"THE PUBLIC ARE RESPECTFULLY INFORMED THAT IT IS INTENDED TO
CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF THIS EDIFICE IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER. A
SERMON WILL BE PREACHED BY THE REV CHARLES PREST, PRESIDENT OF THE
CONFERENCE"
So read the announcement of the opening of the new Harrogate
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Allotment Field. Besides the President
there were other important people there on the morning of Friday,
October 3rd, 1862. The Secretary of Conference, Rev John Farrar, the
Rev. W. Lord of Woodhouse Grove, and the Rev Charles Churchill of
"Eastern British America," with other notable gentlemen, all formed
part of what the Harrogate Advertiser pleasantly described as "a
large and highly respectable congregation."
But the day really belonged to the 234 members of the Church who,
by the morning of Friday, had already cleared £3,197 of their
current liabilities of £4,000. The final account, which would
include the outside stone flagging, the iron palisades, and a host
of small items, was to close on March 14th, 1865, at a total of
£4,821, but for the moment the Treasurer, that redoubtable
gentleman, Mr. Pickersgill Palliser, could rejoice that four-fifths
of the debt was behind him.
The President preached from the 6th verse of the 2nd chapter of
1st Corinthians, "How be it we speak wisdom among them that are
perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world." A public dinner was to
follow the service but since it was not due to start until two
o'clock, the President had, no doubt, ample time to develop his
theme. He pointed out to his people that the integrity of the Word
was their protection against false prophets, and their consciences
their guide against false interpreters — a timely word to a Church
already perhaps feeling troubled by the problems raised by Darwin's
"Origin of Species" published only three years previously, and still
selling in Mr Thomas Hollins' bookshop in Park Parade, where Messrs
W D Dobson still carry on the business.
Forty-five guests walked along to the Brunswick Hotel (later the
Prince of Wales), probably stopping to comment with interest on the
new independent. Church at the corner of Victoria Avenue and West
Park, opened only two months previously. They would walk along the
edge of a Stray which would have looked sadly ill-cared for to our
eyes, seeing, perhaps, ahead of them the old Brunswick Station
situated on what is now that portion of the Stray in front of
Trinity Church. Beyond the station they would still see the exit of
the tunnel which, having run under the present Langcliffe Avenue,
emerged at Royal Crescent, carrying the old Church Fenton line into
Harrogate. The present station had been opened on August 1st,
linking the line from the South to that from the North and thus
making Harrogate more accessible to the visitors who still play an
important part in the life of all the central town churches.
No doubt the diners at the Brunswick Hotel would dine rather more
substantially than we should today foe the half crown which they
paid for their lunch, and, when the table was cleared, they settled
down to the serious business of the afternoon.
Mr W Holdsworth proposed the health of the President and, when
the President had replied, six more speakers took up the tale. It is
interesting to note that three of the eight speakers at this lunch
were from Leeds — interesting because it reminds us that the friends
from Leeds had contributed most generously to the cost of building
both the old Chapel in 1824 and this present Chapel. Indeed the
posters advertising the opening contained the following
announcement, "A Special Train will leave Wellington Station. Leeds,
on the day of opening, at 9-45 am, and will return from the
Harrogate Station at 9-30 pm" If this return train seemed to he
timed, to our modern way of thinking, a little late for an evening
meeting due to start at 6 pm, we must remember that Addresses were
to be given by no fewer than Seven Ministers and Two Local
Preachers. We can but hope that if the good friends from Leeds had
to run for their train, they did not disturb the meeting.
Let us leave these folk listening contentedly to their nine
speakers and pause to consider why they had built this Church. The
story related in the 50th Anniversary Booklet of 1912, tells that
the Rev Henry Pollinger, who came to the Church in September, 1860,
called his Church Officers together one evening, only a few months
after his arrival, and told them bluntly that unless they built a
larger Church he would leave them. Henry Pollinger's ultimatum was
probably not the only reason for the building of he present "Wesley"
for, at the Stonelaying Ceremony in October, 1861, the then
President,the Rev J Rattenbury, said that to his knowledge this
project had been talked of for twenty-five years.
The Chapel to which Mr. Pollinger had come in 1860 was situated
at the corner of Beulah Street and Oxford Street. It had been built
in 1824 to hold 550, and though the membership had doubled since
that day it was still only 190. That old Chapel might well have been
sufficient for the needs of the membership for most of the hundred
years since it was sold, but it would not have been adequate for a
Circuit Chapel. The courage with which they looked to the future in
building a Circuit Chapel capable of holding nearly one thousand
people may he judged from the fact that, on that day in 1860 when
they decided to build, Beulah Chapel was not only the head of the
Circuit, it actually was the Circuit. There were preaching places at
Starbeck and at Bilton, each with ten members, but the membership of
the Circuit amounted to the 190 mentioned previously. Starbeck built
a Chapel in 1861 and Bar was built in 1865, and for another fourteen
years these three Chapels formed the Circuit.
