Coordinates: 52°28′55″N1°54′41″W / 52.4819°N 1.9113°W
The Church of the Saviour in Edward Street, Birmingham, was a liberal Unitarian church founded in 1845 for the liberal nonconformist preacher, George Dawson. It became the centre of the programme of social and municipal improvement known as the Civic Gospel, and was instrumental in launching Joseph Chamberlain's political career.
Dawson was originally a Baptist pastor in the rapidly expanding industrial town of Birmingham, to which he moved in 1844 to become minister of the Mount Zion Baptist Chapel. The eloquence and beliefs that the young man expressed soon attracted a large following.
However, Dawson's views did not fit the orthodoxy of the Baptist church, so in 1845 he left, followed by much of his congregation, to become minister of the theologically liberal Church of the Saviour, a "Free Christian" church erected for him by his supporters, where "no pledge was required, of minister or congregation; no form of belief was implied by membership; no difference in creed was allowed to bar union in practical Christian work". [1] The new church building was formally opened on 8 August 1847. [2] Its interior was modelled on a lecture theatre in the University of London, with benches instead of pews, and a platform instead of a pulpit. [3]
The key doctrine preached there was inscribed on a marble tablet above the entrance: "There is but one law – thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself."
In the Church of the Saviour, Dawson developed the concept of the Civic Gospel. He called upon his congregation to join him in the struggle "to improve conditions in the town and the quality of life enjoyed by its citizens". His sermons were unconventional for the time. It was said that Dawson "preached not as a dying man to dying men – that was the old idea of preaching – but as a living man to living men who found life no simple or easy matter". His sermons galvanised the Birmingham public, and influential members of his Church, all of whom took on his ideals and went on to play important roles in local affairs, included Joseph Chamberlain (who took Sunday School and oversaw the accounts), Jesse Collings, George Dixon, J. T. Bunce, J. A. Langford, Robert Martineau, Samuel Timmins, William Harris, and the Kenrick family. Between 1847 and 1867, 17 members of the congregation were elected to the Town Council, six of whom were elected mayor. [4] From his pulpit and in public lectures and articles, Dawson advised Christians (particularly people experienced in business) to become councillors and help transform the city, a call which Joseph Chamberlain answered in his work first as councillor, and then as a visionary social reforming mayor.
The organ was installed in 1847 and built by Gray and Davison. It had been constructed for the Berkshire Musical Festival held in the Town Hall, Reading. It consisted of two manuals and pedals with 16 speaking stops. [5] It was replaced in 1861 when on 25 January a new organ by John Banfield of Soho Hill, Birmingham was opened. [6] It comprised three manuals and pedals and had 31 speaking stops.
Dawson died in 1876, and Unitarians largely succeeded him as ministers of the Church of the Saviour. [7] One of his assistants, George St Clair, became sole minister. [8] However, in 1896 the church was sold to a Methodist congregation. [9] The proceeds from the sale were donated to another Unitarian church in Waverley Road. [10]
The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christians and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was formed in 1928, with denominational roots going back to the Great Ejection of 1662. Its headquarters building is Essex Hall in central London, on the site of the first avowedly Unitarian chapel in England, set up in 1774.
George Dawson was an English nonconformist preacher, lecturer and activist. He was an influential voice in the calls for radical political and social reform in Birmingham, a philosophy that became known as the Civic Gospel.
Key Hill Cemetery,, originally called Birmingham General Cemetery, is a cemetery in Hockley, Birmingham, England. It opened in 1836 as a nondenominational cemetery, and is the oldest cemetery, not being in a churchyard, in Birmingham. The principal entrance is on Icknield Street to the west, with a secondary entrance on Key Hill to the north. The cemetery contains the graves of many prominent members of Birmingham society in the late 19th century, to the extent that in 1915 E. H. Manning felt able to dub it "the Westminster Abbey of the Midlands".
Octavius Brooks Frothingham was an American clergyman and author.
Toxteth Unitarian Chapel is in Park Road, Dingle, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Since the 1830s it has been known as The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. and continues to be in use as a Unitarian chapel. It is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarians.
Edmund Hamilton Sears was an American Unitarian parish minister and author who wrote a number of theological works influencing 19th-century liberal Protestants. Today, Sears is primarily known as the man who penned the words to "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" in 1849. It has been sung to two tunes, one by Richard Storrs Willis and another adapted by Arthur Sullivan from a traditional English air.
