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.

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

dissolution of the monasteries

dissolution of the monasteries

In 1534, for reasons not only to do with his marital situation, Henry VIII broke with Rome, the Pope and the Catholic Church. At the time the Catholic monasteries (and abbeys, priories, convents an...

Event, Politics & Administration, Property, Religion, Royalty

3 memorials
St Georges Burial Ground

St Georges Burial Ground

St. Georges Burial Ground was so used from 1731 to 1857.

Place, Gardens / Agriculture, Religion

1 memorial
St Margaret, Fish Street Hill

St Margaret, Fish Street Hill

Lost in the Great Fire and not rebuilt.  Stood where the Monument now stands.

Building, Religion

1 memorial
St Olave Church, Silver Street

St Olave Church, Silver Street

The first reference to a church on this site is to 'St Olave de Mukewellestrate' in the twelfth century,named for King Olave. Destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire and not rebuilt. Instead the parish...

Building, Religion

2 memorials
George Burder

George Burder

Non-conformist minister. Born in Islington. One of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Died in Brunswick Square in his son's home. Buried in Bunhill burial ground.

Person, Religion

1 memorial