Bygone London

by Frederick Ross

The Pinmakers, or Pinners as they were usually called, were neither a numerous or a rich company. Indeed, Stow says that they met in Plasterers' Hall originally, and in his time the house had gone to decay, as "they were not worth a pin." The company was formed in the reign of James I., and was incorporated 2nd Charles I. (1636). The arms presented a crowned half figure of Queen Elizabeth, with the motto, "Virginitas et unitas nostra fraternitas." Towards the end of the 17th century they held their quarterly courts of assistants in Cutler's Hall, Cloak Lane, Dowgate. In the Guildhall Library is preserved the minute-book of the quarterly meetings from 1698 to 1723, some portions of which are engrossed. It commences with a list of members in 1698; then gives the minutes of the meetings in succession. The chief business appears to have been fining the members of the court 1s. for being late, binding and unloosing apprentices, and voting donations to the widows of members. The company has now entirely disappeared.

St. Augustine's passed through some strange mutations before it finally disappeared. Originally the home of a fraternity of begging friars, it became the stables and outhouses of the mansion of a nobleman. Then it was converted into a glass factory; a soldiers' barracks for a short time; after which it was appropriated by a City company, and finally became a great centre of Protestant Dissent, from whose pulpit were enunciated principles of theology at which, in the olden time, friars would have stood aghast. In the reign of Charles II., Anthony Palmer, who had been ejected from Bourton-on-the-Water, and who suffered much under the Act of Uniformity, an able and learned man, author of The Tempestuous Soul calmed by Jesus Christ, and other esteemed works, collected a congregation here, took a lease of the building, and fitted it up with two tiers of galleries, and died in 1678. He was followed by a long succession of ministers who preached Calvinistic doctrines, amongst the more notable of whom were George Townes, M.A., who had been apprehended in the pulpit at Bristol on a charge of having being implicated in the "Presbyterian Plot," was removed by habeas corpus to King's Bench Prison, and eventually acquitted. He suffered much persecution, and died of the stone, aggravated by his imprisonment, in 1685. Richard Wavel, famous for his pulpit oratory, who died in 1707. Joseph Hunt, D.D., a learned divine, who occupied the pulpit 37 years. He is highly panegyrised by Dr. Lardner for his erudition, strength of mind, and wonderful memory. Joseph Foster, D.D., born 1697, pastor of Pinners' Hall Church 1774-1753, author of The Usefulness, Truth, and Excellency of the Christian Revelation, written in reply to Christianity as Old as Creation. He was buried in Bunhill Fields. Caleb Fleming, D.D., born at Nottingham, 1698; pastor, 1753-1778, having been previously minister of a congregation in Bartholomew Close. Author of a multitude of pamphlets—some published anonymously—quaint and obscure in style. He held opinions verging on Socinianism, and "set down as fools all who held different opinions," including Watts, Bradbury, Pike, Wesley, Whitefield, and Sherlock. This congregation only occupied the chapel in the mornings, and at the expiration of the lease, in 1778, the church was dispersed. In the afternoons an Independent Church, commenced by Thomas Cole, who died in 1697, rented the chapel. He was followed by Dr. John Singleton, who in 1704 removed with the church to Lorimer's Hall.

In that year (1704) Dr. Isaac Watts preached here in the afternoons until 1708, when he removed to the new meeting house in Duke's Place.

Then followed, in 1708, a congregation under the oversight of James Maisters, who came hither from Joiners' Hall, who, with his successor Thomas Richardson, removed in 1723 to Devonshire Square. About 1741 Mr. Weatherley's congregation of General Baptists came here from Artillery Place, Spitalfields, and continued until the expiration of the lease, when they removed to Berry Street. A sect of Seventh Day Baptists also occupied the chapel on Saturdays, under the pastorate of Thomas Bampfield, "who died a martyr in Newgate in 1684." The church afterwards removed to Curriers' Hall.

In 1779 a lease was taken of the chapel by Anthony Cole, a seceder from the Countess of Huntingdon's connection, who gathered together a numerous congregation, who assembled here until the expiration of the lease in 1799, when they removed to Founders' Hall.

Shortly after this the building was taken down, and all traces of it are now obliterated.

But that which rendered Pinners' Hall so conspicuous and celebrated in the annals of Nonconformity was the establishment of the Merchants' Lecture within its walls. In 1672, the Dutch war commenced, and Charles II. and his advisers, thinking it desirable that there should be peace at home in the religious world whilst there was war abroad, issued the memorable Declaration of Indulgence, in the preamble to which it was stated, "that there was very little fruit of all those forcible methods which had been used for seducing erring and dissenting persons, etc. His Majesty therefore, by virtue of his supreme power in matters ecclesiastical, took upon him to suspend all penal laws about them, declaring that he would grant a convenient number of public meeting places to men of all sects that did not conform, provided they took out licences, etc." This was welcomed by the Dissenters generally as a gracious act of toleration, but there were those amongst them who looked upon it as a stepping-stone to the re-introduction of Popery. Taking advantage of the indulgence, the Presbyterians and Independents who agreed in the fundamental principles of the Reformation, and in a desire to tear away from the Anglican Church the shreds of Popery which still adhered to it, met together, under the patronage of the merchants of London, and agreed to establish in Pinners' Hall a weekly lecture, to be preached on Tuesday mornings.

At first four Presbyterian and two Independent ministers, the most eminent of their day, were appointed to preach in turn. They were Drs. Bates, Manton, and Owen, and Messrs. Baxter, Collins, and Jenkyn, and for a time the lectures were continued with success and acceptance, and with tolerable unanimity, despite some little bickering on the questions of Predestination and Reprobation, occasioned by a sermon preached by Baxter, who defended his sermon in a tract entitled An Appeal to the Light, when Dr. Manton came forward and partially suppressed the clamour, but Baxter seceded.

A succession of distinguished ministers continued the lecture until 1694, when the Calvinistic question again cropped up, arising out of the reprinting of the works of Dr. Tobias Crisp, which were published under the editorship of his son in 1690, and written against by Mr. Williams, one of the lecturers. Discord sprung up, and an attempt was made to exclude him from the lectureship, upon which four of the lecturers,—Dr. Bates, and Messrs. Williams, Howe, and Alsop,—sent in their resignations, and set up an opposition lecture at Salters' Hall, at the same day and hour.

At the expiration of the lease the lecture was removed to Little St. Helen's, and afterwards to the chapel in New Broad Street, about 1780, but was very thinly attended.