Wiveliscombe Evangelical Congregational Church

The fellowship of Christians that meets in Wiveliscombe Congregational Church today can trace its roots back to 1662.

On 24 August 1662 the Act of Uniformity came into force. The Act required all ministers of religion to conform exactly to the form of worship and church government laid down in the new Prayer Book. There were almost two thousand Church of England clergymen who refused to comply with this Act and were accordingly ejected from their post - their ‘living’ – and among them was Rev. George Day, vicar of St. Andrew’s, Wiveliscombe.

Rev. Day was followed by part of his former congregation who still valued his ministry and they began meeting at the house of Mr. Joseph Stocker in North Street. Despite the heavy state persecution that non-conformist Christians were facing at this time, by 1669 there were about eighty people meeting in Mr Stocker’s house. These people were variously known as ‘separatists’, ‘dissenters’ or ‘non-conformists’.

The persecution went from bad to worse, reaching its peak in the years 1685-88 when the Catholic King James II was on the throne. However, his reign was short, and he was deposed in 1688 by the Protestant William of Orange who brought religious freedom with his Toleration Act of 1689. One of the provisions of this act was that places of worship had to be licensed. The Dissenters of Wiveliscombe duly licensed an outbuilding at the Old Court House in Silver Street as their new meeting house, although the congregation soon outgrew this building and they converted a house in North Street for use as a meeting place. This building, known as ‘The Old Meeting House’ was demolished in around 1960 in order to build North Street Garage.

Rev. Day left in 1697, and visiting pastors from neighbouring churches took turns in coming to come to Wiveliscombe to preach and conduct services. In 1706 Rev. John Short became pastor and the fellowship was formally constituted as an independent Presbyterian Church. The following year work on a new church building began and in 1708 the present chapel in Silver Street was opened. This original chapel was square in shape, there were no pews and the congregation stood on the flagstone floor (recently the original flagstones saw the light of day briefly when the vestibule carpet was replaced).

With the passing of time, being a non-conformist lost much of the social stigma which had originally been attached to it. The church, whose members a hundred years previously had suffered persecution and hardship in the name of the gospel, was now a relatively affluent, comfortable middle-class institution. The great spiritual awakening that swept through Britain under the preaching of John Wesley and George Whitfield at this period mostly affected the working-classes (giving rise to Methodism), and churches like that in Wiveliscombe experienced a gradual stagnation of their spiritual life and decline in membership.

As a result, when Rev. R. Parminter retired in 1799, the church was unable to call another minister and seemed on the verge of closure. But it struggled on and in 1804 theological students from a college in Plymouth started visiting and re-established a regular teaching ministry. One of these students was called Joseph Buck, and in 1807 he became minister of the church.

Joseph Buck exercised a long and fruitful ministry. During his thirty years as pastor, the church experienced steady growth and developed in many areas. In 1810 the burial ground beside the chapel was purchased; Rev. Buck was instrumental in the building of Milverton Congregational Chapel, which opened in 1821, and in 1825 the Wiveliscombe chapel was enlarged from 30’ x 30’ to its present 50’ x 30’ to cope with a growing congregation. In 1830 Mr. Buck formed a ‘Tract Society’ and started a ministry of evangelism in the surrounding villages.

Joseph Buck died suddenly in 1837, but not before he had prepared the ‘ground-work’ for the fellowship at Wiveliscombe to formally join the Congregational Union. In 1838, the church was able to purchase the freehold of the chapel, and vested the trust deeds with the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Thus the Wiveliscombe Congregational Church came into being.

After Joseph Buck died in 1837, the church continued to flourish under a succession of good ministers and revival.

Extracts from the church records give us a glimpse of two further generations of growth:

1857 – the schoolroom building across the courtyard from the chapel was built to accommodate the growing Sunday-School.

1860 – “A year of Revival. The services with but few exceptions were crowded, religious feeling in the town was intense, the influence extended to the neighbouring villages, and many were the saved of the Lord.”

1861 – “Commenced by weeks of special prayer, and as predecessor was one of revival…remarkable conversions chiefly in Lydeard St.Lawrence and Pitsford Hill.”

1869 – “Daily prayer-meetings were held on account of a great awakening having taken place. Upwards of 150 persons attended every evening. Many were soundly converted.”

1876-77 – Chapel twice enlarged. Firstly the side-gallery was built, and later the whole chapel re-seated.

1890 – A Sunday School of 240 necessitated the building of a separate two-story block of classrooms.

1901 – Great blessing, and 45 new members joining the church in the year.

At the turn of the century, a new organ was installed, replacing the original instrument which had previously belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. This organ is now in Australia.

From the 1890s to the 1920s, an Adult Bible Class which drew over 200 people each week was held in the chapel on Sunday afternoons. It was led by Mr. W. Brown, the town’s veterinary surgeon.

From the 1930s onwards, the spiritual life of the church – and attendance – began to decline, in common with many churches across Britain.

By the mid-1950s all three major churches in Wiveliscombe had seen numbers drop considerably. Over the previous thirty years the effects of ‘liberal theology’ and ‘modernism’ had filtered down from the academic world to affect churches.

This spiritual vacuum led to the formation of the Wiveliscombe Christian Fellowship in 1955, under the leadership of the new local doctor, George Kelly. Committed Christians from the three different churches in Wiveliscombe, together with those from neighbouring towns and villages, came together across the denominational divides to maintain the cause of biblical Christianity.

The Christian Fellowship became famous for its Choir (which travelled around southern Britain proclaiming the gospel in song, and Dr.Kelly preaching), and for its ‘Bible Teaching Meetings’, held quarterly at the recently-built Secondary Modern School (now Kingsmead). Almost a thousand people would cram into the school hall to listen to men such as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Leith Samuel, General Sir Arthur Smith, Leslie Land, and Alan Redpath.

Whilst the Christian Fellowship grew, the other churches continued to decline. By the time of Dr. Kelly’s death in 1974, at the Congregational Church there was just a handful of members meeting in one of the schoolrooms. This group had stayed independent when the Congregational Union and the Presbyterians had united to form the United Reformed Church in 1972, and was now constituted as the Wiveliscombe Evangelical Congregational Church.

On 26th April 1975 Rev W. B. Forsyth was inducted as Pastor. He was a retired missionary who had been in Brazil for forty six years. In August 1979, under his pastoral leadership, the Wiveliscombe Evangelical Congregational Church and the Wiveliscombe Christian Fellowship joined together to form a united evangelical fellowship. This marked the beginning of a new era of growth for the church. The chapel had been redecorated following a fire at the end of 1975, which gave the opportunity to remove some pews and create a larger and more convenient vestibule.

The church grew slowly under Mr Forsyth’s ministry and that of his successor, Rev Ian Rees, who left at the end of 1998. New heating was installed in 1998 and the chapel was redecorated in 1999 in time for the induction of the next minister, Rev Chris Jones. Rev. Jones did not stay in Wiveliscombe very long, leaving in the spring of 2002. His successor, Alan Millar took up the post in June 2003 and is the current Pastor.

There is now a steadily growing group of Christians, of all ages and all walks of life, meeting at the Congregational Chapel for worship each Sunday. You are sincerely invited to join us, and can be sure of a warm welcome!

 

The Christian Fellowship became famous for its Choir (which travelled around southern Britain proclaiming the gospel in song, and Dr.Kelly preaching), and for its ‘Bible Teaching. meetings’

 

The church grew slowly under Mr Forsyth’s ministry and that of his successor, Rev Ian Rees.