A few years later the Mayor found it necessary to place a guard at the door of the house to prevent a meeting being held. In 1708 this meeting–house was found to be small, and a much larger one was erected. The meeting–house at Swarthmoor was built in 1686 upon land given by George Fox, who also endowed it with land free from tithes, so that (to quote his letter) “Friends may be sure of a meeting–house for ever that is free and will maintain itself, and which is the Lord’s.” In this meeting–house is still preserved George Fox’s folio Bible, to which is attached the chain with which it was formerly fastened to the pulpit. The number of meeting–houses of the Society of Friends was never very great in Lancashire, and in the larger towns there were very few built before the early part of the eighteenth century. Most of them had graveyards attached, and in some cases (as in Manchester) these remain, whilst the meeting–houses have been pulled down.
Wesley made many visits to all parts of Lancashire; but the growth of Methodism was at first slow in the county, as it met with much opposition from many quarters, and in several towns the appearance of its founder led to disorder and riots. Methodism began in a very humble way in Lancashire, the handful of converts forming themselves into “classes,” and often meeting in small cottages. In Manchester the first gatherings were held in a small room in a house near the Irwell, where a woman lived, having in the room her spinning–wheel, her coals, her bed, chair and table. Some of the earlier societies (about the year 1744) were called “William Darney’s societies.” Another man who assisted Wesley in Lancashire was John Bennet of Derbyshire, who introduced Wesleyanism into Rochdale a little before 1746.
Methodism was not introduced into Preston until 1750, and in some districts it did not obtain a footing until a much later period; but long before the close of the century its chapels were found in almost every large town as well as in isolated rural districts.
Early in the seventeenth century Baptist chapels were erected in several parts of the county. Of the many sects which have arisen within the last hundred years, it is not our province to record either the origin or progress, as Lancashire, in common with all the country, has now inhabitants who worship under many forms; but there no longer exists that bitter, antagonistic feeling between one denomination and another which has for so many centuries been a blot upon the pages of England’s history.
In 1819 there were in Lancashire 77 Roman Catholic chapels, and in 1823 the Dissenting chapels included: 68 Independent, 27 Baptist, 32 Unitarian, 4 Scotch Kirk, 3 Scotch Presbyterian, and 180 Wesleyan.
