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URC History Society
1. The main gathering for Society members continues to be the Annual Meeting, held this year at Mansfield College on 25 September. It was agreed to explore the possibility of a merger with the Churches of Christ Historical Society. An audience of thirty then heard Professor Isabel Rivers speak about Joseph Williams and his Journal. This proved to be a fascinating dissection of dissenting spirituality and practical living in C18 Kidderminster and also gave an insight into what his later editors thought edifying. After lunch Elaine Kaye and Michael Hopkins showed us the college library before setting off on a tour of famous Oxford sites. New Road Baptist Church was also included and tea at St Columba’s ended the day.
2. Archival re-organisation proceeds at a steady rate, aided by Mr and Mrs Richard Potts’s continued commitment to the task. No action on attic storage space has been taken, pending other decisions to be made on the future use of Westminster College. A steady stream of enquiries and visits in connection with the project “Who They Were the 20th century” has underlined the advantages of centrally organised archives.
3. In the Library Dr Marian Foster has made substantial progress in the cataloguing work. Some gaps have been identified and then filled, the most important being the set of volumes edited by Christopher Stell on Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting Houses in England. Shelving books which still bear the marks of damage inflicted by the destruction of Church House in 1945 is a reminder of the commitment of volunteers then and since in the conserving of a particular heritage. The appeal for the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was well supported and the set was purchased in conjunction with the College.
4. Enquiries ranged from genealogical research (the most common) to proof reading the descriptive labels for a display of Nonconformist Communion silver at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Congregations looking to mark a significant anniversary may find it helpful to contact the Administrator.
5. The grant from the Church has remained unchanged for five years, but assistance from the Communications Department in preparing text for the Journal, was much appreciated. The editor, Professor Clyde Binfield, was able to include papers given at the 2003 Study Weekend, as well as major articles on Calvinism, Philip Doddridge, and the reception of Biblical Criticism in Nonconformist Colleges. Closer to our own time there was a reminder of parallel ordinations in Bristol in the mid 1980s, when the ecumenical climate seemed warmer.
6. An anniversary was marked at the General Assembly meeting, held at the University of Glamorgan, when Professor J Gwynfor Jones recalled the Welsh revival of 1904-05 in which young people and women played such a prominent part. It was good to see many non-members in his audience.
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