinning; Bath Mill in 1837, for cotton spinning and weaving; and Lune Mill on New Quay in 1870, for the spinning and weaving of oilcloth. Later the Storey brothers bought the White Cross, Queen’s and Moor Lane Mills, and James Williamson bought the Bath and Greenfield mills for the manufacture of Grey Cotton that was used as a backing for oilcloth.

The spinning and weaving of cotton, and the manufacture of oilcloth and linoleum, became major activities that helped to drive economic recovery in the town, particularly after the 1840s.

The town

Lancaster in the 1840s was a much smaller place than it is today, with no development beyond the canal to the south and east, or west of the Castle and Parish Church. Skerton and Scotforth were separate townships (villages), and the housing estates on the Marsh, Primrose, Ridge and Freehold, Bowerham, Greaves, Scotforth, and Hala had yet to be built. In fact the 1848 Ordnance Survey map looked little different to one drawn in 1778 by Stephen Makreth and, although there had been much infilling the overall layout of the town had changed little from John Speed’s map of 1610. Expansion was restricted by the river to the north, the canal to the south, the canal and Lancaster Moor to the east, and the Marsh to the west.

The 1841 census - the first national census in England - lists the total population of Lancaster as 14,075 (compared with an estimated 8,500 in 1784), including 558 people imprisoned in the castle, 611 inmates in the asylum, and 134 poor people in the workhouse 134. There were 2,301 houses inhabited, 61 uninhabited and 11 then being built. The second half of the 19th century was to see a marked increase in the town’s population (and footprint); in the 1901 census the total was 40,329 people.

Life in Lancaster

We can learn something about life in Lancaster in the late 1830s and early 40s from contemporary reports in the Lancaster Gazette.

Despite its maritime past Lancaster also served as a market town, surrounded by and servicing the needs of farms and country estates. Not surprisingly, therefore, the annual calendar contained numerous traditional rural activities, such as the annual Lancaster Fair, an annual Horse Fair in Green Ayre, and well-attended markets for the sale of cattle, sheep, and cheese.

There was culture, for those who could afford it. In 1841 alone, for example, the Assembly Rooms hosted a concert of sacred music, and evenings of Parisian-style dancing; Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet played at the theatre; and there were Astronomical Lectures on the sublime science of astronomy and some of the wonders that that science has unfolded.

It was clearly a man’s world, judging from the traditional pursuits and pastimes they could take part in. There was hare coursing at Cockerham, sparrow shooting on Lancaster Moor, field days of the John O’Gaunt’s bowmen, regattas on the River Lune, wrestling matches, and horse racing on the Race Course at Lancaster Moor.

By today’s standards the town housed a population divided by differences in wealth, status, influence and opportunity. There were a few wealthy gentry with fine country houses and estates, and a greater number of prosperous and increasingly influential middle class merchants and mill owners. But most people in the town were very poor and lived in cramped unsanitary multi-family housing, struggling to survive. Many were mill workers and factory workers.

A large number of people depended on the ‘outdoor relief’ that was given only to the elderly and sick poor in their own homes, and the ‘indoor relief’ (the Workhouse) open to the able-bodied poor.

Many of the poor, sick and elderly were greatly helped by local charity and philanthropy, including support from the churches and the goodness of individual wealthy benefactors. For example, in January 1840 Thomas Greene presented the poor of Whittington and the neighborhood with a supply of food and clothing; and the poor in the vicinity of Capernwray Hall have had similar kindly gifts dispensed to them by George Marton, Esq. At Christmas 1841, by means of a subscription set on foot by the overseers, the inmates of the workhouse were supplied with a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding. Ale was also provided, but they were forbidden to drink it.

In Lancaster, as elsewhere, Friendly Societies - like the Oddfellows, which opened their Lancaster Hall in Mary Street in July 1844 - were set up to protect and care for their members and communities at a time when there was no welfare state, trade unions or National Health Service. The Freemasons were another group that engaged in charitable work in their local communities; the Lancaster Lodge of Fortitude met regularly at different inns in the town.

