A 200-Year Methodist Masterpiece (21 October 1978)

Wavendon Methodists have just been celebrating the centenary of their present church, which was opened in November 1878, and which superseded a much older one.  Features of the celebrations have been a special service on October 15, attended by ministers and members of all churches in the Milton Keynes circuit; a reunion of former members the following Sunday, including a pilgrimage to the graves of former members in Wavendon churchyard followed by a service of thanksgiving for 182 years of Methodist witness in Wavendon; a concert at the Community Centre given by a choir from Cudworth, South Yorkshire; and an exhibition of documents, photographs, etc., going back to the 1870’s.

A more permanent memento of the occasion is a book of some 23,000 words entitled “The people called Methodists in the village of Wavendon,” which has been written by Mrs. Audrey O’Dell, MBE, MA.  Though she now lives in Bedford, Mrs. O’Dell is a member of that staunch Wavendon Methodist family, the Wilsons, and lived her former years in the village.

Her mother was a native of Wavendon.  Her father moved there from Emberton.  They raised seven children and sometimes there were up to 30 people at parties at their house.  The father was parish overseer for the poor in the 1920’s, and also chairman of the parish council, but although he was an out-and-out Methodist he did not grudge the rector his tithes, saying that he ought to be paid for his all-round responsibilities.

Mrs. O’Dell’s book is a little masterpiece of its kind.  While dealing centrally with the Methodists, this “Outline History,” as it is sub-titled, is a resume of the whole village and introduces a large variety of village characters of the past 200 years, Methodist and non-Methodist alike.  It should interest all residents, old or new.  In particular, I recommend it to all Methodists for miles around, for the rise of Methodism in Wavendon was typical of its rise almost everywhere and its terminology is identical.

I myself appreciate it partly because I had a village Methodist upbringing, went to Sunday School and Chapel three times each Sunday and can still remember the tunes and at least the first verse of scores of hymns; though I never became a full member.  Wavendon’s celebrations are brought even closer to me by Mrs. O’Dell’s reference to the Sunday school anniversary services of her childhood in which she says: “For weeks before, we had practised the special hymns that emanated from Dewsbury…”  The centre of that town is only two miles from my old village chapel.  Some fine, mainly-rousing tunes which did not get into the official hymnals were certainly written by various chapel organists in those parts, but this is the first I have heard of their penetrating as far as North Bucks.

But then, hymn-singing has played a major part in Methodism right from its early, heroic years, when almost all of its converts were poor, illiterate people, living in squalor, but responding to John Wesley’s soul-saving enthusiasm and enjoying a good, uplifting sign, whether they thoroughly understood the words or not.  The same kind of thing happens today on a different level.  Think of all the thousands of people who can sing “Crimond” with true feeling who could not recite or chant the 23^rd Psalm or any other psalm or ancient canticle whatever.

Heroic

I call them the old, heroic years because for a very long time the Methodists suffered the same ostracisation as other Dissenters.  Living in rented cottages, they could lose both homes and jobs if their landlords, who were often their employers as well, did not like their becoming Methodist “members”.  This helps to explain why in so many cases chapels to seat 100 or 150 were built in villages where the actual membership was in single figures.  The chapels and Sunday schools were filled not by members, but by adherents and children.  Adherents both attended and gave support, but stopped short of full membership.  A disadvantage of this was that only members could partake in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Mrs O’Dell gives a list of places in the Newport Pagnell circuit in 1820 and their various memberships as follows: Newport Pagnell 39, Wavendon (which up to 1907 included the present separate parish of Woburn Sands) 54, Aspley 34, Bow Brickhill 19, Fenny Stratford 17, Water Eaton 4, Little Brickhill 12, Stony Stratford 30, Hanslope 18, Salford 17, Moulsoe 15, Simpson 8, Broughton 19, Stoke 4, and Cranfield 6 “on trial.”

Societies

This could mean either that Wavendon’s landlords were more tolerant than others elsewhere, or that more people in Wavendon and its various endships owned their own properties, or both.  In some places Methodist “societies” (which usually preceded the building of a chapel) found it impossible to continue.  This happened as late as 1881 at Milton Keynes Village where, in the words of the circuit superintendent minister, “The person whose house we occupied for Sunday afternoon preaching has left and the house taken down and for a long time it has been quite impossible to secure the use of another.  Nearly all the cottages in the village belong to the “Squire”.  We are still on the outlook”.

Early documents as to the formation of the society and the building of a chapel at Wavendon are confusing, but I think Mrs O’Dell is probably right in judging that the society was formed in 1779 and the chapel built in 1796 hence the “182 years of Methodist witness.”  She goes on to say that this makes Wavendon by 17 years the earliest chapel in the circuit.  Sir Frank Markham states that a barn at Stony Stratford in which John Wesley preached in 1777 “continued as the Wesleyan chapel until 1844 …”  It is not a point Methodists will argue about.

Cottages belonging to Methodists were pulled down in order that the first chapel might be built.  The acquisition of a further cottage in 1810 made it possible to enlarge the chapel in 1813.  Then it was found that these transactions unwittingly violated some of the provisions of an Act of 1736.  However, the cottages were down and the chapel was up and eventually the conveyance was regularised.

Fulfilled

The present chapel also was built on land which for long had been occupied by Methodists. It was “to be used, occupied and enjoyed by the people called Methodists and for the public worship and service of Almighty God.”  Mrs. O’Dell tells in excellent fashion how these requirements have been thoroughly fulfilled ever since.

Gone since the Methodist union of 1932 is the difference between “Wesleyans” and the Primitive Methodists, who built their own chapel in Wavendon in the 1860’s which has now become a studio.

Especially long gone is the old tension between “church” and “chapel”.  In Wavendon, as elsewhere, they preserve their identities but they present a united front to the materialism of the age.  The Rector, the Rev Peter Cianchi, conducted one of the Methodists’ celebration services and also printed Mrs. O’Dell’s book, which much help was also given by the verger and sacristan, Miss Margaret Jackson.

Copies of the book can be obtained from Mr. Martin Creasy, The Old Manor, Wavendon, price 60p, post free.  Mr. Creasy is the Methodist church’s treasurer.

Extract

`Mr. Whiting brought his “wireless set” with an enormous horn (loud speaker) so that ordinary people on payment of one penny might hear the new miracle.

~it turned out to be a poor night, though, and we heard only odd sections of a programme badly and softly reproduced.  But we heard “2 L O calling” and knew that it did exist ……..

Through all the previous years in which Methodists had sung “Oh for a trumpet voice, On all the world to Call!  To bid their hearts rejoice in Him who dies for all,” none of them had thought that a voice would come through a trumpet!’