PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
John
Doddridge, rector of Shepperton during the Interregnum, was licensed as a Presbyterian minister at
Twickenham in 1672. (fn. 77) He afterwards became
minister at New Brentford. (fn. 78) A Presbyterian meeting was in existence in 1707 and in 1713, in different
houses but under the same minister. (fn. 79) A congregation
of Baptists met in a house near Stone Bridge (over
the Crane) in the London Road in 1694. (fn. 80) There are
references to individual dissenters-a Quaker, a
'fanatic schoolmaster' and a woman, also probably a
Quaker, who claimed to see visions-in the late 17th
and early 18th century. (fn. 81) In c. 1770 and 1790 there
were said to be no dissenters, and in 1778 the only
ones reported were a few popish and Jewish families. (fn. 82) According to R. S. Cobbett, the curate and
historian of Twickenham, Joanna Southcott lived
and taught in the town, (fn. 83) but Twickenham does not
appear ever to have been her home. (fn. 84)
Houses were registered for the holding of Independent meetings in 1797 and 1812, and a club-room
next to the 'Royal Oak' was registered in 1818. The
first two of these meetings had ministers. (fn. 85) The Sion
Independent Chapel was opened in 1822 and survived for at least a year, but its later history is
unknown. (fn. 86) None of these meetings seems to represent the origin of the present Congregational church
facing the Green in First Cross Road, which is said
to have been formed in 1802, under a minister who
cared for it for nearly 50 years. It was supported by
Sir Robert and Lady Shaw, in whose house in First
Cross Road the first meetings are said to have been
held. (fn. 87) A building called Lady Shaw's school was
registered for Independent worship in 1835 and the
first part of the present Gothic chapel was built in
1844. (fn. 88) This and the Sunday school beside it were
enlarged in 1867, and a vestry was built connecting
the two buildings. (fn. 89) The church was supported by
Lady Shaw until 1849, when she disagreed with
other members and left it, joining the Baptist church
which was founded soon after. (fn. 90) It was closed for a
few months and financial difficulties continued after
it had reopened. The church maintained a British
school jointly with the Baptist church across the
Green c. 1863-72. (fn. 91) There were 40 members in
1858 and 49 when the church reopened after another
interim of two or three years in 1882. (fn. 92) The membership rose to over a hundred around the turn of the
century, but later declined a little. Pew rents were
given up in 1911, and between 1923 and 1943 the
church was unable to afford a full-time pastor. (fn. 93)
In 1957 the church had a resident minister and 91
members. (fn. 94)
Some few years before 1800 some Wesleyan
Methodists started to meet in a smithy behind a
public-house in the town. Visiting preachers came
from London and a good deal of enthusiasm was
aroused in spite of incursions by 'the rabble from the
public-house'. (fn. 95) In 1800 a chapel was built near the
east end of Back Lane (now Holly Road), which still
existed in 1958 as an engineering works. (fn. 96) In 1810
the diocesan authorities recorded the presence in
Twickenham of 30 Arminian Methodists and a small
and declining number of Calvinistic Methodists. (fn. 97)
The hall behind the present (1958) church in Queen's
Road was built as a new chapel in 1880. The old
building was retained as a Sunday school until 1899,
when the Gothic church, known as Christ Church,
was added to the 1880 building, which in its turn
became the Sunday school. The church flourished in
the early years of the century, with a Brotherhood of
500 meeting on Sunday afternoons in the Town Hall
about 1905-8, and a membership of 110 in 1916 and
176 in 1921. Following a drop during the twenties,
numbers rose again steadily, (fn. 98) and in 1958 the
society had 146 active members. Some members by
this time had left to join the daughter church at
Whitton. (fn. 99) A site for this was purchased in Percy
Road in the thirties and services were held there by
1942. The church became independent in 1952 and
had a membership of about 100 in 1958. (fn. 1) Another
Wesleyan chapel, apparently in London Road, was
registered in 1839 but no later reference to it has
been found. (fn. 2)
A house in Back Lane (now Holly Road) was
registered for Baptist worship in 1847. (fn. 3) A church,
which is later known to have been Particular Baptist, (fn. 4)
was formed in 1852 and moved into a permanent
building on the present site on the Green in 1853. (fn. 5)
The boys' department of the Twickenham British
school was held in its schoolroom c. 1862-72. (fn. 6) The
present church was built in 1914 in memory of
Marian Braithwaite and was called the Memorial
Church. (fn. 7) It had 98 members in 1957. (fn. 8) In or shortly
before 1881 the Twickenham Baptist church opened
a mission hall on the corner of St. Margaret's Road
and Turks Lane (now Winchester Road). This became an independent church in 1899 and a permanent
building was provided in 1905, the mission hall
being then used as a Sunday school. (fn. 9) Both buildings
were demolished when the Chertsey Road was
constructed, and the proceeds of the sale were used
to build the St. Margaret's Memorial Church in
Hounslow Road at Whitton. (fn. 10) The pastor started
work in Whitton in 1934 and the church was formed
and the building opened the following year. There
were 172 members in 1957. (fn. 11)
The Amyand Park Baptist Church is outside the
Baptist Union. (fn. 12) It was registered as Baptist in 1890, (fn. 13)
but in 1893-4 the Ordnance Survey map described
it as unsectarian. (fn. 14) It had 60 members in 1957, and a
new building had been erected, possibly in 1953. (fn. 15)
The Salvation Army opened the Good Templars'
Hall on the Green in 1893. (fn. 16) It was replaced in 1924
by another hall in May Road, behind which a third
was built in 1958. The 1924 building was retained as
a junior hall. (fn. 17) There was a flourishing membership
in 1958, but another hall, opened in Powder Mill
Lane in 1938, (fn. 18) then had only a handful of members. (fn. 19) The London City Mission occupied a cottage
in London Road in 1898. (fn. 20) An undenominational
Gospel Hall in Nelson Road, Whitton, was opened
in 1881. It was closed shortly before the Second
World War but the building was still in existence in
1958 when it was used as a printing works. (fn. 21) The
Hope Mission Hall, Mereway, was also unsectarian.
It was registered in 1887 and had apparently closed
by 1895. The building continued to be marked as a
mission in later maps, but had been demolished by
1958. (fn. 22) The Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance registered a church at 16 Edwin Road in 1938. (fn. 23) By 1958
a factory occupied the site. Rooms on the first floor
of 45A Winchester Road were used between 1950
and 1957 by the Guild Chapel Independent Church.
For some four years before this one of the rooms had
been used as an oratory of the Western Orthodox
Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Michael and All
Angels. (fn. 24)
A Christian Science Hall at 6 Cambridge Parade
was registered in 1909, and a Christian Spiritualist
Sanctuary at 35 Creswell Road in 1932. Both these
had been closed by 1954. (fn. 25)