Law and order was taken very seriously. Men and women found guilty of murder were hanged. Those found guilty of theft and violence faced long sentences to transportation to Australia, some for life. For example, in 1838 a local man was transported for seven years for stealing some hay; the same year a local woman was sent for ten years for stealing a watch; in 1841 a man was sent for ten years for stealing some cheese from a shop in St Nicholas Street.

Local politics was largely right wing, dominated by Tories (Whiggs). This is perhaps not surprising given that only land-owners and the middle class could vote; working class people and women had not yet been given the vote. Little wonder, too, there was widespread support, both nationally and locally, for the working class Chartist Movement for political reform in Britain, between 1838 and 1848. In July 1838 a Chartist meeting was held on the Green Area, but owing to the presence of a strong body of the police force, no disturbance took place. In August 1842 great Chartist riots took place throughout the county and a number of rioters visited Lancaster, turning the hands out of the different mills, and breaking the doors and windows. The disturbance continued till Friday, when a detachment of the 60th rifles arrived, and in the evening all was quiet.

Church and chapel

The religious landscape in Lancaster at this time, when religion and church were much more tightly woven into the fabric of society than they are today, was both lively and varied. It contained a mixture of church (for the upper and middle classes) and chapel (for the working class), and included a range of heritage and new buildings. There was growing competition for members from the 1820s onwards, as the town’s population was beginning to increase again after a static spell early in the century.

The dominant church, physically and spiritually, was St Mary’s, where Armytage was Curate. It occupied a prominent site beside the castle, atop a hill by the river, overlooking the town to the east. It was built on the remains of a priory (religious house) dedicated to St. Mary, which had been founded by Benedictine monks after the Norman Conquest on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church dating back to 630. It became the parish church of Lancaster in 1430 and the ‘Established’ Church of England after the Reformation in 1539. Although the church was probably built around 1380 and the tower was rebuilt in 1754, most of the building Armytage worked in and we see today dates from 15th century. As Lancaster’s Parish Church, it was the ‘mother church’ in town, and its Vicar also nominated the Vicars of the three other Anglican churches in Lancaster that were built before 1840.

St John the Evangelist Church - St John’s - had been built in 1755 (the tower was added in 1784) on Chapel Street near the river in Green Ayre, to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. In today’s language it was a church plant; it served as a chapel of ease - a church built within the parish of a parish church, in a more convenient and accessible location for the people living around it - until 1842, when a parish was assigned to it.

St Anne’s was another plant from the Priory. It was built in 1796 on Moor Lane to meet the needs of people who moved into the newly built St Leonardsgate area, a more working-class part of town than those served by St Mary’s or St John’s. It broke new ground as Lancaster’s first evangelical Anglican Church, whose members were then known as ‘enthusiasts’. St Anne’s was built with approval of the Bishop of Chester, partly to help stem the exodus of working-class people from St Mary’s and St John’s to the growing number of non-conformist chapels then springing up in Lancaster. It also had a parish assigned to it in 1842.

St Luke’s was built in Skerton in 1833, to provide more accommodation for the growing working class population there. It was also intended to be a civilising influence on an unruly people. Local historian Haythornthwaite (1875, p.93) describes how the church was founded when disorder was rife in the village, and the constables and the stocks played an important part in daily life. ... Side by side with education and the compulsion of law, religion has been quietly extending her spiritual influence around, and … the work of the ministry has not been unprofitable in the parish.

But Anglican churches were not the only religious buildings in town by 1840. The Quakers (Society of Friends) were long established, their original Meeting House having been built in 1677, rebuilt in 1709 and extended in 1741, 1779 and 1790. Other groups of dissenters also had deep roots in Lancaster. The Presbyterians had built a chapel in Moor Lane in 1678 and another in St Nicholas’ in 1726, which was rebuilt and enlarged in 1786. The Congregationalists had built their Independent Chapel in High Street in 1773 (which was redeveloped and enlarged in 1851 and further developed in 1873), and Centenary Chapel in St Leonardsgate (which in 1873 became the Centenary Congregational Church).

The first Baptists met in a meeting-room in Friar Street from 1819 to 1840, and others attended the Congregational Church until 1862 after which they held their own services in the Assembly Rooms. The first Baptist Church was built in White Cross Street in 1872, but that was replaced in 1896 by the current one in Nelson Street.

