THE JOURNAL of the UNITED REFORMED CHURCH HISTORY SOCIETY (incorporating the Congregational Historical Society, founded in 1899, and the Presbyterian Historical Society of England founded in 1913.) . EDITOR; Dr. CLYDE BINFIELD, M.A., F.S.A. Volume 5 No.8 May 1996 CONTENTS Editorial and Notes .......................................... 438 Gordon Esslemont by Stephen Orchard, M.A., Ph.D. 439 The Origins of the Missionary Society by Stephen Orchard, M.A., Ph.D . ........................... 440 Manliness and Mission: Frank Lenwood and the London Missionary Society by Brian Stanley, M.A., Ph.D . .............................. 458 Training for Hoxton and Highbury: Walter Scott of Rothwell and his Pupils by Geoffrey F. Nuttall, F.B.A., M.A., D.D. ................... 477 Mr. Seymour and Dr. Reynolds by Edwin Welch, M.A., Ph.D., F.S.A. ....................... 483 The Presbyterians in Liverpool. Part 3: A Survey 1900-1918 by Alberta Jean Doodson, M.A., Ph.D . ....................... 489 Review Article: Only Connect by Stephen Orchard, M.A., Ph.D. 495 Review Article: Mission and Ecclesiology? Some Gales of Change by Brian Stanley, M.A., Ph.D . .............................. 499 Short Reviews by Daniel Jenkins and David M. Thompson 503 Some Contemporaries by Alan P.F. Sell, M.A., B.D., Ph.D . ......................... 505 437 438 EDITORIAL There is a story that when Mrs. Walter Peppercorn gave birth to her eldest child her brother expressed the hope that the little peppercorn would never get into a piclde. This so infuriated Mr. Peppercorn that he changed their name to Lenwood: or so his wife's family liked to believe. They were prosperous Sheffielders whom he greatly surprised by leaving a considerable fortune; he had proved to be their equal in business. Walter Lenwood's pastorates were varied and bold, charncterised by an intelligently extrovert Evangelicalism. When Dr. Duff of Yorkshire United Independent College laid the foundation stone of a new Free Christian Church in Doncaster (its minister had been a Congregationalist), Lenwood was one offourteen Sheffield Congregational ministers who protested to the local Press. As he wrote on 26 April 1912: "Is the Deity of Christ an ordinary doctrine open at will to acceptance or rejection among us? I give an emphatic NO ... [It] is the one most vital truth of all Scripture to me, and if you take that away all else in the Book loses its force". Eighteen years later Walter's son, Fronk Lenwood, published a book, Jesus- Lord or Leader? (1930), which tried to take that truth away. Yet Frank Lenwood was one of the most attractive of early twentieth-century Congregationalism's missionary statesmen, and Brian Stanley made him the subject of our Society's Annual Lecture for 1995. Dr. Stanley lectures in Church History at Trinity College, Bristol. He is the historian of the Baptist Missionary Society and here he also reviews Gales of Change, the volume of essays in commemoration of the London Missionary Society's bicentenary. Stephen Orchard's paper was also delivered as a bicentenary lecture. His approach allowed him to consider Lady Huntingdon's concern for overseas mission and here he also reviews Spiritual Pilgrim, Edwin Welch's reassessment of the life of that extraordinary woman. Notes: Mme. E.R. Ramanandraibe (30 rue Pasteur Rabary, Antananarivo, 101, Madagascar) is urgently seeking information about the Royal Chapel and neighbouring buildings which form one of the most important historic sites of the Malagasy capital. They were recently destroyed by fire and the intention is to rebuild them. Dr. Elaine Kaye (31 Rowland Close, Wolvercote, Oxford, OX2 8PW), in collaborntion with Janet Lees and as part of the project "Daughters of Dissent", is collecting reminiscences from retired women who have played a public role in Congregationalism, the United Reformed Church and its constituent trnditions. The Association of Denominational Historical Societies and Cognate Libraries held its first occasional conference at Westhill College, Birmingham 8-30 July 1995. The convenor of the Association, Professor Alan P.F. Sell, Aberystwyth, presided. The objectives of the Association are to facilitate the exchange of information among members, and to encournge research into the several traditions, with special reference to projects which encompass more than one trndition. The conference theme was "Protestant Nonconformists and the West Midlands EDITORIAL 439 of England." Papers were presented by speakers nominated by member societies: John Briggs (Baptist Historical Society), Margaret Gayner (Friends' H.S.), Eifion Powell (Welsh Independents' H.S.), Alan Argent (Congregational History Circle), David Wykes (Unitarian H.S.), Dorothy Graham (Wesley H.S.) and David Thompson (United Reformed Church