Worcester Presbyterians and Independents 

Worcester Presbyterians/Independents. The following account taken from John Noake, Worcester Sects, or A History of the Roman Catholics & Dissenters of Worcester (London: Longman, 1861). 

The original Presbyterian meeting at Angel Street brought Thomas Belsham  to replace Urwick (resigned 1775); Belsham was ordained there in 1778 (121).  He had Socinian tendencies and some members seceded to form an Independent meeting on the south side of Pump Street that began in September 1778,with a Mr. Lewis (later at Wootton-under-Edge) as pastor.  By 1795 the church had been abandoned and the building occupied by a Wesleyan chapel (122).  Belsham’s congregation soon became known as Independent himself, “his early services seem to have been accounted by his congregation correct and orthodox, and his sermons were in the style of the old Presbyterians” (123).  His sermons were “decidedly evangelical, the preacher not having then imbibed, or at all events given expression to, the strong opinions which subsequently rendered his name notorious as a Socinian” (123). Belsham left in 1781 to take over the Independent Academy at Daventry.  Belsham was succeeded by a J. Gummer of Hereford, who had been recommended by Job Orton.  The congregation increased considerably under his ministry, but towards the close of 1791 dissensions arose among the members and many left the church.  Gummer resigned that year and removed into Wiltshire (124).  He was replaced that same year by G. Osborn from West Bromwich.  He had studied at Daventry and previously preached in West Bromwich.  While at Worcester, he established a school, which he kept until his death in 1812.  He was essentially a Baptist in his views, but the congregation kept him anyway for 21 years (125).  He formed the first Sunday school in Worcester, one for boys in 1797 and the other for girls in 1798.  His daughter became a bookseller in Worcester.  He preached a sermon on 9 November for the benefit of the schools, in which he argued against the notion that Sunday schools were “seminaries of sedition and atheism, and nurseries of indolence, pride, and disaffection” (126).  He argued that they were “not calculated to foster the interest of a party, and neither intended nor used as means of levying contributions for the support of erroneous conventicles” (126). In his address accompanying the sermon, he wrote, “I can assert with truth and confidence hat these are not either seditious or atheistic seminaries; they are freely taught to read and believe the Bible …and to learn the catechisms of Watts and of the orthodox assembly of divines” (128).  His publications include Christianity attested and explained by Prophecy; Evangelic Faith and Union; Moral Charity; and Devout Loyalty.