Methodism - the ‘New Dissent’ - first appeared in Lancaster at the end of the 18th century. It quickly took root, with a number of chapels springing up to serve the different branches of Methodism. The first, a small Wesleyan chapel, was built in 1806 on Sulyard Street, near the Catholic chapel in Dalton Square; it was rebuilt there in 1874 to a design by Paley and Austin. By 1823 the Primitive Methodists had a meeting-place in Damside, where they built a chapel in 1836 before moving in 1862 to Ebenezer Chapel on Moor Lane, which was rebuilt in 1895. In 1829 the Independent Methodists built a chapel on Nelson Street, by the canal. The United Methodist Free Church was built in Brock Street in 1869, and a small Methodist chapel was built in Skerton in the early 1870s.

The Roman Catholics were also quite well established in Lancaster by the late 1830s. In 1799 they had built a chapel (the building is now Palatine Hall) in Dalton Square, which was the first purpose-built Catholic chapel in Lancaster since the Reformation. It continued in use until St Peter’s Church was built beyond the canal in 1859.

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2. Origins: why St Thomas' was built

To help us understand why St Thomas’ Church was built, we looked in Chapter 1 at the arrival of Joseph Armytage in Lancaster 1835, and at the condition of the town and its people at that time. In this chapter we’ll focus on the state of the Church of England, and how it coped with a series of major challenges it was then facing.

Challenges facing the Church of England

As the 19th century dawned the Church of England faced serious challenges, from both without and within.

External challenges

There were two main external challenges, which were closely inter-linked. One was how best to cope with the huge growth of the population at that time, particularly in towns, and with the social and economic changes then under way. The other was growing competition, partly as a result of the resurgence of Catholicism (which was emancipated in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829), which led to a growth in the number of Roman Catholic people and churches through the 19th century. Even stronger competition came from the great expansion of nonconformist chapels by Protestant dissenting groups such as the Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists.

The Established church was fast losing members, particularly working class people, and particularly to the dissenting groups, which better met their needs. As church historian J.H. Bettey (1987) points out, Anglican church services at that time were based rigidly on the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and were widely viewed as dull and predictable; sermons were long, theological and tedious; and the strictly hierarchical nature of the church left the congregation as observers rather than participants. He describes (p.138) how such services

"offered little to miners, fishermen, farm labourers, railway navvies or dockers when set against the fellowship, liveliness, hymn-singing and warmth of the chapel, where they could find an outlet for the emotions, food for the imagination and an opportunity to take part in the services and in the running of the chapel."

The popularity of the Church of England was also seriously undermined by the divisive issue of church rates … compulsory levies imposed on rate-payers, whether Anglican or not, for the maintenance of parish churches [which] were strongly opposed by nonconformists who had also to maintain their own places of worship. (Austin 2001 p.132)

Responses

The church responded in two main ways. First, it embarked on a major programme of church building. Between 1801 and 1810 a total of 43 Anglican churches were built or rebuilt across the country. That number doubled to 96 the next decade (1811-20); it trebled to 308 the next decade (1821-30); doubled again to 600 between 1831 and 1840; and increased by a further 50 percent to 929 (759 new and 170 rebuilt) between 1841 and 1850. So St Thomas’, which opened in 1841, should be viewed as part of a huge growth phase for the Church of England, which continued through the following two decades (a total of 820 in 1851-60, and a further 1,100 in 1861-70).

The ambitious building programme was not just designed to increase the church’s capacity to cope with the population increase, it also served the government’s ambition of helping to check the violence and lawlessness among the lower classes in the crowded slums, and reduce the danger of civil disorder and rebellion. (Bettey 1987 p.129) A local example of the latter is St Luke’s Church in Skerton, built in 1833, as we saw in Chapter 1.

But there was also a third reason for church-building, which was to meet the needs of changes in churchmanship within the Anglican Church brought about by the Evangelical Revival and the Oxford Movement, which we will look at shortly.

The second response to increasing competition from Nonconformist chapels was a renewed vitality in the life of the Anglican Church. This is reflected, for example, in the greater energy devoted to parish activities such as Sunday Schools and Day Schools, adult classes, youth groups, missions, clubs and parish magazines, all designed to better engage the local community and help in meeting their needs. It is reflected also in the move to make church services brighter and livelier, as a result of the Catholic Revival (discussed below).

