Patrick Comerford
Some months ago, I wandered around Jericho in Oxford, I wondered about the story of the Strict Baptist Chapel, which dates from 1881 and how it had become part of the Oxford Baptist Chapel.
However, over the decades, Oxford has had a colourful variety of Baptist churches and chapels. The oldest and most historic of these is New Road Baptist Church, tucked into a corner of Bonn Square, close to the busy shopping areas, Oxford Castle and Nuffield College. Its classical façade is almost half-hidden from view by the tables of the Art Café and the steps leading up to Bonn Square, and I found myself there on Thursday afternoon.
New Road Baptist Church says it has ‘a broad, inclusive and life-affirming theology,’ and declares: ‘We see God at work in the lives of people both inside and outside the church. We have a broad, inclusive and life-affirming theology. We believe that all people are loved by God and we see God at work in the lives of people both inside and outside the church.’
The church welcomes everyone and says ‘nobody is excluded from participation in its life on the grounds of their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical and mental abilities, neurodiversity, education, class, or economic status.’
It adds: ‘We welcome and affirm those who express their gender and sexuality in every way that reflects faithfulness in love. We are committed to pursuing justice in every area of social life, and working for peace as we are able. Our welcoming of everyone includes those who may struggle with our commitment to full inclusiveness. We believe God calls each of us to live together in the community of Christ regardless of our differences.’
The forward-looking, progressive values of this church can be traced back to a remarkable Covenant signed by the church in 1780, when it created what it called a ‘Protestant Catholic Church of Christ.’ The result was a broad and broad-minded church that was two centuries ahead of its time.
A Baptist group was probably formed in Oxford shortly after the surrender of the royalist garrison in 1646. Roger Hatchman, Matthew Jellyman and Thomas Williams were later described as Anabaptists. Williams, a High Street milliner, was mayor of Oxford in 1653. He was ridiculed in a poem in 1654, ‘Zeal Overheated’, inspired by a fire in his shop.
The early Oxford Baptists were closely associated with a strong group of Baptists in Abingdon. The early Anabaptists in Oxford may have also included some Fifth Monarchy men. Vavasour Powell, a prominent Fifth Monarchy man, preached in All Saints’ Church in 1657. John Belcher, another Fifth Monarchy man, preached against the Restoration in 1660 in Saint Peter-le-Bailey church.
Lawrence King, a glover, held public baptisms at Hythe Bridge after 1660, and King's house was sometimes used for meetings. But the main meeting-house was the home of Richard Tidmarsh, a tanner, house in Titmouse Lane which continued to be used until about 1715.
Unlike the Presbyterians and Independents, the Baptists had no ex-university preachers and their radical views brought them under suspicion. Their meetinghouse in Oxford was attacked by the militia in 1661, and some of the congregation were arrested.
After the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, Tidmarsh and King obtained a licence for Tidmarsh’s house, where Tidmarsh preached, assisted by a 'miller of Abingdon'. During the Rye House Plot in 1683, King’s house was searched for arms. He left Oxford in 1690.
The persecution of Dissenters in Oxford reached a peak in 1715, when Nonconformist chapels and Quaker meeting houses were ransacked and the houses of prominent Dissenters were destroyed. The mob attacked the Baptist meeting room and rifled the whole house.
Presbyterians bought the site of what later became New Road Baptist chapel. It was put into the hands of trustees, all in London, who were left entirely free on doctrinal matters. The new meeting house, seating 250 people, was registered in 1721.
There is no record of Baptist meetings after that until about 1740, when they were holding only a week-day lecture in a private house. The remaining members attended either the Baptist chapel in Abingdon or the Presbyterian meetinghouse in Oxford. Baptists joined with other Dissenters and began meeting on the present site of New Road Baptist Church.
A congregation of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists in Oxford in 1773 was in the charge of an eccentric minister, WA Clarke, who had been ordained by a Greek bishop around 1760 and had been baptised ‘most ridiculously … in his canonical robes.’
The few Baptists and Presbyterians in Oxford formally joined company at the New Road Church in 1780, and it was often known as the Independents’ Chapel. The members agreed on a groundbreaking Church Covenant in 1780, describing themselves as ‘a Protestant Catholic Church of Christ’.
One of the first pastors left after adopting ‘heterodox views’ and the pulpit was ill supplied until James Hinton was appointed in 1787. Hinton believed only in adult baptism and was a Calvinist. But the principle of open communion caused occasional divisions between Baptists and those who agreed with the baptism of children. There was a failed attempt in 1795-1797 to set up a separate Strict Baptist chapel.
Yet, during Hinton’s time, church attendance increased. The crowded evening services in the 1780s attracted undergraduates, who behaved so riotously that the university forbade them to attend. Membership increased from 25 in 1787 to 270 in 1821, and the number of ‘hearers; rose from 130 to 800. The meeting house was twice enlarged, and two extra deacons were appointed in the early 1800s.
Hinton’s health began to fail in 1811 and a succession of assistants was appointed. After he died in 1823, his successors were unable to hold together the varied factions in the open communion, and by 1836 membership had fallen to 150.
Some 28 members left for a new Congregational church in George Street in the 1830s, and others left for the Adullam chapel, a new Baptist chapel on Commercial Road, built in 1832 for and largely at the expense of HB Bulteel, a former curate of Saint Ebbe’s Church. For many years, the Adullam chapel was the largest nonconformist chapel in Oxford, seating 800 people.
Meanwhile, in the New Road chapel, disagreements continued between the deacons and the minister, who was accused of mismanaging finances and leaning towards Anglicanism. These lead to a further secession to the Congregationalists in 1853 of 23 members, including all the deacons.
Most of those former members returned after the minister resigned later in 1853. But dissension continued and membership to fell further until the appointment of James Dann as pastor (1882-1916).
The New Road Baptist Church is a grade II listed building. It is a large rectangular stone building and incorporates parts of the Presbyterian chapel of 1721, which was rebuilt as a new two-storey building in 1798. Major enlargements and improvements took place in 1819, when the baptistry was added, as well the pillars and architrave on the façade.
The church was altered again in 1982, when the striking central cross was installed, a suite of rooms extending over four floors was added, as well as a coffee shop known as the Mint House because of its proximity to the site of Charles I's Royal Mint in New Inn Hall Street. This Mint House building was also the site of the original Quaker Meeting House in Oxford.
The forecourt of the church was opened in 2008 to form part of the new Bonn Square development project, placing the church at the heart of one of Oxford’s public squares.
The church says it welcome everyone into the community. ‘Nobody is excluded from participation in its life on the grounds of their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical and mental abilities, neurodiversity, education, class, or economic status. We welcome and affirm those who express their gender and sexuality in every way that reflects faithfulness in love.’
‘We are committed to pursuing justice in every area of social life, and working for peace as we are able,’ they church says. ‘Our welcoming of everyone includes those who may struggle with our commitment to full inclusiveness. We believe God calls each of us to live together in the community of Christ regardless of our differences.’
The Revd Jon Keyworth has been the minister at New Road since 2019. The Revd Professor Paul S Fiddes, who is also involved in the church, is closely associated with Regent’s Park College, Oxford, where has been a fellow (1972-1989), Principal (1989-2007), Professorial Research Fellow (2007–2018) and Senior Research Fellow (2018). He has chaired the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford (1996-1998), and became Professor of Systematic Theology in Oxford in 2002. He is an ordained Baptist minister and a canon emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
Sunday services in New Road Baptist Church are at 10:30 am, with coffee served after.
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