Welsh Journals

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in question he somehow achieved bail, and was loaned a horse, a saddle, and a greatcoat in order to keep the appointment, after which he returned to gaol. It is said that some gentlemen of Haverfordwest found the bail money and lent him the horse and gear and it may well be asked why these and other persons of property risked everything to champion the dissenters prior to the Religious Toleration Act of 1689. Another tale concerns a Carmarthen woman who was walking to an illegal meeting in the Cleddau valley when she was stopped by a constable at Tycoch crossroads. On being questioned, she said 'My elder brother is dead, and I am going to claim my share of the inheritance'. Not seeing her double meaning concerning Christ and His Kingdom, the man let her pass4. A distinctive Baptist witness and presence was therefore pervasive in Pembrokeshire during the second half of the seventeenth century. Advance The nineteenth century was the great age of Baptist expansion in Britain, and this advance has to be seen against the social background of that era. The period 1815-70 has been termed 'The Age of Reform', during which various changes took place which were aimed at 'the organisation of a civilised social life'5 and a higher standard of living. These include the Reform Acts; the reform of the law courts; revision of the Poor Law; the amelioration of Justice; the growth of railways; introduction of cheap postage; the influence of Chartism and the growth of trade unions; reform of local government; improvements in public health, workhouses, police and prisons; and especially development in primary, secondary and university education. Against such a background must be seen the demand for a better and more spiritual religion. The need was great, as shown by the pitiful state of Nantgwyn Free Chapel at an earlier period6, and this desire for betterment was at work within the episcopal church. Woodward states 'Thus two movements, one for administrative reform, the other for a revival of the conception of the church as a divinely appointed society, worked simultaneously to change the outward form and internal character of the Church of England'7. The rise and spread of dissent was the other great factor in the improvement of religion and morality. All these reforms and influences would have benefited Pembrokeshire, but against the growth would be the cost of the Napoleonic Wars in terms of high prices and unemployment after 1815, and a succession of bad harvests in 1811-12; 1829-30; and 1839-418. In spite of these adverse economic circumstances dissenters in general, and Baptists in particular, erected and paid for their places of worship. The task would have been easier and the growth greater but for the great movement of people to the towns to work in the coalfields and ironworks. That the extent of the advance was considerable can be illustrated by the number of chapels built in the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1800, there were fourteen Baptist churches in Pembrokeshire, of which twelve were Welsh. Between then and 1850 a further forty-one new churches were founded of which twenty-three were English and eighteen Welsh. Between 1850 and 1900 twelve churches were founded, half being Welsh and half English, and since 1900 three English and two Welsh churches have been erected (see Appendix). Today we have eleven ministers serving thirty-seven Welsh churches with 3,450 members, and fifteen ministers serving thirty-five English churches with 1,600 members'.