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Wainsgate Baptist Church History

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WAINSGATE:
Wainsgate Baptist Church History up to 1912.

Source=h:/!Genuki/RecordTranscriptions/WRY/BaptistChurches.txt

WAINSGATE BAPTIST CHURCH

The Wainsgate Church will be for ever associated with the name of Dr. John Fawcett. Its rise, in 1750, and the history of its first fifty years, have been already related in a previous chapter. When the little company built their first modest meeting-house on the Wainsgate farm, far up the moor-side, they found they had not raised the walls high enough. This defect was remedied by the economical, but scarcely satisfactory, method of digging out the inside of the building, which they lowered by eighteen inches. In this chapel they remained until the necessities of space compelled them to erected a new building, in 1815.

In the year 1800, Isaac Normington became the eighth pastor of the Church, and remained for ten years. He was immediately followed by Rev. Mark Holroyd, who exercised a ministry of twenty-five years, at the close of which he proceeded to the United States. The Church now experienced a succession of four brief pastorates, namely :-those of Joseph Garside (1837-9); Jonas Smith (1845-7); Thomas Hanson (1849-51), and Thomas Vasey (1851-5). On April 26th, 1855, Rev. John Bamber came to Wainsgate and commenced a period of faithful service which extended to 1878. One of his first efforts was the building of a new chapel, which was opened on May 24th, 1860. The work had been entered upon with such zeal that the cost of 1458 was more than provided at the close of the opening services. Mr. Bamber was succeeded by Revs. G. W. Wilkinson (1878-94); David Lindsay (1896-99); James Jack (1901-6), and the present pastor, Rev. Ernest Higson, who settled at Wainsgate in 1910.

In 1905 the Church became possessed of a large new cemetery, which, with the old graveyard, is one of our most interesting Baptist burial places. The interior of Wainsgate presents a startling surprise to the visitor, for he will find within the plain exterior one of the most beautiful and costly marble pulpits which the denomination possesses. This was the gift of Mrs. Mitchell and Miss Cousin, in 1891. The communion table was presented by the Redman family. Here, too, are "storied windows richly dight," the remarkably fine series of stained glass lights having been presented by the Mitchell family of Boston Hill. The Church bears nobly its burden of years, and is the centre of much spiritual activity.


Transcribed by Colin Hinson © 2014
from the "Present Churches" section of
The Baptists of Yorkshire
by Rev. J. Brown Morgan
and Rev. C.E. Shipley