|
|
 |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
|
History of Christ Church
|
![]() |
|
History Of Christ Church
Early History of Swanland
Swanland is not the most ancient village. It is not mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086) although there were certainly some dwellings in the area at that time. Swanland was divided and was part of North Ferriby parish and part of Kirk Ella parish.
The origin of the name is not known. One suggestion is that a Danish chieftain, Sweyn, invaded the Humber estuary and built a stronghold and watchtower here. He would certainly have had excellent views to east and west and over the Humber. Hence Sweynlond and by corruption Swanland. The other suggestion is more prosaic and just as likely - Swanland means the land of the swan. Indeed swans were common here in the middle ages and were here until very recently.
The earliest mention of Swanland is in the Chronicles of Meaux Abbey (1201). Meaux
Abbey - on the road from Wawne to Routh - housed monks who sold to Edward I the land which became Kingston upon Hull. Then the village was referred to as Swanneslond.
The First Church Established in Swanland.
According to the Church's records, in an outline history beautifully written by Revd J.E.Whitehead, a Chantry was founded in 1332. This was a Chapel at Ease to the Priory at North Ferriby and was served by one of the priests from the Priory. In 1942 a lead bulla of Pope Clement III (1187-1191) was found in the back garden of one of the houses in Chantry Way, off Westfield Lane which suggests that this was perhaps the site of the Chantry.
It is part of our English history that Non-conformists (or Dissenters as they were then known) suffered persecution from Elizabethan times. Especially in the middle of the seventeenth century, particularly after the return of Charles II to the throne, those who would not conform to the restored Episcopal Church (ie governed by bishops) had to worship in secret. If anyone was caught worshipping in a way that did not accord with the Episcopal Prayer Book, they were fined or imprisoned or transported overseas for seven years, but not to New England where the dissenters had established a settlement.
Ezekiel Rogers, the vicar of Rowley for example, was a distinguished Puritan with considerable local influence. He was silenced for his non-conformity and therefore with all his congregation set sail for New England in 1638. There they founded a settlement (now a town) called Rowley.
Mr Whitehead suggests that the Swanland Chantry - somewhat repaired - had been used in secret by the Independents for their worship after 1662. In 1662 the Act of Uniformity was passed. This ruled ‘That the book of common Prayer be used by al and every minister and curate in every church, Chappell or other place of Publique Worshipp within this realm of England‘. Every incumbent within the Church of England was required before the feast of St Bartholomew (24th Aug) to read both the morning and evening prayer as set out in the Prayer Book, and declare his ‘unfained assent and consent to al and every thing contained and prescribed within it’. Failure to comply would lead to deprivation of office. The act also required all clergy to receive Episcopal re-ordination no matter to which Protestant church they belonged. Two thousand members of the clergy could not in good conscience obey this Act of Parliament and as a result were ejected from their living. This included the vicars of Ferriby, Hessle, South Cave and Cottingham.
The ejected vicar of Ferriby, John Ryther, went to live in Elloughton. He preached there and in other villages, which must surely have included Swanland. He was twice imprisoned in York Castle for these activities, one period of six months followed by a period of fifteen months.
Mr Patton, our minister from 1929 - 1946, when researching the church history, was led to believe that John Packham, dissenter, licensed to preach in the house of John Newton of Anlaby, 1672, might also have influenced some in Swanland, because two of the yeomen of Anlaby appear on our first Trustees Roll 1694.
Joseph Shaw, who had been licensed to preach at Ackworth near Wakefield in 1672, came to settle in Swanland. He died and was buried at North Ferriby on 17th Feb 1680. According to Blossom, some of Shaw's descendants lived in Swanland until 1870.
In 1688, the year of the revolution that brought William Prince of Orange to the throne, an 'Order of Council' was issued for ‘returns of all congregations, Conformist, Non-Conformist, and Papist’. In the East Riding returns, Swanland Independent Chapel was entered.
The Toleration Act was passed in 1689. Prior to this, because of persecution, very few places of worship had been built by Non-Conformists. Now congregations emerged from cottages and barns and started to build.
SWANLAND INDEPENDENT CHAPEL
Early Years
The first Church was founded in 1693 and the chapel and school building opened in 1694.
It was a larger building than the present chapel, seating 450 people. By 1715 the membership numbered 460, clear evidence of the massive 'underground' preceding the Toleration Act of 1689.
The Minister's House was built in 1696 and still stands in West End. A new Manse was built in Westfield Lane in 1938 and sold in 1961 because the Deacons thought that the church would never again be able to afford to pay a minister’s stipend. At that time the manse was a drain on the church's funds and because of the then Labour Government legislation of rent restrictions, the church was not allowed to rent the property without incurring financial loss. It was sold for £5,000. In 1997 it changed hands for £175,000!