H.S.). Subjects included Baptist Church planting, Quaker organization, the Welsh diaspora, the Priestley Riots of 1791, and the Primitive Methodist foundation, Bourne College. In addition, the bicentenary of the London Missionary Society was marked in a paper on its regional pioneers, while in another lecture the centenary of the death of R.W. Dale of Carrs Lane Church, Birmingham, was recalled. It is expected that the conference papers will be published in 1996. The Annual Meeting of the Association was held at Dr. Williams's Library, London on Thursday 26 October 1995 at 2.00 p.m., when Alan Argent delivered a lecture on "Ruskin, Coventry Patmore and the Congregational Minister." The Revd. Dr. Stuart Mews (Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education, PO Box 220, The Park, Cheltenham, GL50 2QF) writes: "A.W.W. Dale's life of R.W. Dale says (p.203) that allowing his beard to grow in the 1860s caused consternation and letters to the press. Can you help with this one? Which paper, and when precisely?" GORDON ESSLEMONT Our vice-president and former secretary, Gordon Esslemont, died early in November 1995, after a long period of poor health, in a nursing home at Bury St. Edmunds. Mr. Esslemont was one of the two secretaries elected at the formation of the Society, having previously served the Presbyterian Historical Society of England. He was much involved in the transfer of the Library from what is now room 38 to its present site and put in many years of voluntary work, cataloguing, listing and answering queries. He worked for the Society well into his eighties, and older members may remember his enthusiastic presence at our Study Weekends, most recently and fittingly at Hengrave Hall. In his professional life he had been company secretary with Heinz and any sense of thoroughness to be found in our minutes is entirely due to his initial influence. He was a keen Scottish dancer and promoter of his national culture. With the late Fred Keay and John Watson he made up a powerful triumvirate of North London Presbytery elders, who not only served their local church faithfully but gave generous time to looking after our historic interests. It was entirely typical of him that, having spent much time on a register of English Presbyterian churches for the Library, he should, after 1972, embark on the more difficult task of making as complete a listing of English Congregational churches by county as could be managed. We have lost a genial friend as well as as tireless worker. STEPHEN ORCHARD 440 THE ORIGINS OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY The origins of popular movements are notoriously difficult to trace, and this is no _less the case when looking for the beginnings of the missionary enthusiasm wlllch gripped Evangelical Christians in the 1750s. Certain factors may be seen as contributory. The idea of a missionary was as old as the Gospel itself; Evangelical Christians, by definition, took the Gospel seriously. The Roman Catholic Church had sponsored overseas missions through the Jesuits for two hundred years. Although Evangelical Christians regarded Catholics as prisoners of Antichrist they were made familiar with the notion that white European Christians might travel overseas for a religious purpose. More to the purpose the Moravians, with whom the early Evangelicals such as Wesley and the Countess of Huntingdon were closely associated, had an heroic missionary record. There was a Danish Protestant missionary society with which the British met in India. Not least, there were in Britain two societies with a missionary basis, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Therefore, the notion of missionaries was familiar- to the Evangelicals. John Wesley and Benjamin Ingham went out from Oxford to Georgia as missionaries. Wesley's own grandfather, a Nonconfonnist, had been enthusiastic about overseas missions, and the need for them was only made more apparent by the growth of colonialism. I Wesley went on a mission to what were then termed the Red Indians, that is to say the native people of North America, and found the colonists in at least as great a need of his ministrations. More commonly clergy went overseas as chaplains to the white communities and were occasionally stirred to do something about those they saw as the heathen at their gate. The growth of Britain's colonial territories brought an awareness of the potential for overseas missions, which was deepened by the discoveries of Cook and other explorers. The English conscience was stirred by stories of the Juggernaut and of cannibalism. The idea of a morality based on natural law, which had seemed attractive in a Deist Europe, looked very suspect in the context of other cultures. In any case, Evangelical Christians