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Location: Essex Street Chapel, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom. (51°30′32″N 0°11′37″W).
Essex Street Chapel
Essex Street Chapel, also known as Essex Church, is a Unitarian place of worship in London. It was the first church in England set up with this doctrine, and was established when Dissenters still faced legal threat. As the birthplace of British Unitarianism, Essex Street has particularly been associated with social reformers and theologians. The congregation moved west in the 19th century, allowing the building to be turned into the headquarters for the British and Foreign Unitarian Association and the Sunday School Association. These evolved into the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarianism, which is still based on the same site, in an office building called Essex Hall. This article deals with the buildings (1778, 1887, 1958), the history, and the current church, based in Kensington.
History of Essex Street Chapel:
The first minister was Theophilus Lindsey, who had recently left the Church of England because of his burgeoning Unitarian conviction. He had moved to London specifically to find like-minded people and to found a congregation—indeed, a denomination. Support was immediately given him by distinguished English Presbyterian ministers such as Richard Price, who had his own church in Newington Green, and Joseph Priestley, who among other things discovered oxygen. Unitarian beliefs were against the law until the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813, but legal difficulties with the authorities were overcome with the help of barrister John Lee, who later became Attorney-General. The inaugural service, on 17 April 1774, was reviewed as far afield as Leeds: "The congregation was respectable and numerous, and seemed to be particularly pleased with the spirit of moderation, candour and christian benevolence of the preacher whose sermon was perfectly well adapted to the occasion."[7] Two hundred people gathered to hear Lindsey preach, including Benjamin Franklin, then an agent for the colonial Province of Massachusetts Bay. This was the first time in England that a church had formed around explicitly Unitarian beliefs.