The challenges facing the Church of England were clearly spelled out by the Archdeacon of Richmond who visited Lancaster in July 1836 and spoke at St Mary’s about the duty of the clergy to watch the signs of the times, comfort and support each other, pray for God’s grace, and firmly contend the faith. Joseph Armytage read the prayers. According to the Lancaster Gazette (16th July 1836) Rev. J. Headlam, the Archdeacon of Richmond, noted that

"with regard to doctrinal matters, he did not apprehend there was much to be feared. … The three classes of assailants were the unbelievers, Papists and Dissenters. … With respect to the third class of opponents, the Protestant Dissenters, it was to be observed, there was no material difference between them and the church on points of doctrine, and yet, he regretted to say, how many there were who separated themselves from the church. … Separation, except on conscientious scruples, was a leaning to heresy and that was displeasing to God; therefore, if for any private or personal consideration, a man forsook the church, he did great injury to the general cause of religion, and took upon himself a heavy responsibility."

Internal challenges

The Church of England also faced major internal challenges as it struggled to cope with a clash between two religious revival movements that erupted within it in the early 19th century. Each was a response to the growing competition from Nonconformism and Catholicism, as well as part of a battle for the soul of Anglicanism.

The Catholic Revival

The first revival movement in the Church of England started in 1833 in Oxford, which is why it is also known as the Oxford Movement. Its supporters are often referred to as Tractarians, after the ninety Tracts for the Times which were published between 1833 and 1841 by John Keble, John Henry Newman, and others, which spelled out the essence of their thinking. It was a movement of High Church Anglicans that triggered the revival of Anglo-Catholicism. Some of the prominent High-Churchmen (such as Newman in 1845) would eventually convert to Roman Catholicism.

It was a reaction against state intervention in Church affairs and liberalism in theology and sought to recall the church to its original catholic doctrines and revive more traditional forms of worship and liturgy, including more symbolism and ceremony. This included elaborate rituals and processions, priests robed in elaborate vestments, surpliced choirs sitting in chancels, statues and lit candles on altars, swinging thuribles containing incense, organs, and great congregational participation through hymn-singing. Mass was said daily for the first time in the Church of England since the Reformation, and priests heard confessions. The Eucharist (Holy Communion), in which the bread and wine were believed to be literally the body and blood of Christ, became the central act of worship; during the 17th  and 18th centuries it had only been celebrated three or four times a year in most parishes.

These changes caused bitter controversy in many churches during the 1840s and 50s, and even triggered rioting in some parts of the country. The Oxford Movement was widely denounced for being a ‘Romanising’ tendency, suspected of heralding a drift towards reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

The Evangelical Revival

A strong reaction to the Oxford Movement by many people within the Church of England, coupled with a desire to more genuinely re-engage the attention of former Anglicans who had left to join the nonconformist chapels and stem the exodus, together created suitable conditions for a revival of the Low Church evangelical wing of the church.

The so-called ‘Evangelical Party’ of the Church of England was descended from the 17th century Puritans and flourished between 1789 and 1850. The term ‘evangelical’ means of or according to the teaching of the Gospel, and its primary emphasis was and is the doctrine of salvation by faith in the death of Christ, which atoned (paid the price) for people’s sins.

Evangelicals today share the same beliefs as their 19th century predecessors; they/we -

recognise the sinfulness and fallenness of humanity;

emphasise personal conversion and faith rather than good works, church rituals or the sacraments (seen as symbolic only) as a means to salvation;

stress the importance of a personal relationship with God;

believe in the authority of the Bible in matter of doctrine; and

unlike the Tractarians, deny that ordination to the priesthood imparts any supernatural gifts or sets priests apart as intermediaries between God and humans (hence the priesthood of all believers).

Converted believers were expected to serve others, so the evangelicals threw themselves into missionary work at home and overseas. They were strong supporters of the Bible societies, and played prominent roles in social movements like the abolition of slavery, child welfare legislation, the prohibition of alcohol, the Temperance Movement, and the development of public health and public education.

