Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion

File:Selina Hastings Countess of Huntington npg 4224.jpg, c. 1770 (unidentified artist)]]

The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion was founded in 1783 by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, as a result of the Evangelical Revival. It seceded from the Church of England, founded its own training establishment – Trevecca College – and built up a network of chapels across England in the late 18th century.[https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198263694.001.0001/acprof-9780198263692 Abstract of history. Retrieved 22 January 2020.]

In 1785 John Marrant (1755–1791), an African American from New York and the South who settled in London after the American Revolutionary War, became ordained as a minister with the connexion. He was supported in travel to Nova Scotia as a missionary to minister to the Black Loyalists who had been resettled there by the Crown. Many of the members of the congregation which he organized in Birchtown, Nova Scotia later chose to emigrate and resettle in Sierra Leone, the new British colony in West Africa. What was called a Province of Freedom was founded in 1792.{{Cite web |url=https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/fellowships/global-connexion |title=Connexion Fellowships. Retrieved 18/12/2019. |access-date=18 December 2019 |archive-date=19 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819153750/https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/fellowships/global-connexion |url-status=dead }} Additional Connexion churches were founded in Sierra Leone (see below), and the British and Sierra Leone movements re-established contact in 1839.[https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/images/pdfs/The-Elect-Lady-book.pdf The Elect Lady], Chapter 10.

The connexion had earlier efforts at congregation building in Canada. In the 1850s, the entrepreneur Thomas Molson built a church for the connexion near his brewery in Montreal. It was poorly attended as the city's population was predominantly Catholic. The building was adapted for use as a military barracks.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=VIkxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=66UFAAAAIBAJ&dq=bishop-fulford&pg=4431%2C2334187. Montreal Gazette, 15 February 1986. Retrieved 5 January 2019.]

The Countess of Huntingdon's gave strong support to the Calvinistic Methodist movement in Wales in the 18th and early 19th centuries, including the foundation of a theological college at Trefeca (Trevecca) in 1760. [https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/howell-harris-and-the-evangelical-revival-in-wales The Gospel Coalition Retrieved 20 May 2017.]

{{As of|2019}} the connexion has 22 congregations in England and "more than 30" in Sierra Leone.[https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/ Connexion site. Retrieved 18 December 2019.] A UK-registered charity provides financial help with ministers' wages and training and for Connexion schools and teaching salaries in the latter country.[https://sierraleonemission.org.uk/?cat=220 Charity site. Retrieved 18 December 2019.]There were said to be 16 congregations in Sierra Leone in 2003.[https://web.archive.org/web/20050422180619/http://www.southstreetfreechurch.org/cofhhistory.html Retrieved 30 January 2019.]{{Cite web |url=https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/fellowships/connexion-network?radius=-1&filter_catid=20&limit=0&filter_order=alpha&searchzip=United%20Kingdom |title=Connexion Network |website=www.cofhconnexion.org.uk |access-date=2019-01-30 |archive-date=19 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819153747/https://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/fellowships/connexion-network?radius=-1&filter_catid=20&limit=0&filter_order=alpha&searchzip=United%20Kingdom |url-status=dead }}

Of the UK churches, seven normally have full-time pastors: Eastbourne, Ely, Goring, Rosedale, St. Ives, Turners Hill and Ebley. Total regular attendance at all churches is approximately 1,000 adults and children.

Connexion churches were formerly active in:

• Bath, Somerset: founded in 1765, later Trinity United Reformed Church and now the Museum of Bath Architecture
• Bodmin, Cornwall: in January 1880 the congregation bought the "very desirable" property known as Springfield for a minister's residence.{{cite news |title=Bodmin |work=The Cornishman |issue=81 |date=29 January 1880}}
• Brighton, East Sussex, the first of the churches, was founded at North Street in 1761.{{cite web |url=http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/page_id__8351_path__0p115p210p711p.aspx |title=North Street: The Countess of Huntingdon's Church, by Jennifer Drury |date=24 August 2012 |access-date=15 January 2013}}
• East Grinstead, West Sussex: Zion Chapel founded in 1810, now the West Street Baptist Church
• Cheltenham, Gloucestershire Portland Chapel, North Place was built at the expense of Robert Capper in 1816 for a Connexion congregation. It was later joined by and then merged with a Baptist Congregation from Golden Valley, Cheltenham.
• Fordham, Essex was active in the 19th century.A Vision of Britain through Time. [http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/6711 Retrieved 1 October 2014.]
• Preston, Lancashire, founded before 1826, in Pole Street, is now closed.{{cite web |url=http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Preston/StMarkLH.shtml |title=St Mark, Preston- Lady Huntingdons Connexion |publisher=genuki.org.uk |date=2 April 2012 |access-date=2 March 2013}}
• South Stoke, Oxfordshire, founded in 1820,{{cite book |last1=Sherwood |first1=Jennifer |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |author-link2=Nikolaus Pevsner |series=The Buildings of England |title=Oxfordshire |year=1974 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth |isbn=0-14-071045-0 |page=774}} is now a private house.{{Cite web |url=http://www.oxfordshirechurches.info/SouthStoke.htm |title=Oxfordshire Churches & Chapels website: South Stoke |publisher=Oxfordshirechurches.info |access-date=2012-06-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220122054/http://www.oxfordshirechurches.info/SouthStoke.htm |archive-date=20 February 2012 |df=dmy-all }}
• Steyning, West Sussex: Jarvis Hall, a Connexion church from 1835 to 1841
• St John's Free Church, Westcott, Surrey remains as a community centre.{{Cite web |url=http://www.stjohnswestcott.org.uk/ |title=Community Centre. |access-date=9 January 2021 |archive-date=28 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130628093644/http://www.stjohnswestcott.org.uk/ |url-status=dead }}
• Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, founded in 1789, known as Tyldesley Top Chapel, now belongs to a Pentecostal congregation.
• Worcester, Worcestershire had closed as a chapel by 1970. It is now a concert hall known as Huntingdon Hall.{{Cite web |url=http://www.worcesterlive.co.uk/about-us.asp |title=About us {{!}} Worcester Live - Home to Swan Theatre and Huntingdon Hall |website=www.worcesterlive.co.uk |access-date=2020-01-15}}
• York Street, Dublin, built in 1808

{{reflist|30em}}

{{commonscat|Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion churches}}

• [http://www.cofhconnexion.org.uk/ Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion] – official website
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050422180619/http://www.southstreetfreechurch.org/cofhhistory.html Countess of Huntingdon Connexion History] – South Street Free Evangelical Church
• [https://www.southstreetfreechurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/An-Introduction-to-the-Countess-of-Huntingdons-Connexion-updated.pdf An Introduction to 'The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion']
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080703154403/http://www.newconnexions.org.uk/ New Connexions]– New Connexions Group of Churches
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060525030103/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ben.quant/connexions/electlady.html G.W. Kirby (1972), The Elect Lady]

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Category:1783 establishments in England

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Category:Evangelical denominations established in the 18th century