HALIFAX:
South Parade Wesleyan Church, Halifax, Yorkshire
Source=h:/!Genuki/RecordTranscriptions/WRY/Tana.txt
The founding father of Methodism, John Wesley, began preaching
in Halifax in the 1740s, often outdoors, and to large crowds who
weren't always thrilled to hear him. The first Halifax Methodist
preaching room was opened at Cow Green in 1749. The meetings were
popular and the congregations swelled, and within 10 years a small
chapel was opened in Church Lane.
This was replaced by the much larger South Parade Chapel in 1777,
built at a cost of £1,230. John Wesley preached at it's
opening and the collection plate must have weighed very heavy
- the donations amounting to a staggering £500. Wesley continued
to visit the chapel and his journal of 1778 records "I spoke
to them in Halifax with all plainness yet I did not hear that
any was offended".
In the 1870s the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway demanded the
compulsory purchase of the graveyard to enable expansion of the
adjacent goods yard. The chapels Trustees took the case to the
House of Lords, but it resulted in the rail company being forced
to buy the entire site, which it did in 1878. The South Parade
Methodists found themselves a home in the large and newly built
St Johns Methodist
church on Prescott Street. The railway company rented out the
chapel building for a variety of purposes until 1966 when it was
demolished so that the road could be widened.
Above: the chapel just before it was demolished.
© 2000 Tana Willis Johnson
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