Critics accused evangelicals of being ‘enthusiasts’ who preferred emotion to intellect and had a puritanical disapproval of social pleasures. They were looked down on by those of a more High Church disposition, who saw themselves as superior, both spiritually and intellectually. Criticism rarely came more forcefully than from the pen of George Nye (1899), who dismissed evangelicalism in the Church of England as

"the inspiration of detached units, not of the mass. For corporate action, the Evangelical system offered no scope. It was a purely subjective religion; one based on feelings, to the exclusion of creeds and means of grace. … Naturally the services continued as slovenly, and the fabric as uncared for, as during the period of religious apathy."

Reactions in Lancaster

How did all this play out in Lancaster? Here, as in many other places, views and attitudes were polarised between the two revival movements, which pulled in directly opposing directions. Supporters and critics of both could find little common ground to meet on.

St Mary’s, the parish church in Lancaster, doubtless embraced the Catholic Revival and changed its services, values and activities accordingly. St John’s (1755) almost inevitably had a similar churchmanship. St Anne’s (1796) was evangelical and was looked down upon by members of the High Church. Local historian Haythornthwaite (1875, p.60) described it as dangerously close to the boundary-line of Episcopacy and Dissent, where it was not reason but sentiment that gave rise to the congregation, so we do not in all cases discover the elements of sound mental progress in their body.

The distinction that Haythornthwaite draws between the two types of Anglican church in Lancaster in 1840 shows clearly where his sympathies lay:

"On the one side [the High Church St Mary’s and St John’s], we behold the highest intellectual qualities, the most striking spirituality of life, and a near approach to the utmost Christian perfection of which mortal man is capable; on the other [the Low Church St Anne’s] side we may notice a comparatively low order of intelligence, a preference for slovenly and even in ecclesiastical modes of procedure, and a great inclination to indulge in the excitements of revivalism and tea-parties."

Reasons for building St Thomas’

Against this background, why was a decision taken to build another new Anglican church - St Thomas’ - in Lancaster? Whilst it would provide more capacity for the Established church, and thus serve more people, this seems to have been a secondary consideration.

Unlike St John’s, St Thomas’ was not established to meet the needs of people already living in a particular part of Lancaster at the time, because it was built at the edge of town as it then was, still largely undeveloped at that time. Unlike several later Anglican churches in Lancaster (Christ Church and St Paul’s Scotforth) it was not built specifically to meet the needs of a new and rapidly growing part of the town; growth occurred later. Unlike St Luke’s in Skerton, it was not set up to civilize an unruly part of the town.

The main reason for building St Thomas’ appears to have been a desire by at least some people in Lancaster for a more evangelical churchmanship within the Church of England, as a positive response to the Evangelical Revival and a reaction against the Catholic Revival. Such a church would also serve the growing working class population in town and thus help to stem the exodus of people towards the Nonconformist chapels that were growing in number and strength at that time.

The group that pushed for the building of the new church and brought it into life was led by Joseph Armytage. So why did he ‘jump ship’ from a church (and a secure and well-respected position) that he had presumably been happy to sign up to only a few years earlier?

It seems that he left St Mary’s because of a falling out with the Vicar over the style of worship there. Although it is difficult to find solid proof that it was because the parish church was adopting more Catholic practices, the clues point in that direction. Haythornthwaite (1875, pp.69-70) describes bluntly how

"St Thomas’ Church arose, we believe we are right in saying, from a small disagreement in connection with St Mary’s. The Rev J.N. Green Armytage had made himself obnoxious to the Vicar by proposing an alteration in the order of the service, and having his circle of admirers he became the centre of a new movement and the head of another congregation. Probably the feeling had existed in the town that another Church would not be out of place, and no doubt the scheme had plenty of supporters independent of the former dispute, but without the small knot of dissentients at the Parish Church the progress of the undertaking, we are informed, would have been by no means certain."

Joseph Armytage resigned his post as Curate in the parish church to lead the establishment of St Thomas’, probably with the Archdeacon’s July 1836 words of warning about separation ringing in his ears. He took with him a small group of like-minded people (including members of the Salisbury family, who we will meet in Chapter 3) who were committed to remaining within the Church of England but determined to establish a new evangelical church in town.

