Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist Methodist movement of George Whitefield.[1]
John Marrant (1755–1791), an African American who became an ordained minister with the Connexion, was born in New York City and lived in the American South. There he had been a noted evangelist as a young man amongst the Cherokee Native Americans in South Carolina. After the American Revolution, Marrant was assigned in 1785 to the Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia; they were African-American former slaves who had been freed by the British after the Revolution and evacuated to safety. Many of these ethnic African Americans chose to leave Nova Scotia and resettle at the end of the 18th century in Britain's new colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. It was established as a place for blacks from London, Nova Scotia and Jamaica.
In the 1850s John Molson built a church for the Connexion group near his brewery in Montreal. It was poorly attended and soon became used instead as a military barracks.[2]
Today the Connexion church has 21 congregations in England and some in Sierra Leone. Of the UK churches six normally have full-time pastors: Eastbourne, Ely, Goring, St. Ives, Turners Hill and Ebley. Total attendance at all churches is approximately 1,000 adults and children.[3]
Churches
Active
The connexion has churches present in:
- Ely, Cambridgeshire: New Connexions Free Church, Ely
- Copthorne, West Sussex: Copthorne Chapel
- Ely Cambridgeshire: Countess Free Church, Ely
- Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex: Shoreham Free Church
- Eastbourne, East Sussex: South Street Free Church
- Turners Hill, West Sussex: Turners Hill Free Church
- Woodmancote, Gloucestershire: Woodmancote Evangelical Free Church
- Wormey, between Hoddesdon and Cheshunt, Hertfordshire: Wormley Free Church
- Cradley, Herefordshire, near Malvern, founded 1823
- Bells Yew Green, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
- Bolney, Haywards Heath, West Sussex
- Broad Oak, Canterbury, Kent
- Ebley, Stroud, Gloucestershire
- Goring-on-Thames, Reading, Berkshire
- Hailsham, East Sussex
- Middleton, Greater Manchester
- Mortimer West End, Padworth Common, Reading. Berkshire
- Rosedale, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire
- Leysdown, Isle of Sheppey, Kent
- St Ives, Cornwall
- Wivelsfield, East Sussex
No longer active
Connexion churches were formerly active in:
- Brighton, East Sussex, the first of the churches, founded at North Street in 1761.[4]
- Fordham, Essex, active in the 19th century.[5]
- Preston, Lancashire, founded before 1826, in Pole Street, the church is now closed.[6]
- South Stoke, Oxfordshire, founded in 1820,[7] is now a private house.[8]
- Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, founded 1789, known as Tyldesley Top Chapel.
References
- ↑
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- ↑ A Vision of Britain through Time. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
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External links
- Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion – official website
- Countess of Huntingdon Connexion History – South Street Free Evangelical Church
- New Connexions– New Connexions Group of Churches
- G.W. Kirby (1972), The Elect Lady
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- Articles incorporating a citation from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia with Wikisource reference
- 1783 establishments in England
- History of Christianity in the United Kingdom
- Methodism in England
- Methodist denominations
- Reformed denominations in Europe
- Calvinistic Methodists
- Religious organizations established in 1783
- Evangelical denominations
