Octagon Chapel, Liverpool

The dissenting group in Liverpool in the middle of the eighteenth century was in numerical terms shrinking. Many from congregations had conformed to the Church of England. A plan for a set liturgy, as a method of reform of dissenting services, was proposed by some Lancashire ministers in 1750. Despite open opposition by John Brekell from 1758, who by then had been ministering at the Kaye Street Chapel for nearly 30 years,{{cite DNB|wstitle= Brekell, John |volume=6}} the compilation of a new liturgy went ahead.{{cite ODNB|id=3311|title=Brekell, John|first= Jonathan H |last = Westaway}} The Kaye Street Chapel (also Key Street) dated from 1707, and belonged to the Warrington presbyterian classis.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Bassnett, Christopher |volume=3}}

The Benn's Garden Chapel in Red Cross Street, Liverpool, dated from 1727 and had been built for the Presbyterian minister Henry Winder.{{cite ODNB|id=2971|title=Winder, Henry|first=Jonathan H |last=Westaway}} In 1763 its minister John Henderson became a conforming Anglican; at that point William Enfield became sole minister there to a congregation with many local merchants.{{cite ODNB|id=8804|title=Enfield, William|first= RK |last= Webb}} While Brekell was a conservative Presbyterian, and Enfield's theology was Unitarian, the ministers of the two chapels from which the Octagon congregation had broken away then worked together on an alternative work, A New Collection of Psalms Proper for Christian Worship (1764).

A listing of the non-Anglican places of worship in Liverpool in 1775 mentions, besides the two Presbyterian chapels and the Octagon: a Methodist chapel; two Baptist meeting-places; a Quaker meeting-house; a Catholic chapel and a synagogue, both small. The population was around 35,000.{{citation | authorlink = Richard Brooke (antiquary)| first = Richard | last = Brooke | url = https://archive.org/stream/liverpoolasitwas00broouoft#page/36/mode/2up | title = Liverpool as it was during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, 1775 to 1800 | year = 1853 | page = 37}}.

File:Octagon Chapel plaque.jpg

As the name suggests, the building had eight sides, like the Octagon Chapel, Norwich (1756, Thomas Ivory). The chapel was to a design by Joseph Finney, and was built in Temple Court.{{citation | url = http://www.jbhawkinsantiques.com/uploads/articles/StaffordshireEngineTurnedPottery1.pdf | title = Staffordshire Engine Turned Pottery 1760–1780 | page = 3}}. Nicholas Clayton, of Unitarian views, accepted an invitation to become the first minister there;{{cite ODNB |id= 5576|title= Clayton, Nicholas|first= RK |last=Webb}} the appointment was joint with Hezekiah Kirkpatrick.{{citation | url = http://surman.english.qmul.ac.uk/congregationDisplay.php?masterid=5042 | contribution = Octagon Chapel, Liverpool (Lancashire) | title = Surman Library record | publisher = QMUL | place = UK}}. The congregation were nicknamed the Octagonians.{{citation | url = http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl222.htm | last = Jefferson | title = Letter to John Adams Monticello | date = 12 October 1813 | publisher = RUG | place = NL}}. but the chapel's existence depended very much on Bentley, who eventually moved to London.{{cite DNB |wstitle=Bentley, Thomas (1731-1780)|display=Bentley, Thomas (1731–1780)|volume=4}} The experimental liturgy did not gain the anticipated support, from those in the founding congregations who did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer.

The chapel was sold in 1776, to a clergyman, Rev. Plumbe, Rector of Aughton;{{cite DNB |wstitle=Clayton, Nicholas |volume=11}}{{citation | url = http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41374 | place = Liverpool | last = Churches | title = A History of the County of Lancaster | volume = 4 | year = 1911 | pages = 43–52}}. and became an Anglican church, St Catherine's. The Anglican incumbents were: Rev. John Plumbe; Rev. Wilmot; Rev. Brownlow Forde; and jointly RK Milner and Thomas Bold. The building was demolished in 1820, the Corporation of Liverpool having bought it; and a Fire Police Station was built on the site.{{citation | url = https://archive.org/stream/liverpoolbanksan00hughuoft#page/54/mode/2up | title = Liverpool Banks & Bankers, 1760–1837 | year = 1906 | page = 54 | publisher = Liverpool, Young }}.{{citation | url = https://archive.org/stream/transactionshis26chesgoog#page/n59/mode/2up | title = Transactions | publisher = Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire | year = 1852 | page = 42}}.

Clayton moved from 1776 to share the ministry at Benn's Garden Chapel with Robert Lewin (1739–1825), of Arian views, until 1781. In later years Lewin's congregation there was considered Unitarian, and included William Rathbone and William Roscoe.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Rathbone, William|volume=47}} This congregation moved in time to Renshaw Street Unitarian Chapel, the Benn's Garden chapel being sold to Wesleyan Methodists.{{citation | url = http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=138-288ull&cid=0#0 | title = Records of Ullet Road Church and its predecessors | publisher = National Archives | place = UK}}. The contemporary Ullet Road Unitarian Church identifies its history as going back to Winder's congregation.[http://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/ulletroad/history.htm Ullet Road Chapel website] In 1786 Kirkpatrick became the minister of Park Lane Chapel, Bryn, near Wigan.Nightingale, p. 138. [https://archive.org/stream/lancashirenoncon06nighuoft#page/138/mode/2up Online.]

