Rabbit holes, dive deeper and the connections flow together. As I was thumbing through Unitarianism, and boy does it have a long history in Wiki. Why Unitarianism? this is the church of fame in Todmorden built by John Fielden's sons in memory of him in 1867, now defunct but held up by a charity it is now the meeting place of the Incredible Edible people of Tod, who were working on Sunday round the gardens and came back and dined on Asian and Indian food, probably kindly donated by the two restaurants I spied a couple of days ago.
I came across the fact that this theology theory was firstly adopted and taken up by Joseph Priestley. (1733-1844) I know him said my mind, my daughter used to go to his primary school in Calne, Wiltshire. He was the scientific mind that explored oxygen and gases. He worked at Bowood House just outside Calne, lived on The Green, where my daughter went to nursery school, and he would have wandered the many places I did especially round the River Marden.
Calne has a small memorial to him in the square, see here. I can only remember Calne town by the statues of pigs that wound their way in the central area. This was of course because of the bacon factory that once dominated the town, now pulled down and nothing remains.
Looking through the long list of dissenting upstart interpretations of the Christian faith, Unitarianism was all over the world, it seems quite a refreshing evaluation, not too believe in the Trinity, or the words of the bible. It is surprising how the Victorian era bought forth so many great men (and women), exploring and challenging the world around them.
Perhaps we need them back again to pull us out of this black hole called Climate Change but yes they do exist alongside the milksops of the Bullington Club world. Brains sparkle in our professors and some leaders, the vaccination programme showed how quickly we could work to overcome the imminent fear of dying of Covid.
West Wales was an absolute melting pot of different factions and Chapel is still going strong . . . There's somewhere in Cardiganshire called Y Smotyn Du (the Black Spot) which was infamous for its staunch Unitarianism and its had a recent Lottery grant to interpret and restore Chapels there.
ReplyDeleteRound here Wesley used to come and share his beliefs with the locals and I believe his son married a local lass (from the next village over).
Well if we are dropping names;) Elizabeth Gaskell's widower used to come to the Unitarian church here. I always remember the little grey chapels of Wales, quietly living in the countryside. I suppose they were the meeting houses of the locals, pubs being rather thin on the ground.
ReplyDeleteThere's a nice bit of history for you. Still so many little grey chapels about the place, but I shouldn't think they have that many customers these days. Back in the day, it was where you would meet a partner of course.
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated to discover, researching my own family history, that a lot of Cornish miners moved to Todmorden with their families in the second half of the 19th century. One of my grandparents cousins married into one of these families with the surname Sandow or Sandoe.
ReplyDeleteWell when I go grave hopping will look out for their names. It is surprising how many people moved around through the centuries, they followed the work of course.
DeleteI attended a Unitarian Universalist church for some time, but my grandmother was horrified, and eventually I quit. Not because of my grandmother, who eventually said any religion was better than no religion, even if it wasn't a religion (figure that one out!).
ReplyDeleteWell I suppose she was right you have to have 'belief' whatever it may be Joanne. I love the way all these different versions splinter off the original, I note you belonged to the Unitarian Universalist. America absorbed a lot of our so called dissenters in this country and took with them their different creeds.
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