"RIDGWAY GATES WESLEYAN, BOLTON in 1803, bapt. place of my gt-gt-gt-grandpa

[skb]

According to the GENUKI Church database, Ridgway Gates was founded in 1776.

http://www.rootschat.com/links/023v/

[Keith Sherwood]

Thanks very much for that, Skb!
keith

[liverpool annie]

Hi Keith !

You know me always behind but did you know .......... 

Non conformist chapels were not permitted to conduct marriages until the mid 1850's !!

You probably do .... but just in case !!

Annie 

[Martin Briscoe]

Karlowe,
This question has just occurred to me, but what was the function of Victoria Hall when it was built in 1932?  I've seen a modern photo of its grand entrance, but was it built and used as either a Methodist or United Reformed Chapel then...?
Very best wishes,
Keith

According to Pevsner

Victoria Hall
A Wesleyan Mission by Bradshaw & Gass 1898-1900
The Forward movement at the end of the C19 sought to reach the disaffected with "Central Halls" like this, unchurchy, open all the time, with a social as wellas a religious message.
... paid for by Thomas Walker,a tanner.
The entrance tower, all bright red terracotta and brick, breaks through the then recently completed block of Victoria Buildings
....
The extension on the S side, of 1932, is on the site of the Ridgeway Gates chapel of 1776

Martin Briscoe

PS
A derelict building at Ridgeway Gates

PPS
Pictures of Victoria Hall

Description of Victoria Hall

[Keith Sherwood]

Annie,
Just keeping an eye on things for me, leaning on that brush of yours...thanks for that, all baptisms at the moment in the Nonconformist achives, though one I got yesterday for Bethnal Green seems to be a birth in 1822 registered in 1830, no mention of baptising at all...
And Martin, thanks so much for those pictures taken of Bolton.  Somewhere amongst my PM's there's one sent by a Rootschatter that shows the actual interior of the Ridgway Gates, if I remember correctly.  Must search it out now, (like several of the threads I've started, this one has lain dormant for nearly 2 years before bursting into life again yesterday.  Thank goodness these things happen on Rootschat!)
keith

[andrewalston]

The Victoria Hall is, besides being a Methodist place of worship, a concert hall. Think classical music rather than rock, though I believe that such events have used the hall in the past.

It's very much in the centre of Bolton, directly across the road from the Market Hall.

[Keith Sherwood]

Have now recovered the internal and external views (from my chaotic files) of possibly the original chapel before it was demolished.  Upper balcony on three sides, they must have packed them in in its glory days.  Wonderful to imagine my direct ancestor baptising all those young individuals over 200 years ago in that very place.
MUST find out who it was who sent me those two old photos through the post possibly 2 years ago.
keith

[Martin Briscoe]

Have now recovered the internal and external views (from my chaotic files) of possibly the original chapel before it was demolished.  Upper balcony on three sides, they must have packed them in in its glory days.  Wonderful to imagine my direct ancestor baptising all those young individuals over 200 years ago in that very place.
MUST find out who it was who sent me those two old photos through the post possibly 2 years ago.
keith

If he was John Kershaw then he seems to have become a Minister in 1789, unfortunately this book only gives a single date for earlier Ministers but has more information on later ones.

Another page has

John Kershaw "COM 1788" "DIED 1855"
Lawrence Kershaw "COM 1802" "DIED 1824"

An alphabetical arrangement of all the Wesleyan Methodist ministers and preachers on trail in connexion with the British and Irish Conferences. also, a list of the presidents of the Conference from 1791 to 1892; and an alphabetical list of the ministers who have died in the work (1896)
Creator   Hill, William, 1770-1827
Creator   Waller, David James
Creator   Pawson, John, 1737-1806
Publisher   London : Wesleyan Methodist Book Room
Date   1896

Downloadable here

There are other Wesleyan books there including

Title   The church and the slum : a study of English Wesleyan Mission Halls
Creator   Crawford, William Henry, 1855-
Date   1908
Publisher   New York : Eaton & Mains

Title   History of Wesleyan Methodism in Burnley and East Lancashire
Creator   Moore, B. (Benjamin), 1844-
Publisher   Burnley : Gazette Printing Works
Date   1899

http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/J%20M%20Briscoe

Martin Briscoe

[Keith Sherwood]

Martin,
He became a Methodist itinerant Minister in 1788 and started on the Grimsby Circuit.  In 1789 he was at Horncastle; 1790 Whitehaven; 1791 Birstal; 1792 Whitby; 1793 Stockton; 1794 Newcastle; 1795 York; 1796 Huddersfield; 1797-8 Dundee; 1799-1800 Edinburgh; 1801 Chester, then Bolton...
I've posted his other circuits until 1823, when he came to London as Bookroom Steward, on another board...
He was still performing his duties even in the year he died in 1855.  Until I discovered all these details about his life I'd always imagined he was a Londoner, but he was most certainly born and bred in The North, being baptised in North Yorkshire in 1766 to another Methodist Minister, grandfather in the Cloth trade in Halifax...
keith