St. Michael’s, Moor Street, formerly the New Meeting House of the Unitarians (q.v.), and purchased from that body in 1861, and opened in 1862.
St. Joseph’s, Nechells, formerly only a chapel of the cemetery there served from St. Chad’s, became a church with two priests in the year 1872.
St. Catherine of Sienna in the Horse Fair was consecrated September 28, 1875, and
St. Patrick’s in the Dudley Road was opened in 1876.
Birmingham is one of the Roman Catholic Sees created by the celebrated Papal-Decree of 29th September, 1850. To that date from 1584, when the last of the old Roman Catholic Prelates died, the English Romanists had been governed in matters ecclesiastical by Vicars-Apostolic, of whom the last and best known was Bishop (in partibus) afterwards Cardinal Wiseman.
After this enumeration of the numerous churches and chapels, which the limited number of pages at the writer’s disposal necessarily reduces to almost a catalogue, it may be useful to summarise the general results of the religious life of the town.
It must never be forgotten that every church and chapel is a centre of educational and philanthropic work of many kinds. The clergy of the established church have almost a monopoly of day schools, whilst the various denominations of dissenters for the most part leave the education of the poor to the Board schools. Night schools are common to both churches and chapels—Sunday schools are universally attached to both. Then there are the auxiliary organisations of Bible Classes, Lending Libraries, Provident Societies, Sick Clubs, Saving Clubs, Clothing Clubs, Improvement Societies, Mothers’ Meetings, Dorcas Societies, Lectures on Health and Domestic Economy by ladies, and, attached to some churches and chapels, classes for instruction in elementary Science and Literature.
Of the three parties into which the established church is commonly divided, viz., Low, High, and Broad, the general tone of the Birmingham clergy for the last fifty years has been decidedly low. A glance at the table will shew that the rights of presentation to the mother church of St. Martin and the other three rectories of All Saints, St. George, and St. Thomas, and also to many of the newly-created vicarages, are vested in trustees. With the exception of two or three of the new churches, such as those of St. Alban the Martyr, and the Oldknow Memorial Church, these trustees have been of the type of the Simeon Trustees.
For many years Holy Trinity, Bordesley, was the sole representative of High Church ritual and doctrine, both of which have made great progress the last quarter of a century, and at many of the churches the services are distinctly “higher” than formerly. The same influences have been at work among Nonconformists. The old pattern of meetinghouse has given place everywhere to a more ecclesiastical style, and even where the structure cannot be altered, the walls are coloured and decorated. The congregational plain song of half a century ago is varied and improved by chanting and anthems, and in one Nonconformist Church may be seen a surpliced choir.