Nantwich Nonconformism

1725: The Friends' Meeting House was built by the Quakers (opposite the museum and now the Players' Theatre)

1755-61: Joseph Priestley was the Unitarian minister at the chapel built by the Presbyterians in 1726, on the corner of Hospital Street and Pratchett's Row.

"At Nantwich I found a good natured friendly people with whom I lived happily for three years" Memoirs of Rev Dr. Joseph Priestley

Priestley established a successful school of thirty boys and six young ladies equipping it with a small air pump and an electrical machine so that they might perform scientific experiments. After he left Nantwich he was to become world-famous as the discoverer of oxygen and father of modern chemistry.

1779-1781: John Wesley preached twice at the Baptist chapel on Barker Street where Elizabeth Minshull, the poet John Milton's widow had been buried.

1780: My 4g-grandfather Henry Kitchen and John Smith founded the Independent and Congregational Chapel, converting a large coachmaker and painter's shop in Queen Street, Nantwich. They obtained the the room at a low rent and fitted it up for £40. This small chapel had two pews, a pulpit and a gellery seated with forms. The chapel was opened in 1780 by Captain Jonathon Scott of Wollerton (who has been called the Cheshire Whitefield) and Rev. William Armitage of Queen Street Chapel, Chester. For 16 years there was no settled minister and they were dependent on the services of neighbouring minsters for support. Whenever a supply failed Henry Kitchen and John Smith read a sermon. Henry Kitchen and John Smith would walk to Chester on some weekdays to hear Whitfield preach. Henry and his wife Mary would look after and clean the Chapel until they were too old to continue. The Chapel was ill-suited and after 20 years, the Congregationalists built another Chapel in Church Lane.

1801: The Congregational Church was built in Church Lane.

1806: The Wesleyan Chapel and two preachers' houses were built in Hospital Street by the Methodists.

One of my other ancestors was a Unitarian minister and Mayor of Crewe.

Footnote: Much of this information comes from Nantwich Museum and family history researcher (and distant cousin) John Kitchen