Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FOUR.
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION.
XII. EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY CHAPELS.

The Wesleyan Methodists were the first to commence
Chapel building in Dover in the Nineteenth Century. John
Wesley's earnest desire was that the members of his
Societies should not be classed as Dissenters, but that they
should continue their membership of the Church of England.
He, however, found it very difficult to restrain some of his
extreme followers, and he had quite as much trouble to
circumvent the action of some of the Bishops who strove to
drive the Wesleyans out of the Church. In applications
for licences for preachers and preaching places, Mr. Wesley
strongly advised his leaders not to describe themselves as
Dissenters, but as Preachers of the Gospel; yet certain
Bishops refused to grant licences unless, in accordance with
the wording of the Toleration Act, they described themselves
as Protestant Dissenters. In the last year of his life John
Wesley wrote a strong letter of protest to a Bishop in whose
Diocese persecution was prevalent, but, receiving no satis-
faction, an attempt was made to repeal the Conventicle Act,
which rendered licences necessary. John Wesley died,
leaving that project unaccomplished, and soon after his
death it became the custom for the Wesleyans to obtain
licences for their Chapels and other preaching places as
Dissenters. That was the case at Dover in 1806, when a
licence was obtained for a preaching place at Buckland in
the following terms : — ' ' Memorandum : That a certificate
under the hands of William Clayton, William Farr, Ann,
Russell, Rebecca Popkiss, William Rogers and William
Francis, Dissenters from the Church of England, commonly
called Protestant Dissenters, certifies that a certain building
in the occupation of William Farr, in the parish of
Buckland, in the County of Kent, intended to be set
apart for the worship of Almighty God, according to
the rules and ceremonies of the Church of England,
was registered in the Consistory Court of Canterbury,
according to Act of Parliament, this 6th day of
September, 1806." That meeting place was rot a chapel,
but four years later, in 1810, a Wesleyan Chapel was built
at Buckland on the east side of the London Road, and that



206 ANNALS OF DOVER.

was the first movement for providing accommodation for
religious worship in Dover, outside the Church of
England in the Nineteenth Century. The Baptists took
next step, in 1819, when the foundation was laid of
a new General Baptist Chapel just below the town wall, off
Adrian Street, to take the place of the smaller structure
built in Market Lane by Captain Tavener's successors. In
1823 the Particular Baptists built a Chapel on the Pent
Side to accommodate 500 persons. The members of that
section of Baptists fell off in the latter part of the Nineteenth
Century, and it being thought the locality was disadvan-
tageous, the congregation migrated to Zion Chapel, which,
owing to the erection of a larger and more central fabric, had
become vacant.

Also, in 1823, St. John's Chapel in Middle Row. at
the Pier, was built by Mr. Iggulden for a congregation of
Wesleyan Dissentients, who, a few years later, transferred
it to the Independents. In 1839 an evening service in con-
nection with Trinity Church was commenced there, and con-
tinued until November 1842. In 1843 the Rev. F. Richardson
of the Countess of Huntingdon's connexion, preached there
and conducted a service in which the Liturgy of the Church
of England was used. The Chapel was then intended for
the benefit of mariners, and was maintained by Captain
Marryatt (of literary fame) and his .sister. Want of success
induced the Marrj-atts to abandon their efforts, and then
General Cosmo Gordon and Admiral Sir W. G. Parry, being
anxious that the services for sailors should be continued,
the Rev. William Yate, a clergyman of the Church of
England, was installed there in 1846. Mr. Yate subsequently
established the National Sailors' Home on an adjoining site,
and the Mariners' Chapel was carried on by Mr. Yate in
connection therewith, although on an independent financial
basis, for about 30 years. In the year 1877 the Rev. William
Yate died, ripe in age and full of honours, but after his
day, partly owing to the loss of his influence and also on
account of the decrease of the residents in the Pier District,
the congregation fell off and eventually St. John's Mariners'
Chapel was closed.

The Wesleyans entered on another building enterprise
in June, 1834. Their Chapel built forty-five years previously
in Elizabeth Square was too small, and too far from the
centre of population. Their new Chapel was built under



THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 207

the cliff in Snargate Street, adjoining the Grand MiUtary
Shaft. The Duke of VVeUington and his assistant Com-
missioners of Dover Harbour granted a lease of the site for
99 years. The foundation was laid on the 3rd June, 1834,
by Mr. Whitje, who had been a member of the Society
when John Wesley preached in Elizabeth Square new Chapel
in 1789. The building was quickly raised, and was opened
for public worship on the 3rd October, 1834.

Five years later the Wesleyans built another large
Chapel at Buckland, opposite the smaller one erected in
1810. This was one of the many Chapels built, in various
parts of the world, in 1839, in celebration of the Centenary
of Wesleyan Methodism. It was commenced in June and
finished in December, 1839. The cost of the building was
;j£^i,839; the figures representing the cost and the date of
erection forming a curious coincidence.

The Independents — now better known as Congrega-
tionalists — in 1838, built a large Chapel in Russell Street
at a cost of _;^ 1,700, which, owing to the building of a
larger and more central fabric in High Street, is now used
for Sunday School and Mission purposes.

Salem Chapel, in Biggin Street, was built in 1840 by
a portion of the Pent-side congregation, who were described
as " Open Communionists, " and who seceded from Pent-
side on that point. The Chapel was built and opened in
the year 1840, the first service in it being held in thje month
of August. The Rev. James P. Hewlett was the first
Minister, and there have been seven since, including Major
Passingham, an Army officer, who, finding the cause at a
very low ebb in 1871, took charge, without stipend; and
having, in the course of about five years, brought together
a large congregation with a flourishing Church and Sunday
School, he transferred the charge to a regular Minister.

In the year 1850, Mr. Steriker Finnis, who built the
first part of the district known as Tower Hamlets, gave to
the Wesleyans a site to build a Chapel, on the north side
of Tower Hamlets Street. The Chapel, which is a small
one, was built and opened in 1850; a Sunday School as
well as Sunday evening services are carried on there.

The Roman Catholics — who first (since the Reformation)
had public services in Dover in 1822 — in the year 1835
purchased the old Wesleyan Chapel in Elizabeth Street,
which had been vacated when Snargate Street Wesleyan



208 ANNALS OF DOVER.

Chapel was opened in 1834. The CathoUcs gave ^425 for
the Chapel, and spent ;£75o more in restoring it and building
a priest's house. This old Chapel, originally opened by John
Wesley in 1789, was used by the Roman CathoHcs from
1835 until their new Church was opened in the Maison Dieu
Road thirty-three years later.

The Jews opened their first Synagogue in Hawkesbury
Street, Dover, a small but neat building, on the ist April,
1836, and it continued to be used until 1862.

The Primitive Methodists first missioned Dover in 1848,
but at that time they had only two small preaching places,
one in Round Tower Lane at the Pier, and another in a
cowshed loft at Brook Street, Charlton, their ministers being
Messrs. J. Calvert and W. Jull. At the same time there
was a meeting place of Hyper-Calvinists, in a building
called " The Ark," near the Stembrook Mill in Castle
Street, and a meeting house of the Latter Day Saints in
Chapel Place. Thus it will be seen that in the first half of
the Nineteenth Century congregations of nearly all the
religious sects had meeting places in Dover.



THE mSTORY OF RELIGION. 5209