The New Chapel Building.
It was in 1803 that a new chapel, the present one, was built on the site of the old. The new chapel was attached at its north end to the original school building. The schoolroom foundations can still be seen in the cellar of the Institute. The attractive stone staircase to the gallery was then outside. The two porches were added in 1840 and the two adjoining vestries in 1854, the north vestry being built on the site of the schoolroom.
In 1928 the church was entirely refurbished under the guidance of Mr Louis Calvert. He was a joiner in the village and also a Chapel Deacon. The pulpit apse, a gift of the Westerdale family, was built and the old box pews replaced with unstained Austrian oak pews. The pulpit donated by the Blossom family was made and fitted by Mr Calvert personally. The communion table and chairs were given by Mrs Whitehead and her daughters.
Between 1968 and 1988 the roof of each building was stripped, felted and re- slated. The crêche/steward’s room was added in 1989. The north vestry was extended, new toilets built (including one for disabled people) and the room behind the pulpit added in 1990. The balcony was refurbished and equipped with new chairs in 2000/2001. In 2006 the last major alteration involved extending and refurbishing the kitchen and the creation of a toilet for disabled people at the southern end of the building. The windows on the western side of the church were replaced in 2007 thanks to the generosity of The Dora and Henry Needler Trust.
In 1914 the Institute and reading room was built on the site of the chapel school playground, a gift of Sir James Reckitt who lived at the Manor. He supplied the church with electric light which was generated at the Manor. The pot insulators can still be seen in the south porch wall where the cable entered the church and the original telegraph poles which carried the cable from the Manor to the church, were round the back of the pond until 2004 when they were removed as part of the refurbishment of the Old School.
A number of the original title deeds were badly damaged by fire during WW2. However copies were obtained from the Charity Commissioners. Dated June 25th and June 26th 1694, they state that William Shaw, yeoman of Swanland, sold for five shillings (25p) land for the building thereon of the chapel and school. The Church Baptismal Register shows the wide area served - Swanland and Skidby, Willerby, Rowley and Walkington. The first official minister was Emanuel Dewsnop.
The Rev John Angier became a Unitarian during his pastorate at Swanland which started in 1740. (Unitarians embrace Universalism and reject the Doctrine of the Trinity thus rejecting John 1:1-15.) Because of this a number of his congregation left in a body and worshipped in another building, thought to be the cottages 30 & 32 Main Street. They had their own minister as shown on our list in the church. John Angier stayed in Swanland and died in 1780. The two chapels rejoined during the pastorate of the Rev David Williams of Aberystwyth who was the minister here for 39 years.
When Robert Raikes, whose cousin lived at Welton Hall, started the Sunday School movement in Gloucester in 1780, there was much opposition, especially in the north. The Archbishop of Canterbury canvassed the help of bishops to 'stop this enterprise'.
Here are some comments from the Hull papers :-
'Sunday Schools are to ripen the genius of the inferior classes by spoiling millions of industrious labourers'
'What ploughman able to read would be willing to whistle up one furrow and down another from morn to sunset'
'Our poor are already too much enlightened'.
Thomas Blossom started a Sunday School in Swanland on Easter Day, 15th April 1789 with 70 scholars. This was the first Sunday School in the East Riding.
Rev J.E. Whitehead copied much of the church’s history from the damaged documents.
Thomas Blossom, after returning from missionary service in the South Sea Islands, went to live with his brother who farmed in North Cave. In 1847 towards the end of his life, 1777 - 1850, he wrote an autobiography. Both Whitehead and Patton referred to Blossom's writings in their work. The Rev J.G. Patton when writing his book, ‘A Country Independent Chapel’, took Blossom's writings from the church to his home along with other old documents. After George Patton's death in 1949 his wife, in blissful ignorance, while clearing up his personal papers burnt them on a bonfire.
Mr Whitehead noted that when he was minister, half the congregation came from outside the village. In the present day most of the congregation are from the village, but there are some members who come from further afield.
The chapel school became too small for the number of children from the village that wanted to attend. In 1876, John Todd Esq. JP. of Swanland Hall, one of the Deacons of the church, gave a new building for the use as a Day and Sunday School. A corner stone near the main entrance of the new school contains the usual memorabilia, coins newspapers and documents of the period.
By 1929 the number of children from the village had once again grown and were too many for the building. The church was finding it difficult to finance the day to day running expenses of the school and were certainly not in a financial position to afford the cost of extending the building. The Deacons decided to give the building to the East Riding Council but retaining the right to use it for Sunday School purposes. In 1935 the Council built on the class room on the pond side of the school, including a new entrance, cloakrooms and an upstairs staff room.
The Second World War.