The ground on which the Chapel stood had been bought from the
Victoria Park Estate, and a skeleton map prepared in 1864 by this
Company, which owned large parts of the town centre, shows how nobly
the new Chapel stood. Facing South as it does, it could look out
over a Cambridge Road with open land on either side, and be seen
from far across the West Park Stray. Oxford Street was built up on
the South side, but except for Craven Lodge, a large house on the
North side of Oxford Street, immediately across the road, there appears
to have been only open fields across to the present Bower Road, so
that it must have dominated the view from the East. From the North,
too, since Cheltenham Mount was as yet unbuilt, it would stand out
from Jinny Plain on the top of Ripon Road.
The exterior of the Chapel is described as "of plain character,
with the exception of the front, which is of the Italian Style.
Three columns of the Corinthian order are at the side of the
entrances." Inside, the general colour scheme appears to have been
one of dark brown paint on the woodwork relieved by the crimson
cloth of the pulpit and pew seats. The pulpit itself was circular in
shape but small in diameter and standing much higher than the.
present rostrum, being reached by steps which wound halfway round
the pulpit. The organ was the one brought from the old Chapel. It
was much smaller in size than the present organ and must have stood
rather insignificantly, for the Ladies of the Sewing Meeting did not
delay long before purchasing a curtain to hide it. Downstairs were
the classrooms and, at the front end, was the Chapel Keeper's
accommodation. On his "front door" the letter box can still be seen.
The Chapel Keeper, John Benson was, incidentally, a man of note and
a power in the Church. A member of the Beulah Chapel when it was
built in 1824, he became the Chapel Keeper there in 1826. He could
neither read nor write, yet possessed an extraordinary knowledge of
the Bible and of Wesley's hymns. He was the Leader of two classes
(one of which seems to have been consistently the largest of the
Society Classes) and remained the Chapel Keeper of the new Chapel
until he was given a pension in May 1874, dying in the following
year.
There were other men of note, too, in the congregation that
night, but of the nine people who were speaking on this night, only
one was a member of that congregation. There would have been no
question as to who that one should be, for William Greensmith, with
seventy years of Methodist life and Methodist family tradition
behind him, was their acknowledged leader. His family had carried on
the manufacture of hosiery in Nottinghamshire for over two hundred
years and. his father had been one of the first men of substance to
open his house to itinerant Methodist Preachers. William Greensmith
as a boy was losing his eyesight at the age of nine when there came
to the house a travelling Preacher, a Mr Bramwell. Just before
leaving to continue his journey, Bramwell laid his hands on the
boy's head and prayed that his eyesight might be restored. It was
restored - immediately - and it never failed again. He had walked
"in newness of life" since the age of 22 and throughout his long
life he never failed to put his resources, spiritual and financial,
at the disposal of the church, however often they were called for.
He came to Harrogate in 1832, either to start or to take over a
retail hosiery business in Regent Parade, and immediately attached
himself to the Methodist cause in Chapel Street.
From 1855 to 1857 three men led the church in the effort to gain
for themselves a Minister of their own, a struggle which resulted
not only in their receiving a Minister hut also in being constituted
a Circuit.
If William Greensmith was the leader, he must often have had
cause to be grateful for the shrewdness and the seemingly boundless
energy of the Chapel Treasurer, Pickersgill Palliser, whose name is
almost legendary in the history of early Victorian Harrogate. He
appears in the list of Pew Sittings as early as 1825. He published a
"Weekly List of Visitors" in 1835, and in 1837 he adopted for this
Weekly List the title of "The Harrogate Advertiser." In an article
published in the "Advertiser" of April 29th, 1861. Mr W
Haythornthwaite tells us that in addition to publishing a newspaper
he was also an Insurance Agent; he took in visitors and let out on
hire "Piano Fortes" he became a Postmaster and acted, also, as
Secretary of the Baths Hospital. But if William Greensmith and
Leonard Hobkinson ever exchanged a quizzical glance as they
contemplated the multifarious activities of Palliser, they also knew
that they could rely entirely and without question on his loyalty to
his church. He became Treasurer in 1861 and continued in that office
until 1881.
Leonard Hobkinson was the third of that trio. A deeply spiritual
man, he was greatly loved by the people of his day, and we, a
hundred years later, have good cause to be grateful to him for he
was the only one of the three to leave behind him a line of
descendants with an unbroken record of service to Wesley.
And of course there were the others, the men and women whose
efforts had built the church in which they sang so proudly that
night. The Preface to the Methodist Hymn Book begins with the words
"Methodism was born in song." But if it was born in song, the church
which bears the name of Methodist has lived only because its people
learned to give, and give again, and keep on giving. These people
had learned that lesson. Whether they were a hardier race than we
are today may he a difficult question to answer, though the fact
that they were sitting there listening quite contentedly to nine
speakers may, at least, give us a clue. They were a "peculiar
people," a people set apart; and the knowledge of this imposed a
certain discipline on their lives and on their beliefs. They
remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and the holiness of the
day was rigidly observed; they had their prayer meetings and their
class meetings, and the Preaching Plan showed a Quarterly Fast Day.
They knew, too, what they believed, for they believed the Bible.
They did not interpret it nor explain it away; they just believed
it. We may look askance at the rigid discipline with which their
homes were ruled, but it is as well to remember that most of them
applied this same discipline to their own lives. We may not accept
their uncompromising beliefs and standards, but we do accept, with
gratitude to God, the church which they built and left to us.
