Batley Wesleyan Reform Church
The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available. Please feel free to add or update with any additional information. |
Later Batley United Methodist Free Church. Also known as Talbot Street Methodist Church.
Was established c1850 by a group of Wesleyan Reformers who seceded from Batley Wesleyan Methodist Church in Wellington Street, using the former Wesleyan Methodist brick chapel.
They intended to buy the former Providence Congregational chapel c1856-1857 but due to internal quarrels failed to do so.
The subsequent history is very unclear; the congregation seems to have left the Birstall Wesleyan Reform Circuit in 1857 and joined the Leeds Wesleyan Reform Circuit later that year; some of the congregation seem to have left at this point and joined Batley Primitive Methodist Revivalists c1858.
A society in Batley joined the Birstall United Methodist Free Church Circuit 1864; it is uncertain if this is the same society that had left the Birstall Circuit in 1857 or a new group. This society used a preaching room over Oliver Gomersall's shop in Wellington Street from c1870.
In 1866-1887 a chapel at the corner of Taylor Street and Talbot Street was built.
The chapel closed in 1994.
Records for this chapel can be found at WYAS: Kirklees. Reference number WYK1125