Joshua Toulmin of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian (1761–1764), Baptist (1765–1803), and then Unitarian (1804–1815) congregations. Toulmin's sympathy for both the American (1775–1783) and French (1787–1799) revolutions led the Englishman to be associated with the United States and gained the prolific historian the reputation of a religious radical.
Rev. Joseph Cooke (1775–1811), a Free Christian, was expelled by the Wesleyan Methodists on doctrinal grounds and became the inspiration behind the Methodist Unitarian movement formed under the leadership of another former Wesleyan Joseph Ashworth.
The Unitarian Church of All Souls at 1157 Lexington Avenue at East 80th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City was built in 1932 and was designed by Hobart Upjohn – Richard Upjohn's grandson – in the Neo-colonial style with a Regency-influenced brick base. It is the congregation's fourth sanctuary. The congregation, dating back to 1819, was the first Unitarian Universalist congregation in the city. It has provided a pulpit for some of the movement's leading theologians and has also recorded many eminent persons in its membership.
The Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn was a historic church in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York City, built in 1857-58 and demolished in 1962. In the mid-nineteenth century, new religious congregations were gathering in the area because of the proximity to South Ferry and Manhattan. Immigrant centers were developing around their respective churches and more churches were being built: In 1887, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle called Clinton Street "a highway of churches," and described twelve erected between 1841 and 1869 between Pierrepont Street and Third place on Clinton Street. One of these was the Second Unitarian Church, built in 1858 on the corner of Clinton and Congress Streets.
Robert Aspland was an English Unitarian minister, editor and activist. To be distinguished from his son Robert Brook Aspland (1805-1869).
Jabez Burns was an English nonconformist divine and Christian philosophical writer. He was one of the first clergymen of any denomination to preach teetotalism from the pulpit.
Elhanan Winchester was one of the founders of the United States General Convention of Universalists, later the Universalist Church of America.
The Civic Gospel was a philosophy of municipal activism and improvement that emerged in Birmingham, England, in the mid-19th century. Tracing its origins to the teaching of independent nonconformist preacher George Dawson, who declared that "a town is a solemn organism through which shall flow, and in which shall be shaped, all the highest, loftiest and truest ends of man's moral nature", it reached its culmination in the mayoralty of Joseph Chamberlain between 1873 and 1876. After Dawson's death in 1876 it was the Congregationalist pastor R. W. Dale who took on the role as the movement's leading nonconformist spokesman. Other major proponents included the Baptist Charles Vince and the Unitarian H. W. Crosskey.
Joseph Stennett was an English Seventh Day Baptist minister and hymnwriter.
The Church of the Messiah, Birmingham was a Unitarian church on Church Street. The congregation continues, having moved to purpose-built premises at Five Ways in 1973. The impressive Victorian building was demolished in 1978.
William Harris was a Liberal politician and strategist in Birmingham, England, in an era of dramatic municipal reform. On his death, he was described by one obituary-writer as "one of the founders of modern Birmingham". J. L. Garvin called him "the Abbé Sieyès of Birmingham" ; and Asa Briggs "a most active and intelligent wire-puller behind the scenes". He was dubbed the "father of the Caucus", the highly organised and controversial Liberal party machine that had its origins in Birmingham, but was afterwards introduced at national level to the National Liberal Federation. He served as the first Chairman of the National Liberal Federation from 1877 to 1882. By profession he was an architect and surveyor; and he was also a prolific journalist and author.
Congregationalism in the United States consists of Protestant churches in the Reformed tradition that have a congregational form of church government and trace their origins mainly to Puritan settlers of colonial New England. Congregational churches in other parts of the world are often related to these in the United States due to American missionary activities.
Charles Vince (1823–1874) was a noted and popular Baptist minister in Birmingham, England, at the Graham Street chapel from 1852 to 1874. He was one of the religious leaders developing Birmingham's Civic Gospel, with his predecessor at the chapel George Dawson, and Henry William Crosskey.
The First Church and Parish in Dedham is a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Dedham, Massachusetts. It was the 14th church established in Massachusetts. The current minister, Rev. Rali M. Weaver, was called in March 2007, settled in July, and is the first female minister to this congregation.