Salisbury, Newbury
The South Wiltshire Circuit (later renamed “Salisbury”) was formed in 1768. In 1769, Vickers (1987) records, it contained only 200 members, about 0.7% of connexional membership, and included all of Hampshire.
Newbury Circuit was formed from Oxfordshire in 1795. It was predominantly rural, and had the following societies or meetings in Hampshire.
Kingsclere
Wesleyans began worshipping in Kingsclere in 1797 in a house in Swan Street. A chapel was built some time in the period 1807 to 1812, when29 Kingsclere had a population of about 1500. A house on Wolverton Common, in the parish, was licensed for worship in June 1828.
1820 -2.39%
1835 -0.33%
1837 -0.15%
1842 -0.63%
1847 -0.61%
1848 -0.15%
1851 -15.65%
1852 -6.93%
Baughurst
The 1851 religious census records that Wesleyans had been using since 1795 premises joined on to a house but used exclusively for worship. In 181030 Baughurst had a population of about 400.
Faccombe
A house was registered in September 1819. There was31 a certificate for a newly erected Methodist chapel in June 1821. Faccombe was later transferred to the Andover Circuit.
Burghclere, East Woodhay, Ashmansworth, Sydmonton, Combe
In 1794, 1795, 1824, 1826 and 1826 respectively houses were registered in these villages. In 181032 Combe had a population of 135; Burghclere about 60033. None of these villages appears in an 1854 Plan.
Portsmouth, Southampton
Portsmouth Circuit was formed in 1790 from Salisbury and stretched from the Isle of Wight to Newbury and Chichester. The Southampton Circuit was formed in 1798 from Portsmouth with 180 members and two preachers.
In 1793and 1796 Stamp’s financial returns listed only Whitchurch in the area of this thesis, but his lists may not include all societies. In 1794 Hurstbourne Priors and Whitchurch formed one society.
1795 saw some expansion in the area. Hurstbourne Priors and Whitchurch are separate societies,
“Laverstock” [Laverstoke, a village of about 100 souls in 181034] has been added. The chapels at Whitchurch and Baughurst remained the only ones in the region of this study.
In 180135 Whitchurch had 34 members. Early in the century, the preaching house was replaced by premises in Winchester Street containing other buildings including a cottage. The site was cleared (apart from the cottage), and a chapel opened in 1812, its registration signed by Jason Withers, a clockmaker, and five others who were mainly boot- and shoe-makers.
30 Smith (2004)
31 21M65/F2/4/17, Hampshire Record Office 32 Smith (2004)
33 Smith (2004) 34 Smith 2004
Stamp says that funds were low and labourers few. In 1804 Stamp includes a note that there were “a few appendages to Whitchurch”; they are not named, but presumably include Laverstoke and Hurstbourne Priors. In July 1796 a house was licensed for worship in Longparish, which had a population of about 550 in 181036.
According to Smith (2004), Methodists were meeting in a cottage in Overton in 1810. In 1816, a labourer’s house was registered.
In 1796 Winscom signed a certificate37 licensing a house for worship in Dunley. In 1810 a licence38 registered a labourer’s house in the parish of St Mary Bourne for Methodist worship. Robert and Ann Martin signed with marks.
Andover Circuit 1818
Andover became the head of a circuit in 1818 with one minister and 190 members. The Wesleyan Magazine (1825:51) reported that “an increased disposition to hear the truth, has for some time been manifest in the country parts of the Andover Circuit,” and Andover acquired a second minister in 1825. However, from the mid-1830s the work declined, and Paintin (1951:8) says that “Wesleyan Methodism in Andover almost foundered at times in the next sixty years.” The memberships at Andover and Whitchurch moved somewhat erratically as follows:
1819 1822 1829 1834 1836 1840 1841 1846 1851
ANDOVER 42 18 28 21 15 29 21 14 20
WHITCHURCH 36 32 66 58 100 121 118 78 82
It would not appear that the schism of 1851 had any effect here. Membership increased in 1851 when nationally it decreased by -15.65%. This research has not discovered a pattern or cause of the erratic shifts.
From 1825 Whitchurch had its own ministers. In February 1827 two labourers’ houses were licensed for worship, presumably class meetings. A chapel was built in Overton in the period 1841-2. Circuit records show a membership of 11 at Laverstoke. It had a society from 1822; one of the leaders was a foreman at the paper mill. The religious Census records an 1822 Wesleyan chapel in Hurstbourne Priors. Hurstbourne Tarrant (which had a population of about 1150 in 1810 (Smith (2004)) appears in the Circuit minutes in 1836. The religious census records a morning congregation of 40 in a private house. By the time of the 1851 Census there was no chapel at Longparish, but a room large enough to hold 40 persons was in use. In 1829 a tenement in the parish of St Mary Bourne was set apart for worship, and the village acquired a Wesleyan chapel in 1833.
1819 14
Basingstoke
Basingstoke appears in the Andover Circuit in October 1825, but disappears in October 1827. The brief, anonymous History of the Church and of the Methodist Society in Basingstoke from 1739 says on page 6 that “it does not seem there was much immediate advance”. The Wesleyan Magazine (1872:955-6) carries a report from the Rev. G. E.Startup who says: “So far as I can learn, it is more than half a century since Methodism was first introduced into Basingstoke,” implying that any society raised in the age of Wesley died out by the 1820s, and a new start (Startup’s “first introduced”) was made. Startup reports that the meetings were held in the house of Moses Cook, whom the 1841 Census identifies as a baker. He continues:
After a while a more public place was engaged for our work; but from this time the cause began to decline, owing to the difficulty of supplying the pulpit regularly. The assembled congregation would frequently be without a preacher, and then - as a not unnatural result - the preachers would sometimes go, and find almost no congregation. ... The cause soon died out, and for forty or fifty years Basingstoke remained without Wesleyan services.
It is a matter of surmise to what extent such inconsistency in the provision of preaching may have adversely affected attendance in other places, such as Sherfield on Loddon, Sherborne St John, Monk Sherborne, and Dummer where houses were licensed for worship, but the 1851 Census records no Wesleyan meeting in Basingstoke itself.
These facts demonstrate that Wesleyans established themselves in towns (but not Basingstoke), and held meetings in villages, becoming better established in the Andover area than in the vicinity of Basingstoke. Of all the villages listed above, the 1851 religious census records Wesleyan meetings only in Overton, Faccombe, Hurstbourne Priors, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Longparish, St Mary Bourne and Baughurst. Basingstoke became head of a new circuit in 1872; its 1878 plan lists only Basingstoke, Sherborne, Newfound and Cliddesden: that is, they became established only in one of their earlier villages.
It is also clear that both skilled manual and labouring men were drawn to the Wesleyans: members came from a range of social classes. Watts (1995:317-8) shows that in Hampshire Wesleyans attracted a disproportionate number of ‘labour aristocracy’, artisans and higher skilled workers. By the end of this study, Wesleyan strength still lay to the north of a line from the Severn to the Wash.