Early during the Second World War the whole of Linnaeus Street Jewish School was evacuated to Swanland. They used our vestry for some time as a school room. During this time, when air-raids on Hull were a nightly occurrence, people arrived from Hull for a night’s refuge. The carnage being wrought upon Hull could be viewed from Tranby Lane like some great demonic firework display. During this time the fields around Swanland received quite a variety of bombs. The German Bombers used the River Humber as a guide. They flew up the river, turned over Swanland and made a bombing run on Hull, and then flew on out to the North sea and back home. Searchlights were placed all around the Swanland area, there was one at the junction of Tranby Lane and Jenny Brough Lane. If, as the bombers turned, they were caught by the searchlights, the anti-aircraft guns at Chanterlands Avenue and the Costello Playing fields would open fire, and the Germans used to let their bombs go and try to escape .
The Primitive Methodist Chapel was built in 1827 on land donated by H. Sykes Esq. (see foundation stone moved to be installed in Christ Church’s balcony). It was served by the Methodist Circuit in Hull and was the only alternative place of worship until the end of the century when the Anglicans consecrated a building known as St Barnabas Church in 1899.
Our Coming Together
The coming together of the two denominations was a task that took over twenty years to achieve.
In 1963 at a ministers’ fraternal the topic of our two churches joining together was discussed. The Rev Roy Kilner the Methodist Minister and Pastor Rowland Taylor for the Congregational Chapel were very keen for this to happen. I quote from a letter from Roy Kilner to Rowland Taylor, "As you probably know, I believe passionately in re-union and long for the day when our Lord's prayer has been realised and we become one". The joining together was put to both church meetings and the Congregationalists voted their agreement. Of the twenty-five that attended, twenty-three voted for and two against. Eleven Methodist members were present. Five members agreed to a joint church but six members voted to remain 'as we are'.
In 1970 the Vicar, Rev David Bulman, invited all the churches in Swanland to meet together to explore the needs of Swanland in view of the expected growth of the population that was scheduled by the Local Authority to take place in the next few years. After much discussion, the suggestion was made to extend the Congregational Chapel. At that time there was plenty of undeveloped land around it to expand, to create a set of church buildings that could be used by each denomination for their individual worship and have a central Christian meeting place in the middle of the village. Cold feet and lack of imagination defeated this project.
In 1972 the Congregationalists joined the Presbyterians nationally to form the United Reformed Church and Swanland Independent Chapel became Swanland United Reformed Church.
In 1975-6 the Methodist Chapel became unsafe to use. They approached the URC and asked if they could use their building to hold separate services. The URC members invited the Methodists to join them as one congregation but, after the Methodists declined, the URC Church Meeting said no to joint use. It was felt that, for two denominations to share one building and have their own separate services, would cause difficulties.
In 1978 the URC minister of Swanland and Hessle, Rev David Anderson, left to become the minister at Withernsea. The Church Meeting, while discussing joint pastorates with other URC churches, came to the conclusion that the best solution was to share ministry with their own village Methodists. On Jan 26th 1979 a letter was sent to the Methodists inviting them to discuss this. A joint meeting was arranged. By this time new people to the village had joined both congregations and some of the intransigent, had been called to higher service. The meeting agreed that to explore the joining together, as a joint church, was the best course of action. Under the leadership of the Methodist Minister, the Rev Derek Jennings, a Sharing Agreement was drafted and a Constitution written out and agreed, both locally and nationally by each denomination. There were 23 Methodist members and 25 URC members.
In September 1981 the Sharing Agreement was signed. The first minister of the joint church, Rev Kenneth Marshall, was inducted to the pastorate and officials of both denominations took part in this service. In a very short time the membership had grown to number seventy-five. At the 1988 October census the attendance figures for Sunday worship were 102 in the morning and 29 in the evening.
The two denominations locally have amalgamated in such a way that they have become one church, and the join is invisible. This was achieved by everyone accepting a new situation and agreeing to do things in a new way. As an example, for the Communion Service, we use the words from the Methodist Service Book and the distribution of bread and wine is made in the Congregational way, as a family meal. The only time each of the two denominations is counted individually, is for the annual census and the financial assessments, when our dues to the parent denominations are calculated.
Recent Events
1983 saw the birth of a new venture that has proved to be one of the brightest jewels in the joint church crown. Brian Gilyard and Bill Calland started the Company of 1st Swanland Boys Brigade. This developed into a Boys and Girls Brigade and proved to be perhaps the best way in which the church reached out into the local community. On a Tuesday evening, about 45 young people as well as helpers and parents, took over the whole of our buildings for their Christian based activities. Once a month a Parade Service was held. In 2001 Bill and Brian wished to step down, having been the leaders for 18 years. Sadly, nobody was prepared to come forward to take over as officers and so the Company was wound up.
