Building    From 29/3/1778  To 1944

Essex Street Chapel and Essex Hall

Categories: Religion

The first Unitarian service was preached by Theophilus Lindsey on 17 April 1774.  Supported by Joseph Priestley, Richard Price (see scientific life assurance) and others he used space recently vacated by an auction house, a simple hall built on the site of the old Essex HouseBenjamin Franklin was also present at this service.  The congregation grew and Lindsey's friends funded a purpose-built chapel on the same site, opened on 29 March 1778.

By the 1880s another Unitarian congregation had grown in Kensington but without a chapel. Also two Unitarian bodies required better offices: the British and Foreign Unitarian Association and The Sunday School Association. It was decided that the Essex Street congregation would join that in Kensington, in a new church (funded by Sir James Clarke Lawrence and his brother Edwin) and the old chapel would be redeveloped to become Essex Hall, the headquarters of British Unitarianism. With substantial funding from Frederick Nettlefold this was built in 1886, destroyed in WW2 but rebuilt and, 2012, is still the Headquarters of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

The picture source website is excellent for the history of the building.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Essex Street Chapel and Essex Hall

Commemorated ati

Essex Hall

{Plaque above seated men in picture:} Essex Hall Headquarters of the Genera...

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Essex Street & Essex Hall

This plaque was first erected at 7 Essex Street in 1962 and then re-erected h...

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Other Subjects

St Martin within Ludgate

St Martin within Ludgate

The mediaeval church dates from 1174. Rebuilt in 1437 and then destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Rebuilt by Christopher Wren 1680.

Place, Architecture, Religion

1 memorial
J.J.H. Septimus Pennington, Rector

J.J.H. Septimus Pennington, Rector

Rector of St Clement Danes in the Strand. The lady beside the Rector in the picture is his daughter, Louie who had a sad end.

Person, Religion

2 memorials
Elizabeth Pepper

Elizabeth Pepper

Burnt at the stake in Bow (or possibly Stratford) for her Protestant beliefs.

Person, Execution, Religion

1 memorial
Rev. F. W. Briggs

Rev. F. W. Briggs

1841 an assistant chaplain in Madras, India. Vicar at St Matthias from at least 1883 until 1896 when he was promoted away.

Person, Religion

1 memorial
John Ernest Grabe, D.D.

John Ernest Grabe, D.D.

D.D. - Doctor of Divinity.

Person, Religion

1 memorial