The liturgy of the Octagon Chapel became known as the Liverpool Liturgy. It was written by Philip Holland and Richard Godwin, and was publishedA form of prayer and a new collection of psalms, for the use of a congregation of protestant dissenters in Liverpool (1763) in 1763, as edited by John Seddon.{{cite ODNB|id=25008|title=Seddon, John|first= SJ |last= Skedd}} Among the hymns chosen was one by Elizabeth Scott,{{cite ODNB|id=24867|title=Scott, Elizabeth| first= James| last = Sambrook}} later arranged by John Broderip.{{citation | url = http://www.rodingmusic.co.uk/downloads/mus10/96/RM096.pdf | last = Broderip | title = Arrangement of Arise and Hail the Sacred Day }}. The Octagonian psalms, at least, became known to Thomas Jefferson.

Although it was adopted by a prominent minister, David Williams, for his congregation at Exeter,{{cite ODNB|id=29494|title=Williams, David|first=Damian Walford|last=Davies}} the liturgy proved controversial and even divisive. Seddon and Holland were founders of the nearby Warrington Academy: John Taylor, who was a tutor there, opposed the liturgy from before the time of its publication.{{citation | first = James Hay | last = Colligan | title = The Arian Movement in England | year = 1913 | page = 73 | publisher = Manchester University Press | url = https://archive.org/stream/thearianmovement00colluoft#page/n127/mode/2up}}. Seddon and Taylor had in fact a profound disagreement on the suitability of the philosophy of Francis Hutcheson for the teaching at the academy;Geoffrey Thackray Eddy, Dr Taylor of Norwich: Wesley's Arch-Heretic (2003), pp. 134–5. while the liturgy was Hutchesonian in intent.McCarthy, pp. 67, 152.

While Bentley in 1762 had found the proposed liturgy "very chaste and yet animated",McCarthy, p. 67. the basic idea, as well as that of the chapel, was contentious. Seddon himself backed away from becoming the chapel's minister, preferring extemporary prayer to a formal service. The arguments that Anglicans of broad views would prefer a liturgy, and that it would curb the tendency to free-thinking in nonconformists, remained on a theoretical level, and were apparently contradicted by Methodist success at the time. Job Orton, who supported Taylor's position, went as far as to say that the liturgy had damaged the reputation of Warrington Academy.

In the longer term, the creedless and liberal liturgy of the Octagon Chapel formed a starting point for the beliefs and writings of Anna Aikin (later Anna Barbauld) who was brought up at Warrington Academy, her father John Aikin being a tutor there and on Seddon's side of the debate.McCarthy, pp. 152–3. The liturgy was however condemned by others, following Orton's verdict: "It is scarcely a Christian Liturgy; in the Collects the name of Christ is hardly mentioned, and the Spirit is quite banished from it";David Bogue, James Bennett, History of Dissenters, from the Revolution in 1688, to the Year 1808 (1810), p. 343.[http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/t-w-m-thomas-william-m-marshall/notes-on-the-episcopal-polity-of-the-holy-catholic-church--with-some-account-of-ala/page-37-notes-on-the-episcopal-polity-of-the-holy-catholic-church--with-some-account-of-ala.shtml Thomas William M. Marshall. Notes on the episcopal polity of the Holy Catholic Church : with some account of the development of the modern religious systems, p. 37.] and elsewhere "Grieved I am, and very much so, to see such an almost deistical composition",Colligan, p. 113; [https://archive.org/stream/thearianmovement00colluoft#page/n127/mode/2up online.]. an opinion followed in Charles Buck's Theological Dictionary (c.1820).[http://www.takeacopy.com/files/bd_l.htm#A45 Buck's Theological Dictionary online.]

Other Unitarian churches in Liverpool include:

• Hope Street Unitarian Chapel
• Renshaw Street Unitarian Chapel
• Toxteth Unitarian Chapel
• Ullet Road Unitarian Church

Other eight-sided Unitarian churches include:

• First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia

• {{citation | first = B | last = Nightingale | year = 1890 | title = Lancashire Nonconformity: or, Sketches, historical & descriptive, of the Congregational and old Presbyterian churches in the county | chapter-url = https://archive.org/stream/lancashirenoncon06nighuoft#page/128/mode/2up | chapter = The Octagon Chapel }}.
• {{citation | first = William | last = McCarthy | year = 2009 | title = Anna Letitia Barbauld: Voice of the Enlightenment | place = Baltimore, Maryland | publisher = Johns Hopkins University Press}}.

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://openplaques.org/plaques/4960 Open Plaques page]
• [http://www.rodingmusic.co.uk/downloads/mus26/253/RM253.pdf Arise and Hail the Happy Day, 1763 hymn from the liturgy, 1792 arrangement (PDF)]
• [http://www.mersey-gateway.org/yesterdays/server.php?show=conMediaFile.3350&outputRegister=lowhtml Pews for auction, 1767]

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{{Use British English|date=December 2024}}

Category:Churches in Liverpool

Category:Unitarian chapels in England

Category:Octagonal churches in the United Kingdom

Category:Octagonal buildings in the United Kingdom

Category:Demolished buildings and structures in Liverpool

Category:Buildings and structures demolished in 1820