On non-conformist or dissenting places of worship in England and Wales in 1851

In 1851 a report was presented to a Commons committee on non-conformist churches and chapels in England and Wales giving numbers as follows:

Wesleyan 4,450
Independent 2,572
Baptist 1,943
Primitive Methodist 1,662
Roman Catholic 597
Calvinistic Methodist 778
Bible Christian 415
Society of Friends 330
Wesleyan Methodist Assn 322
Methodist New Connection 281
Unitarian 260
Church of Scotland 12
Free Church of Scotland 77
United Presbyterian Church 61
Lady Huntingdon's Connection 30
New Jerusalem Church Jews Minor sects 350

There are some interesting conclusions to be drawn from these statistics. Remember that these are churches that are not Anglican, but not necessarily orthodox, creedal Christian, or even Christian in any sense. If you merge together the different flavours of Methodism, you find that 52% of the churches were Methodist. That is an impressive proportion. It may be even bigger, as I excluded Bible Christian as this is ambiguous. It could mean the Bible Christian Church of Devon and Cornwall (have you come across them, Stuart?). They were a form of Primitive Methodist, but not aligned with them or others. It could also mean (less likely) the Bible Christian Church Vegetarian or Cowherdites. They were a Swedenborgian offshoot but not aligned with New Jerusalem. We cannot tell which from the list as it stands. I have no idea who the independents are. Perhaps they are Congregationalists. The Unitarians are tiny at 1.8%. Lady Huntindon's Connection had an influence out of all proportion to the small number here. They seemed to be similar to Calvinistic Methodists. New Jerusalem is lumped in with Jews and minor sects. This is bizarre. There are far more Free Church of Scotland than Church of Scotland. There are not many Roman Catholic, but this is not long after Catholic Emancipation. Most of these churches are found in Lancashire.

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