Unitarian Church

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Frances Power Cobbe
The agnostic FPC wrote her best-known hymn, beginning For life, for health I bless Thee; it was popular later in the century in Unitarian and non-denominational hymn books.
qtd. in
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
68
Cultural formation Mary Scott
MS grew up in a prosperous, middle-class household, in which religion was the centre of everyday life and activity. Most sources agree that her family were Protestant Dissenters.
Though Anna Seward said they were Anglicans
Cultural formation Isabella Neil Harwood
Not much is known about INH 's early life or her life beyond her writing, except that she was born to Scottish and English parents of the professional class, who were Unitarians . As Richard Garnett
Cultural formation Anne Manning
She was born into a well-established English family; Charlotte Yonge says her father belonged to the higher professional class:
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
211
an uncle, cousin, and brother all distinguished themselves in legal fields.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
It is not...
Cultural formation Elizabeth Gaskell
EG was brought up in the Unitarian faith, taught to reject the concept of the Trinity and that of original sin, and to believe in the Scriptures and in reason. Unitarians presumed that the mind...
Cultural formation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
She was not baptised, since her father regarded the ceremony as a mere unmeaning shibboleth. Her radical and Unitarian family background encouraged her bent towards feminism and educational reform. She herself seems to have been...
Cultural formation Anne Marsh
AM was born into a family of the English gentry—though her father was half-Scots and originated from a much lower class. He and his family had been only two years at Talke at the time...
Cultural formation Julia Wedgwood
Her parents were connected to the Unitarian tradition descending in the family from Josiah Wedgwood as well as to the largely Anglican evangelical and philanthropic Clapham Sect centred close to their home in South London...
Cultural formation Mary Scott
MS became a Unitarian like John Taylor before she married him. It has been said that she followed him again in his further change of religious affiliation, becoming a Quaker in 1790.
Cultural formation Isabella Neil Harwood
Her father's family had a Baptist background, but there is no record that Phillip himself was ever a member of a Baptist church. By the time INH was born, he had already been a Unitarian
Cultural formation Mary Carpenter
She belonged to the English middle class; her parents were members of the intellectual aristrocracy of English puritanism, as her father was a dissenting Unitarian minister.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
She was the first of six children, three daughters...
Cultural formation Harriet Martineau
The English Martineaus came from French Huguenot stock: the first member of the family (according to HM herself) had settled in Norwich in 1688. She made a point, in a correction to the information provided...
Cultural formation Beatrice Webb
Her family were Unitarian s but her father converted to the Church of England . She followed his example and was confirmed as an Anglican while at boarding school in Bournemouth. But the hold of...
Cultural formation Margaret Sandbach
The Roscoes were a well-known, presumably white, Unitarian , intellectual family who were well established in the Liverpool area.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Cultural formation Ann Hawkshaw
As the daughter of a dissenting clergyman, AH was born into an English, middle-class, and presumably white family. Her father's parents were described in one source as of respectable character and station, engaged in agricultural...

Timeline

1749: David Hartley published Observations on Man,...

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1749

David Hartley published Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duties, and his Expectations, which established a materialist theory of the human mind.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1771: Political thinker Richard Price (who was...

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1771

Political thinker Richard Price (who was later a Unitarian ) published probably the best-known attack on enclosures, Observations on Reversionary Payments, which went through six editions.
Neeson, J. M. Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
24

17 April 1774: The inaugural service was held at the first...

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17 April 1774

The inaugural service was held at the first Unitarian chapel, in Essex Street, London.
Jebb, John. “Memoirs”. The Works, Theological, Medical, Political, and Miscellaneous, of John Jebb, M.D. F.R.S., edited by John Disney, T. Cadell, J. Johnson, and J. Stockdale; J. and J. Merrill, 1787, pp. 1: 1 - 227.
83
Webb, Robert Kiefer. “Miracles in English Unitarian Thought”. Enlightenment, Passion, Modernity: Historical Essays in European Thought and Culture, edited by Mark S. Micale and Robert L. Dietle, Stanford University Press, 2000, pp. 113-30.
113

April 1792: Mobs attacked houses and mills owned by Unitarians...

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April 1792

Mobs attacked houses and mills owned by Unitarians in Nottingham; two months later, meeting-houses in Manchester were sacked, and, in November, mills in Belper.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press, 1999.
110

11 May 1792: Edmund Burke in his Speech on the Petition...

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11 May 1792

Edmund Burke in his Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians argued that Unitarians, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity, could not claim toleration like Catholics , Presbyterian s, Quakers , and others.
De Bruyn, Frans. “Anti-Semitism, Millenarianism, and Radical Dissent in Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in FranceEighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
34
, No. 4, 1 June 2001– 2024, pp. 577-00.
595

1796: Joseph Priestley published at Philadelphia...

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1796

Joseph Priestley published at PhiladelphiaUnitarianism Explained and Defended, in a Discourse Delivered in the Church of the Universalists, at Philadelphia.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1813: An Act of Parliament conferred legal status...

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1813

An Act of Parliament conferred legal status on the Unitarians by absolving them of the official charge of blasphemy.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press, 1999.
67

October 1891: The Labour Church, an organization professing...

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October 1891

The Labour Church , an organization professing Christian Socialism, held its first service, in Manchester. Its founder, John Trevor , had been a Unitarian minister.
Spartacus Educational. 28 Feb. 2003, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/.
under Labour Church

29 September 1904: Gertrude von Petzold, a German Unitarian,...

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29 September 1904

Gertrude von Petzold , a German Unitarian , became the first woman to act as a minister in England since before the Victorian age.
Kaye, Elaine. “A Turning-point in the Ministry of Women: The Ordination of the First Woman to the Christian Ministry in England in September 1917”. Women in the Church, edited by William J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp. 505-12.
506
Gilley, Keith. “The ministry of women”. The Guardian, 25 Sept. 2004, p. 29.
29

17 September 1917: Constance Todd, later Constance Coltman,...

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17 September 1917

Constance Todd , later Constance Coltman, became the first woman to be ordained to the ministry (of the Congregational Church) in England.
Kaye, Elaine. “A Turning-point in the Ministry of Women: The Ordination of the First Woman to the Christian Ministry in England in September 1917”. Women in the Church, edited by William J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp. 505-12.
506, 509
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Another very early minister in the Congregational church was Hatty Baker

Texts

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