Thus St Thomas’ started life in 1841 as a break-away from the Parish Church, a split rather than a plant. Whilst the split doubtless caused much soul-searching within those who left and those who stayed behind, the separation appears to have been amicable. The new church was fully supported by the Bishop of Chester, who preached at the opening ceremony. The Bishop’s support is not surprising given that he was John Bird Sumner, a prominent evangelical at that time, who after serving as Bishop of Chester (1828-48) was promoted to Archbishop of Canterbury (1848-62).

There is no evidence that Joseph Armytage was subsequently shunned by his fellow clergy in Lancaster. He regularly attended other Church of England events and was invited to preach in other churches and speak at religious meetings.

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3. Beginnings: the building of St Thomas'

"You know not what you have done in building this church. Some who are now here are single men, who in a few short years may be the heads of families. Your children will probably come to this house of prayer to receive their elementary instruction, when they will be taught to distinguish between good and evil, and have the way pointed out to them to obtain a blessed eternity."

These words were spoken by Rev David James from Liverpool who preached at the opening service of St Thomas’ Church on Wednesday the 14th of April 1841. He was looking to a golden future for this new church, and fully expected it to meet the spiritual needs of its people for many generations to come. It turns out his faith in the future was well placed.

St Thomas’ has so far outlived St John’s and St Anne’s, and it remains as well supported and active as ever. Nobody thought it would be an easy journey, and history has proved them right.

Planning to build

There is no denying the importance of Armytage’s fall-out with St Mary’s over the matter of church services (which we looked at in Chapter 2) as a catalyst for his decision to leave the Parish Church and set up a new one with an evangelical flavour.

But other forces were at work too, some of which are touched upon in a letter that Edward Salisbury (Chairman of the organising committee for the new church) sent to the Chester Diocesan Society in 1840. The letter, written in fine copperplate handwriting, survives in the County Record Office in Preston.

Salisbury’s letter summarises the arguments for the new church, including the growing population of Lancaster (which rose from just under 10,000 in 1821 to around 16,000 in 1840), caused in part by increasing job opportunities; by then there were seven mills, employing up to 2,000 people. He voiced concern over the limited number of additional ‘free sittings’ in the Parish Church (100) and the other two Anglican churches (200 between them) for those who could not afford to pay hefty annual pew rents, and he pointed out that dissent has not neglected the opportunity, and thus two Methodist Chapels have been erected and the Independent Chapel has been enlarged since 1820. His key point was that

"the erection of a church towards the southern extremity of the town has long been contemplated by certain parties, who have been for some years engaged in promoting Church extension in this neighbourhood, the result of whose exertions has been the erection of no less than 4 new churches [of different denominations] in different parts of this extensive parish. The views of these parties were met in an unexpected manner by the liberality of a resident Lady who offered to provide an endowment and repairing fund for such a purpose."

The ‘resident Lady’ in question was Edward’s mother Elizabeth Salisbury, who had donated £1,000 to the project, worth about £74,000 today.

Why built it there?

The choice of site was dictated by the availability of land and the means to buy it. An area of land, shown on the 1807 town map as intended building ground, was available for development on the southern edge of the town as it then was, near the canal. It was just to the north of Dalton Square, which was then (1807) being developed and built. That part of town had not yet been fully built up, but the growth of the cotton mills along this part of the canal would soon prompt the building of housing for low-income workers and their families beyond the canal to the south

George Marton of Capernwray Hall kindly donated a plot of land at the southern end of Penny Street as a site for the new church, valued at £350 [around £25,000 today]. He served as the Member of Parliament for Lancaster between 1837 and 1847, must have been sympathetic to the evangelical cause, and was quite probably a friend of the Salisbury family. Marton Street, which was created after St Thomas’ was built, is named after him.

A parchment manuscript now archived in the Blackburn Diocesan Registry, signed by George Marton and dated the 24th of March 1840, records the sale of a small parcel of land (roughly 160 feet by 80 feet) by him to Her Majesty’s Commissioners for Building of New Churches, for which they paid £81 and eighteen shillings [£5,700]. This must be the extra land that made the extended church plan (see below) possible.

How was it paid for?

