History

The History of the Unitarians in Merseyside and the District is prolific.

The social contribution to the city has spread across the nation, public libraries, recreational parks, educational institutes, the training of nursing and much more. These social actions centred from a religious need to help those in the margins of our societies, to empower and liberate a soul from suffering. To illuminate the mind and that our salvation is to be the whole person… words of spiritual nourishment, compassion and charity were found in the Unitarian churches, below are some images of churches held in the Merseyside and District that are no longer with us.

The Octagon Chapel, Liverpool, was a nonconformist church in Liverpool, England, opened in 1763. It was founded by local congregations, those of Benn's Garden and Kaye Street chapels. The aim was to use a non-sectarian liturgy; Thomas Bentley was a major figure in founding the chapel, and had a hand in the liturgy.

The dissenting group in Liverpool in the middle of the eighteenth century was in numerical terms shrinking. Many from congregations had conformed to the Church of England. A plan for a set liturgy, as a method of reform of dissenting services, was proposed by some Lancashire ministers in 1750. Despite open opposition by John Brekell from 1758, who by then had been ministering at the Kaye Street Chapel for nearly 30 years, the compilation of a new liturgy went ahead. The Kaye Street Chapel (also Key Street) dated from 1707, and belonged to the Warrington presbyterian classis.

The Benn's Garden Chapel in Red Cross Street, Liverpool, dated from 1727 and had been built for the presbyterian minister Henry Winder. In 1763 its minister John Henderson became a conforming Anglican; at that point William Enfield became sole minister there to a congregation with many local merchants. While Brekell was a conservative Presbyterian, and Enfield's theology was Unitarian, the ministers of the two chapels from which the Octagon congregation had broken away then worked together on an alternative work, A New Collection of Psalms Proper for Christian Worship (1764).

A listing of the non-Anglican places of worship in Liverpool in 1775 mentions, besides the two Presbyterian chapels and the Octagon: a Methodist chapel; two Baptist meeting-places; a Quaker meeting-house; a Catholic chapel and a synagogue, both small. The population was around 35,000.

As the name suggests, the building had eight sides, like the Octagon Chapel, Norwich (1756, Thomas Ivory). The chapel was to a design by Joseph Finney and was built in Temple Court. Nicholas Clayton, of Unitarian views, accepted an invitation to become the first minister there; the appointment was joint with Hezekiah Kirkpatrick.^[10] The congregation were nicknamed the Octagonians. but the chapel's existence depended very much on Bentley, who eventually moved to London. The experimental liturgy did not gain the anticipated support, from those in the founding congregations who did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer.

The chapel was sold in 1776, to a clergyman, Rev. Plumbe, Rector of Aughton; and became an Anglican church, St Catherine's. The Anglican incumbents were Rev. John Plumbe; Rev. Wilmot; Rev. Brownlow Forde; and jointly RK Milner and Thomas Bold. The building was demolished in 1820, the Corporation of Liverpool having bought it; and a Fire Police Station was built on the site.

Clayton moved from 1776 to share the ministry at Benn's Garden Chapel with Robert Lewin (1739–1825), of Arian views, until 1781. In later years Lewin's congregation there was considered Unitarian, and included William Rathbone and William Roscoe. This congregation moved in time to Renshaw Street Unitarian Chapel, the Benn's Garden chapel being sold to Wesleyan Methodists. The contemporary Ullet Road Unitarian Church identifies its history as going back to Winder's congregation. In 1786 Kirkpatrick became the minister of Park Lane Chapel, Bryn, near Wigan.

Hope Street Chapel was a Unitarian place of worship in Liverpool, England. It stood on Hope Street next to the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, about halfway between the Anglican and Catholic Cathedrals. The congregation had previously been based in Paradise Street and before that in Kaye Street. The church was opened in 1849, and demolished in 1962.

There was a presbyterian congregation in Kaye Street (or Key Street), Liverpool when Christopher Bassnett was appointed minister there in 1709. He was there until his death in 1744, assisted by John Brekell from about 1729. Brekell took over and was pastor then to his death in 1769. His assistant from 1767, Philip Taylor, succeeded him, after a period when presbyterian dissent had been in retreat in the city.

In 1777 John Yates, a Unitarian, became the minister at the Kaye Street Chapel. In 1791 the congregation moved with him to Paradise Street Chapel, from which he retired in 1823. After Pendlebury Houghton had been minister for about a year, John Grundy took over. James Martineau joined him as a colleague in 1832, and Grundy, in poor health, stepped down in 1835. Martineau had a Gothic church built in 1848, in Hope Street, and the congregation moved there.