Harefield: Nonconformity

NONCONFORMITY.

There are few and only scattered traces of nonconformity in Harefield before the 19th century. Sir Robert Ashby had concealed Jesuits and seminary priests at Harefield in 1604, (fn. 1) and a few years later some people at Moorhall were accused of recusancy. (fn. 2) In the early 17th century there were a few indictments for non-attendance at church, (fn. 3) but by 1640 there were no known papists in the village. (fn. 4) In the late 17th century there were complaints that dissension among the churchmen in the parish was greatly encouraging the dissenters, (fn. 5) who were the only people to be excepted from the rules for Sunday observance laid down by the manor court in 1692. (fn. 6) There was also a prosecution in 1690 of an unlicensed preacher at Harefield. (fn. 7) In 1706 five Quakers, two of whom were the overseers of the poor, refused to pay a rate for the repair of the parish church. (fn. 8) The Independents' house of worship near the copper mills was licensed in 1813, but was actually situated in the parish of Rickmansworth, (Herts.), not in Harefield. (fn. 9) Some people calling themselves merely 'protestants' first worshipped in a house in the village in 1814, and later in the same year built a special room for the purpose. (fn. 10)

The Baptist church in Harefield was founded in 1834. (fn. 11) It is said that services conducted by preachers from Rickmansworth and West Drayton were begun in a private house in 1833. The church was built in 1834 by one John Bailey, a 'benevolent and eccentric member of the Society of Friends', who had been much impressed by the dissolute Sunday habits of the village youth. (fn. 12) In 1843 the congregation numbered about 70. (fn. 13) During the later 19th century the chapel declined, it is said because the working-class members who comprised the congregation were unable to support it. The chapel seems eventually to have been closed, but it was reopened in 1884 under the auspices of a Watford (Herts.) chapel. Rickmansworth Baptists were also associated with it. In the 20th century lay pastors were often appointed. The church was licensed for marriages in 1948, and in the 1950's developed a policy of 'cottage meetings' in various houses in the village. (fn. 14)

It is probable that during the 19th century the Baptists suffered from the establishment in 1863 of the Methodist church. (fn. 15) Methodist services and a Sunday school were said to have been started in the coach-houses of Harefield Grove House, at that time belonging to Robert Barnes, a former Mayor of Manchester and a retired manufacturer. Barnes built the church in 1864 and maintained a resident minister there, although it was asserted in 1872 that there was only one Wesleyan family in the parish when it was founded, (fn. 16) Barnes himself being a churchman. On his departure from Harefield in 1869 he offered the building to the Wesleyan Methodist authorities, whose property it became in 1871. (fn. 17) The church hall was opened in 1906, but after the First World War the congregation declined in numbers. The Second World War brought evacuees to the village causing a slight increase, but in 1959 the chapel had no resident minister and was largely dependent on lay preachers. (fn. 18)

The Salvation Army had a barracks at Harefield between 1894 and 1906. (fn. 19) There was no Roman Catholic church in the village in 1959, but mass was celebrated on Sundays in the village hall by priests from Ruislip. (fn. 20)