52 Ancestors Challenge - Week 10 - Worship

 

How important was worship for my family? 

My family consider themselves Christian but are not regular churchgoers.  Nowadays we don’t usually go to church apart from Christenings and Funerals, and even the latter is usually conducted at a crematorium chapel.  But, in the past attendance at church once a week was the norm, and if you didn’t it was sometimes frowned upon by your neighbours.

My Dad’s family attended church sporadically.  My Dad and his sister Nellie were never baptised, although the other children from my grandparent’s family were – Alf and Jim in London, with Vi and Dick being baptised at St Faith’s in Walsworth, Hertfordshire as a ‘job lot’. 

St Faith's Church, Walsworth, Hertfordshire

Maybe Grandmother Elizabeth encouraged this as I believe she was a churchgoer, as we have her well-thumbed Hymns Ancient and Modern, and her Bible, in which is proudly inscribed her three Nickels children's birth dates. 

In the 19^th century my paternal ancestors all made sure that their children were baptised in an Anglican (Church of England) church, be this in London or in Suffolk.    Gt Grandmother Elizabeth’s Dorset family worshipped in St James at Poole, or earlier in the Skinner Street Independent church.  So, this family were sometimes Anglican, and sometimes Nonconformist.  Maybe they liked the preacher!

The Nickels’ worshipped in Orford, Tunstall and Wickham Market in Suffolk, all Anglican churches.

In the 18^th century they would have attended the churches in their locality, mostly Anglican, by evidence of baptism, banns, marriage, and burial.  Whether they attended every week, we shall never know.

My Mum’s Hertfordshire family were regular churchgoers, right up to my Mum’s generation.  I have her bible and Congregational hymn book and various certificates she was presented with for attending church related activities, like the Band of Hope.    Mum always watched ‘Songs of Praise’ on TV on Sunday evening as we didn’t attend church regularly. 

I was baptised at the Free Church in Letchworth but later after joining the church choir at St Paul’s in Letchworth was Confirmed into the Church of England by the Bishop of St Albans.  

St Paul's Church, Letchworth, Hertfordshire

I love looking around churches, especially those where my ancestors worshipped, be it Anglican or nonconformist.  The history, the atmosphere and the monuments all fascinate me.  

I attended a Catholic convent school where my fellow pupils came from all sorts of different religions -  Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Church of England, Moslem, Buddhist, Baptist, Methodist and many other faiths.   We were married at All Saints in Willian, a church special to me as relatives from both sides of my family have been baptised, married and buried there.

All Saints, Willian, Hertfordshire

My Mum’s parents and all the 6 children attended the Congregational Church in Queen Street, Hitchin.  Most of my aunts were married there.  The church no longer exists, being demolished in the mid-1900s.   The periodical below was the Magazine of the Congregational Church, a bound copy of issues from 1912 - 1913 was gifted to me by an uncle (on the Nickels side of the family!) many years ago.  Together with the moral stories suitable for Sunday reading there is a useful commentary on the clubs and societies run by the church and also births, deaths and marriages.  Full of names for the genealogist.

Mum’s Morgan family have a long association with nonconformity in Hitchin.  I have located burials of my direct ancestors in the nonconformist burial ground in 1809 and 1810, so they must have been part of the congregation back into the 1700s.  They attended the Back Street Meeting and the Tilehouse Street Baptist Church, both in Hitchin.   The Taylor’s, Moules’ and Cotton’s attended the Anglican churches in Hitchin (St Mary), Baldock (St Mary), Willian (All Saints) and in the nearby village of St Ippollitts.  Most of my ancestors attended the Anglican church, but some brothers or sisters did attend nonconformist chapels, mostly Baptist.  How often we will never know, but it was normal to attend worship weekly.

St Mary's Church, Hitchin

Although we don’t now attend church services regularly this does not mean that we are atheist!  We ‘attend’ services on TV, occasionally attend a church service associated with things we are involved with for example the The Battle of Britain Service at Westminster Abbey or the St John's Day Service at St Paul's Cathedral. I also sing with my operatic society choir where we always have a Christmas concert where traditional carols, and Christmas songs, are sung with gusto. 

I guess in the 21^st century there are so many things that occupy our time so that a weekly visit to church is not necessarily priority, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t worship in a personal way.  Perhaps we are more ‘spiritual’ these days. 

For example, we enjoy learning about the history of Christianity and different faiths, investigating the origins of the bible, which gospels were included and which were not, Relics, the Turin Shroud, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and more controversial theories.  This doesn’t make us less Christian, but we would probably have been ostracised or accused of blasphemy in times gone by.  In the past people accepted church doctrine and could recite passages from the Bible without question, nowadays we are perhaps more questioning of that doctrine.