Elizabeth Salisbury’s generous donation started the ball rolling on fund-raising, or as Edward Salisbury put it in his letter, in consequence of this impulse, subscriptions were set on foot. £1,200 [£85,000] was raised to build a church with seating for 1,000 people.

A revised plan was drawn up shortly afterwards to provide seating for 1,177, and extra land was purchased. A building contract was agreed, at a total cost of £2,597 [£184,000] excluding the cost of levelling and enclosing the site.

Fund-raising continued, producing a total of £1,962 [£135,000] by December 1839. This was made up of the £1,000 [£68,000] endowment from Elizabeth Salisbury, £200 [£14,000] from Queen Anne’s Bounty (a fund established in 1704 to supplement the incomes of the poorer clergy of the Church of England), a donation of £150 [£10,000] from Queen Victoria as Duchess of Lancaster, £150 [£10,000] from the proceeds of the Lancaster Exhibition of Arts and Manufacturing held in the summer of 1840, and numerous small donations.

This left a shortfall of £635 [£45,000], which the Committee feel themselves totally unable to raise. Edward felt compelled to point out that the new Churches lately built at Poulton, Wray, Glasson, and Capernwray, have been erected mainly from the subscriptions of persons resident in Lancaster and the neighbourhood, and within the present year, thus interfering materially with those resources from which the Committee would have otherwise doubtless benefitted.

He urged the Diocese of Chester to help close the funding gap, and by February 1841 - when the building was nearing completion - the Committee had received a £200 [£14,000] contribution from them. As Edward Salisbury noted, though less than the Committee had been led to expect, it is a handsome sum. This left a shortfall of just over £400 [£28,000].

The shortfall was a planned overspend rather than a cost overrun, because the Committee had committed to that level of expenditure, and signed the contract, without any guarantee of having the money to cover it. It was to exercise the leadership of St Thomas’ for many years, as we shall see in the next two chapters.

Elizabeth Salisbury later also gave £100 [£7,000] towards the cost of buying a ‘parsonage house’ (Vicarage).

The Salisbury family

Elizabeth Salisbury played a prominent role in the establishment of St Thomas’. Born Elizabeth Dodson in Ulverston in 1766, she married Edward Salisbury at St Mary’s in Lancaster in 1794 and together they had seven children. The Salisburys were upwardly mobile middle-class entrepreneurs.

Edward was described on his marriage certificate as a merchant of Lancaster. He owned and directed a thriving shipping business, and like other ship-owners in that era was involved in the lucrative trade in the ‘slave triangle’ between England, West Africa and the West Indies. He co-owned a number of wooden ships, many of which were built at Brockbanks Shipbuilders in Lancaster. Among them were Tom and Hope, both of which are known to have engaged in the slave trade.

After Edward died in January 1830 at Wennington Hall near Melling his estate passed to Elizabeth. The 1841 census lists her, then aged 70 and ‘independent’, living in Queen Street in town. Elizabeth died in Middleton Tower, Heysham, in March 1851, aged 84.

Edward Junior (Edward Dodson Salisbury) was born in Lancaster in May 1801. He married Mary Park from Ulverston and they had three daughters and three sons. Mary died in Lancaster in November 1839, and in 1841 Edward (then aged 40) was living with his six children at his mother’s house in Queen Street. Edward shared his mother’s commitment to building St Thomas - he chaired the committee that oversaw the project, laid the foundation stone, and appears at all major events relating to the church over the next ten years or so.

During the 1840s Edward was a well respected and influential person in Lancaster - he was Borough Treasurer (1841), Borough Magistrate (1842), County Magistrate (1846), and was elected an Alderman (1847) and Mayor of Lancaster (1844). In 1851 he was living at Middleton Tower in Heysham, and by 1871 he had moved to Holborn, London. He died in Torquay, Devon, in November 1875, at the age of 74.

Building the church

Laying the Foundation Stone

The Foundation Stone of St Thomas’ Church was laid on Shrove Tuesday the 3rd of March 1840, less than three weeks after Queen Victoria married her beloved Alfred, two years into her reign.

