Group    From /5/1738  To 1941

Fetter Lane Society

Categories: Religion

The Moravian leader in London, Peter Bohler, established the Fetter Lane Society in May 1738 (- 42 depending on source).  Most of the members were Anglicans.  Attendees included John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Zinzendorf, the parents of William Blake and Emanuel Swedenborg.  Wesley had a doctrinal disagreement with the Moravians and broke away, taking about 50 other members with him, to form the Foundery Society before eventually establishing the Methodist Church. 

When the Fetter Lane church was destroyed by WW2 bombs the congregation moved to Muswell Hill (Moravian Church House, 5 Muswell Hill, N10). And in the 1960s the Fetter Lane congregation was re-established at Moravian Close, Chelsea.

The Web Archive has a page for the Fetter Lane Moravian Church which explains that after the WW2 destruction "the congregation became disparate, worshipping in chapels of various denominations, mostly south of the Thames. Eventually, in the 1960s it was decided to re-establish the Fetter Lane Congregation at the Chelsea site. This is where the congregation has worshipped ever since, with the responsibility of looking after the God's Acre, which contains the graves of such as Peter Böhler, John Cennick and James Hutton."

2022: We are grateful to Graham T. Dalgleish who sent us the link to this image, with the text "Founded 1742 as the first Moravian (Church of the United Brethren) chapel in Britain. Charles Joseph La Trobe was born nearby in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, Holborn, on 20 March 1801 and was baptised in the chapel; both his grandfather and father were leaders in the Moravian Church. Like many churches in the area, St Paul’s Cathedral excepted, it was destroyed by bombing in 1941. The area was rebuilt as a commercial precinct; the congregation was re-established at Chelsea in the 1960s."

La Trobe was the nephew of John Bateman.

Sources include: Moravian Church, Methodist Heritage.

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