Over the first sixteen years we were served very well by four Methodist Ministers from the Hull West Circuit. When it was known that the Rev Philip Chilvers would be leaving in August 1996 the Church Meeting decided to seek a URC minister. Both the Methodist Circuit and the URC District Council agreed. The latter suggested a joint pastorate with Elloughton URC Church. A pastoral profile was produced and a number of candidates were viewed. In 1998 the Rev Ian Jones was appointed minister for both Swanland and Elloughton.
In the period 1996 to 1998 our services and midweek meetings were well supplied by an Interim Moderator, Rev Steven Knapton and Rev Henry Pittam, a Methodist Supernumerary Minister, as well as being served by Lay Preachers through the Methodist Circuit Plan and from the URC.
Unfortunately in 2001 the Rev Ian Jones resigned from his position and for a period of six months we were without a minister again. The Church agreed to seek ministry once more from the Methodist Circuit and in 2002 the Rev Sue Sowden was appointed to Christ Church. She was already minister at Princes Avenue and Perth Street churches in Hull. The appointment of a Methodist minister meant the sharing arrangement with Elloughton ceased. In 2004 the Rev Sowden left West Hull to take up the position of a Superintendent Minister in the Malton Circuit and the Rev Shirlyn Toppin took her place at Swanland. As a result of a re-organisation within the Hull West Circuit Rev Denise Free took over at Swanland for the year 2005/6 before Rev Toppin returned. She stayed until the summer of 2009 and has been replaced by the Rev Janet Whelan.
Many people have said, especially visitors, that there is a very special atmosphere of warmth and friendship at Christ Church. Why not pay us a visit? See our notice board for details of our Sunday services. You could come first to one of our weekly Saturday coffee mornings where, at least once a month, Fairly Traded food and drink products are on sale. Social events take place from time to time throughout the year. You will always be welcome. See our website for contact details and events - http://beehive.thisishull.co.uk/ChristChurchSwanland.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
These notes were compiled by Raymond Taylor in 2000 from his memory and that of others, and:
Church minute books
Notes by Revd J. E. Whitehead
“A Country Independent Chapel” by Revd J. G. Patton
Alterations to bring the notes up to date were made by John White in 2001,2004 and 2009.
A list of Ministers who have served the Church.
1662 - ???? John Packman
???? - ???? Rev John Ryther
???? - 1680 Rev Joseph Shaw
1693 Building of the first chapel
1696 -1702 Rev Emanuel Dewsnop
1703 - ???? Rev Brook
???? - 1713 Rev Gardner
1715 - 1728 Rev Joshua Hardcastle
1720 - 1738 Rev Joshua Hoyle
1740 - ???? Rev John Angiers. died 1780 at Swanland
1770 - 1773 Rev Samuel Bottomley
1775 - 1782 Rev George Gill
1783 - 1785 Rev Richard Leggett
1786 - 1827 Rev David Williams
1826 - 1834 Rev John Haydon
1835 - 1844 Rev John Evison
1844 - 1850 Rev John Bramall
1851 - 1853 Rev Robert Thomson M.A.
1854 - 1865 Rev James Wishhart M.A.
1866 - 1866 Rev E Newman
1867 - 1871 Rev George Snashall B.A.
1872 - 1899 Rev J.E. Whitehead
1899 - 1914 Rev Wm St John Crickmer
1914 - 1922 Rev Wm Nicholson
1922 - 1924 Rev R.J.Hill
1924 - 1928 Rev T. Langham Moore
1929 - 1946 Rev John G. Patton
1946 - 1950 Rev D. Trevor Roberts
1950 - 1956 Rev Albert F. Bayly B.A.
1958 - 1961 Rev Derek A. Fitch
1961 - 1964 Pastor Rowland V.F.Taylor
1965 - 1971 Rev W.K.Gathercole M.A. B.D.
1971 - 1975 Pastor H.K.Johnson
1975 - 1978 Rev David Anderson B.A.
1979 - 1981 Rev Harry Smith U.R.C.Interim Moderator
Rev Derek Jennings Methodist Minister.
Joint Church
1981 - 1988 Rev Kenneth Marshall
1988 - 1991 Rev Stanley Barker B.A.
1991 - 1994 Rev Kingsley Halden M.A.
1994 - 1996 Rev Philip Chilvers
1996 - 1998 Rev Steven Knapton M.A. Interim Moderator
1998 – 2001 Rev Ian Jones B.Sc. B.Th
2002 – 2004 Rev Sue M. Sowden B Min Th
2004 - 2005 Rev Shirlyn Toppin B.A. M.A.
2005 - 2006 Rev Denise Free
2006 - 2009 Rev Shirlyn Toppin B.A. M.A.
2009 - Rev Janet Whelan
10 september 2009
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
