Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 27 August 2023).
In recent weeks, I have been reflecting on the churches in Tamworth. Throughout this week and last week, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:
1, Looking at a church in Lichfield;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
A miscellany of churches in Lichfield:
Throughout last week and this week, I have been looking at some of the better-known churches in Lichfield, including Lichfield Cathedral (13 August), Saint Chad’s (14 August), Saint Mary’s (15 August), Saint Michael’s (16 August), Christ Church (17 August), the chapels in Saint John’s Hospital (18 August) and Dr Milley’s Hospital (19 August), the Methodist Church (20 August), Wade Street Church (21 August), Holy Cross Church (22 August), the former Franciscan Friary (23 August), Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Farewell (24 August), and Saint John’s Church, Wall (25 August).
This morning, I am looking at some churches, chapels and former places of worship that are sometimes overlooked, including the former Primitive Methodist Church in the Frank Halfpenny Hall, the Christadelphian Assembly, and the Cruck House, Stowe Street, which has been used by Quakers, the Brethren and Spiritualists.
The Frank Halfpenny Hall on George Lane, is now a pre-school play centre. But in the past it has been a Primitive Methodist chapel, a Salvation Army hall and a Pentecostalist church.
A Primitive Methodist missionary preached at Greenhill on Whit Monday 1820. Possibly as a consequence, a blacksmith’s outhouse in Saint Chad’s Parish was registered for worship in November that year. It was replaced by a schoolroom in Saint Mary’s Parish that was registered for worship in 1831.
The Darlaston and Birmingham Primitive Methodist circuits provided two missionaries for the Lichfield area in 1836.
A Primitive Methodist chapel, with a capacity for 130 people, opened in George Lane on 2 January 1848. The attendance there on Census Sunday 1851 was 23 in the afternoon and 57 in the evening. Although no morning service was held that day, it was said that normal Sunday morning attendance was 60, with 51 Sunday school children.
The Primitive Methodists chapel closed in 1934 and the building reopened the following year as a Salvation Army hall.
The former chapel was bought by Frank Halfpenny (1897-1966), a lifelong Methodist and city councillor who was Sheriff of Lichfield (1938-1939) and the first Labour Mayor of Lichfield (1965-1966). In 1958 he gave it to the Lichfield and Tamworth Constituency Labour Party in 1958, and it was named the Frank Halfpenny Hall.
A Pentecostalist church was formed in Lichfield in 1961 and met in the Frank Halfpenny Hall in George Lane until 1969, when the Emmanuel Pentecostal church in Nether Stowe was opened. Its name was later changed to the Emmanuel Christian Centre. It is now known as the Life Church.
The hall was used as Labour headquarters in Lichfield in the two general elections in 1974: James d’Avigdor Goldsmid held the Lichfield and Tamworth seat for the Conservatives in May, but he lost it to Bruce Grocott of Labour in October by a margin of 331 votes.
The Frank Halfpenny Hall was sold to the Swinfen Broun Charitable Trust in 1984, and was later let to a pre-school playgroup.
Cruck House, a restored Grade II* timber-framed mediaeval cottage at 71 Stowe Street, has been used in the past for worship by Quakers, Spiritualists and Brethren.
Stowe Street is a continuation of Lombard Street, and close to south side of Stowe Pool. Cruck House is an impressive sight on Stowe Street in the midst of modern residential and commercial buildings. Yet, despite first impressions, it is a surprisingly small building.
This jointed cruck and part-box-framed house is a rare building dating back to the late 14th or early 15th century It fell into disrepair before it was rescued from demolition in 1971. It was discovered during the redevelopment of Stowe Street and was restored to its original state.
A group of Brethren formed the Lichfield Christian Centre in 1986. They met first in rooms in Bore Street and later in Cruck House. When a Spiritualist church was formed in Lichfield in 1986, its members at first met in the Friary School and later in Cruck House in Stowe Street.
The Quaker George Fox first visited Lichfield in 1651. In recent years the Cruck House was also used for Sunday meetings for worship by the Society of Friends (Quakers), until they moved to the Martin Heath Hall in Christchurch Lane.
Cruck House is now a day care centre and is used by a variety of community groups, including Friends 2 Friends (F2F), which supports adults with learning difficulties.
Cruck House has often been open to the public as part of the Lichfield Heritage Weekend. Dave Moore, who has interviewed me about my Lichfield links, has given an interesting talk to Friends 2 Friends, explaining how Cruck House was built.
The small, redbrick Christadelphian Hall is on Station Road. The Christadelphians are one of the less well-known groups in Lichfield. Their small, redbrick ‘ecclesia’ or church blends in with the neighbouring redbrick houses and goes almost unnoticed by many despite its proximity to the centre of Lichfield.
The story of the Christadelphian presence in Lichfield dates back more than a century and a half to 1870, when the recently appointed headmistress of Saint Chad’s School on Beacon Street was forced to resign because of her Christadelphian beliefs. A few years later, Thomas Sykes, who had formed a small Christadelphian community at Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire, moved to Lichfield in 1874.
By 1885, eight Christadelphians were meeting in each other’s houses, and in 1890 a meeting room was opened above Thomas Sykes’s shop in Tamworth Street.
In 1902, the Vicar of Saint Mary’s, Canon CN Bolton, denounced the Christadelphians as heretical. At a subsequent public meeting, the Christadelphians of Lichfield defended their beliefs. Their numbers increased, and from 1903 meetings were held in Saint James’s Hall in Bore Street. After Saint James’s Hall was converted into a cinema in 1912, the group of over 40 Christadelphians in Lichfield built their own hall in Station Road. It opened in 1914 and was extended in 1959. The Christadelphians still meet there on Sundays to this day.
There are over 300 Christadelphian ecclesias in Britain and Ireland, and there are about 50,000 Christadelphians around the world. They resist calling their buildings churches, they are not part of Churches Together in Lichfield or other ecumenical groups.
The Christadelphians are a millenarian religious group who are Unitarian in their systems of beliefs. The movement developed in England and in the US in the 19th century in response to the ideas and teachings of John Thomas (1805-1871), a surgeon from London who coined the name Christadelphian from the Greek for ‘Brethren in Christ.’
Christadelphians differ from mainstream Christianity in a number of doctrinal areas. They reject the Trinity and deny the immortality of the soul, believing these to be corruptions of original Christian teaching. Many of them are pacifists, and they generally avoid taking part in politics, the police and the army.
Christadelphian congregations traditionally use the name ‘ecclesia,’ from the New Testament Greek ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), meaning assembly or church, and they resist using the word ‘church’ because of its association with mainstream Christianity. To this day, the Christadelphian building on Station Road in Lichfield is known as the Christadelphian Hall or ecclesia.
Matthew 23: 1-12 (NRSVA):
23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’
Today’s Prayer:
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Modern-Day Slavery Reflection – The Clewer Initiative.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
For more resources: www.theclewerinitiative.org
The USPG Prayer Diary today (26 August 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
Lord, we pray for all organisations and people who fight against the marginalisation of the poor and underprivileged.
The Collect:
O God, you declare your almighty power
most chiefly in showing mercy and pity:
mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace,
that we, running the way of your commandments,
may receive your gracious promises,
and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Lord of all mercy,
we your faithful people have celebrated that one true sacrifice
which takes away our sins and brings pardon and peace:
by our communion
keep us firm on the foundation of the gospel
and preserve us from all sin;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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