The event was a grand civic affair, judging from how it was reported in the Lancaster Gazette. It began with a colourful procession through the streets from the (old) Town Hall in Market Street, involving the Charity School girls, the girls of the National School, boys of the same school, [stone] masons, contractors, … Mr. Wheeler’s pupils, wearing white rosettes, and presenting a peculiarly neat and orderly appearance.

The local Lodge of Freemasons - members of the Lodge of Fortitude, No 350 - played a prominent role; the Brethren processed in full gear (Black Clothes, and White Gloves and Handkerchiefs) and the ceremony was carried out with full Masonic honours. This link between the church and the Masons has caused some unease amongst more recent members of the church, but it needs to be seen in context and kept in perspective.

The Lodge of Fortitude was established in Lancaster in 1789. Whilst the Masons are not a Christian organization per se, one past Master of the Lancaster Lodge was an Anglican Vicar (Rev J. Rowley, in 1829), and the Masons engaged in charitable and humanitarian work to help the poor and needy. James Williamson and William Storey were both members. Although the Masons have a reputation for secrecy, they often paraded through the town in full gear on civic occasions (such as the Coronation of Queen Victoria on the 28th of June 1838), clearly feeling no need to hide their identities.

The Diocesan Bishop was clearly comfortable with them taking part in the procession and assisting with the laying of the Foundation Stone. It is not known whether Edward Salisbury was a Mason or whether his father had been, but the members of the Lodge were there by invitation. An entry in the Lodge’s Minute Book dated the 29th of January 1840 records A letter from the Secretary of the Sub-Committee appointed for the management of the building of St. Thomas’ Church was read, wherein it was wished that the W.M. and Brothers of the Lodge of Fortitude should assist in laying the Foundation Stone of the Church on the day of the Queen’s Marriage. This wish was complied with and a committee appointed.

The Foundation Stone was laid by Edward Salisbury, assisted by J. Drinkwater (Master of the Freemason’s Lodge). The newspaper reported that weather was very fine. The Rev. J.N.G. Armytage made an excellent speech after the laying of the stone. Among the dignitaries present were the Bishop of Chester (John Bird Sumner), the Vicar of Lancaster (Rev John Manby), the Rural Dean (Rev Thomas Mackreth), the Mayor (Joseph Dockray), and the architect (Edmund Sharpe).

Design and construction

The church was designed by local architect Edmund Sharpe, to seat up to 1,000 people.

Edmund Sharpe (1809-77) was born in Knutsford, Cheshire, and after graduating from Cambridge University he studied architecture in Germany and southern France. In 1835 he opened his own practice in Lancaster, specializing in designing church. In 1845 he joined forces with Edward Paley, a former pupil, and the pair designed many churches. Local churches designed by Sharpe include Christ Church, Glasson (1839-40), Holy Trinity, Wray (1839-40), Holy Trinity, Morecambe (1840-41), and St Paul’s, Scotforth (1874-76). After an early career as an architect and architectural historian, he was Mayor of Lancaster in 1848-49, championed the building of Lancaster’s waterworks and sewer system, and after 1851 worked as a railway engineer.

It took a year to build St Thomas’ Church - the Foundation Stone was laid on 3rd of March 1840 and the church opened on the 14th of April 1841 - but we have no record of who the builders were.

Sharpe was a great enthusiast of neoclassical churches built in the Gothic Revival style, which is clearly displayed in his design for St Thomas. Rigbye (1891 p.351) described the church as a fine spacious edifice, having a cheerful appearance, and Bulmer's History and Directory of Lancaster & District, 1912 noted that it is a handsome stone building, in the Early English style of architecture. Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner (2002) was impressed by the lancets [tall, narrow windows with a pointed arch at the top] in stepped triplets along the sides, a stepped group of five between two starved turrets [small projections] on the front.

When the church opened it looked on the outside much as it does today, with two notable exceptions - the steeple and spire (designed by Sharpe and Paley, and part of the original design but omitted on cost grounds) were added in 1852-53 when funding was available, and the front doors were not such a striking colour!

There was no space to include a graveyard beside the church, and those who had passed away were buried in the Parish Churchyard at St Mary’s until legislation made burial in town illegal on health grounds, and new town cemeteries were opened at Scotforth (1890) and Skerton (1904).