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

Rev. Henry Allon

Rev. Henry Allon

Born near Hull.  Joint pastor of the Islington Union Chapel from 1843/4 with Thomas Lewis, taking sole charge on Lewis's death in 1852, until his own death.   Friends with Gladstone and Asquith (wh...

Person, Religion

2 memorials
St Augustine's Church, Victoria Park

St Augustine's Church, Victoria Park

This church was built, inside the Park, in 1867 to meet the needs of the expanding population, 22 years after the Park opened in 1845.  Following WW2 bomb damage the church was demolished (our end ...

Building, Religion

2 memorials
St Augustine church, Hackney

St Augustine church, Hackney

Built as St Augustines by the end of the 13th century, probably on grounds belonging to the Knights Templar. When this order was taken over by the Order of St John, the church was renamed St John a...

Building, Religion

1 memorial
Westminster Chapel

Westminster Chapel

Evangelical church.

Building, Religion

1 memorial
Swedish Church

Swedish Church

There were enough Swedes in London (mainly sailors) for a congregation to form in 1710 and the first church was set up in Wapping in 1728 (pictured), opened by and named for (the future queen) Ulri...

Building, Religion, Sweden

2 memorials