Chapel Next the Green (the history of Twickenham Congregational Church) index page
Re-formation!
“Notice is hereby given that a meeting will be held on Thursday 27th April at 1/2 past 7 o’clock in the evening in the School Room of Twickenham Congregational Chapel for the purpose of considering the desirability of reconstituting the Church worshipping in the Chapel, and if thought desirable of taking steps to carry into effect the decisions of the Meeting. All communicants and other persons desirous of attending are invited.”
In these words notice of the event commemorated by the publication of ‘Chapel Next the Green’ in 1982 was given to the worshippers on the two preceding Sundays, and it is with this meeting that the surviving church minute books begin. Present at the meeting were the Rev Andrew Mearns, LCU Secretary and the Rev Robert Macbeth, minister of Hammersmith Congregational Church. Mr Macbeth was elected to the chair:
“Mr Mearns said that the legal formality of reading a notice on the two preceding Sundays having been complied with, the Friends present were therefore competent to form themselves into a Church and carry out the wish already frequently expressed. Proposed by Mr J .R.Cole, seconded by Mr T.Franklin, and carried unanimously:
“That it is desirable that a Congregational Church be now formed in this place.”
Mr Mearns then read a declaration outlining the principles of a Congregational church and invited those present to assent to it.
“He again read the declaration and whilst doing so all whose signatures appear on the page overleaf stood up agreeably with this request and signified by holding up the right hand their willingness to join the church and their assent to the above declaration. … Mr Macbeth then said ‘after what has been done you are a Christian church, and having assigned to you all the responsibilities and all the responsibilities and privileges of your position you should proceed to organise yourselves. It is necessary to have someone to preside over, take the lead and carry out the ordinances and appointments of your Church. God has shown you whom you should choose’.“
Not surprisingly Mr Gliddon was then unanimously invited to accept the pastorate, and Mr Macbeth vacated the chair in his favour. A vote of thanks to the two visitors for their help and interest was then passed. At this meeting 38 members signed the declaration.
On June 1st five Deacons were elected: Alfred Child, John Cole, Thomas Franklin, John Gould and Frederick Venn. On June 20th the Rev R.Macbeth presided over Mr Gliddon’s ordination; Andrew Mearns and George Ingram also participating. The Trust Deed was restored to the church, most of the original trustees signing a memorandum to it.
The new church had inherited debts of nearly £200 and a special effort was made to clear these. Mr Augustin Spicer (of Spicer Bros, the paper firm) donated £50 and persuaded the LCCBS to reduce their claim on the Church by a further £50. The Jubilee Fund of the ICU contributed another £50, and by February 1883 the debt was cleared. For the second time in ten years an organ fund was then started.
During this time the pastoral work of the Church went on uneventfully. In late 1883 it was agreed to place the schoolroom at the disposal of the British School Committee and on 31st December the school was re-opened.
It came as a great disappointment to the members when in February 1884 Mr Gliddon tendered his resignation “in order to take up missionary work in Paris . He ended his pastorate on 30th March and shortly after resigned from the Congregational ministry. Nothing is known of his subsequent work. In two and a half years at Twickenham, two as pastor, he had laid a foundation on which others would build.
The last sentence was true when CNG was published in 1982. Since then information on Mr Gliddon’s second career has surfaced. One account has him serving as minister of Above Bar Church, Southampton for two years, The 1891 census records him living in Cheltenham, the 1901 census, St Albans. He died in Croydon in 1929.
He became one of the principal promoters Electro-Homeopathy:, authoring ‘Stepping Stones to Electro-Homeopathy: (Count Mattei’s System of Medicine)’. A committee set up to examine its efficacy reported “in the deliberate judgment of the committee, consists exclusively of vulgar, unadulterated, unredeemed quackery.”! An 1893 newspaper article notes “Cocaine has only been adopted in England during the last seven years … the vendor of the drug, and who is, I believe, the secretary to the proprietor or proprietary company, is a Mr. Aurelius Gliddon, who is a native of the Channel Islands, and was for a considerable period employed as a Nonconformist minister. He forsook the pulpit on the ground of some doctrinal difficulties, and has since been engaged in business.”
His daughter, Katie Edith Gliddon (1883 –1967) was a militant suffragette who in 1912 served two months imprisonment with hard labour in Holloway Prison for smashing a post office window. She went on to become a successful watercolour artist specialising in painting flowers. His second son, Maurice, was killed in action in Belgium in August 1917.
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Read about the Macbeth Centre in Hammersmith here