Unitarian Church

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Frances Power Cobbe
The agnostic FPC wrote her best-known hymn, beginning For life, for health I bless Thee; it was popular later in the century in Unitarian and non-denominational hymn books.
Mitchell, Sally. Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. University of Virginia Press, 2004.
68
Cultural formation Catherine Hutton
CH grew up in a Dissenting family which suffered for its beliefs. She had a number of Quaker friends, to whom she unembarrassedly used thou and thee. She wrote that she almost became a...
Cultural formation Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP , who had long ceased to be a Unitarian and become an agnostic, experienced a gradual change in religious beliefs, which ended in her conversion to Roman Catholicism .
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
3
Banks, Olive. The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists. New York University Press, 1985.
Cultural formation Sarah Flower Adams
Her devout Unitarian upbringing manifested itself in her writing, most explicitly in her hymns.
Stephenson, Harold William. The Author of Nearer, My God, to Thee (Sarah Flower Adams). Lindsey Press, 1922.
17-20
However, at the age of twenty she faced a spiritual crisis,
Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer, editors. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Yorkin Publications, 2002.
expressed in a letter written to her minister...
Cultural formation Anna Swanwick
She remained a Unitarian all her life, but was open-minded enough to enjoy discussing Unitarianism on equal terms with Catholicism, Judaism, and other forms of religious worship
Bruce, Mary Louisa. Anna Swanwick, A Memoir and Recollections 1813-1899. T. F. Unwin, 1903.
155
with the eccentric Marquess of Bute (himself...
Cultural formation Ann Jebb
She was born into the English professional class, with connections in the nobility, and brought up in the Anglican church. As an adult she became, like her husband, an early Unitarian .
Meadley, George William. “Memoir of Mrs. Jebb”. The Monthly Repository, pp. 597 - 604, 661.
600
Cultural formation Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP was born into an English, professional, well-known, liberal, Unitarian family.
Crawford, Anne, editor. The Europa Biographical Dictionary of British Women. Europa Publications, 1983.
Levine, Philippa. Feminist Lives in Victorian England: Private Roles and Public Commitment. Basil Blackwell, 1990.
16-17
Banks, Olive. The Biographical Dictionary of British Feminists. New York University Press, 1985.
Her mother was born in Pennsylvania, but had moved to England at the age of six.
Lowndes, Marie Belloc. I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia. Macmillan, 1941.
36
Cultural formation T. S. Eliot
His family were New Englanders for generations back on both sides, and were rich in connections with men of letters. His paternal grandfather was a Unitarian and an academic.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Cultural formation Ann Jebb
At this stage also the Jebbs changed their religion, and became Unitarian s. John Jebb, indeed, was one of those who were instrumental in opening the first Unitarian chapel, in London.
Meadley, George William. “Memoir of Mrs. Jebb”. The Monthly Repository, pp. 597 - 604, 661.
600
Cultural formation Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP described herself as having been born in the very bosom of Puritan England, and fed daily upon the strict letter of the Scripture from aged lips which I regarded with profound reverence.
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell, 1995.
347
Her...
Cultural formation Mary Anne Jevons
Like her parents, MAJ became a committed Unitarian who attended chapel regularly.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Cultural formation Beatrix Potter
Her Lancashire forebears had been, as she imagined them, Puritans, Nonjurors, Nonconformists, Dissenters.
Grinstein, Alexander. The Remarkable Beatrix Potter. International Universities Press, 1995.
7
In recent generations they were Unitarian s. Her parents belonged to the London upper middle class, and lived a life of...
Cultural formation Antoinette Brown Blackwell
In 1878 she returned to organized religion, joining a Unitarian Fellowship. Elizabeth Cazden believes that ABB was drawn to the Unitarian church because it envisioned a benevolent God and defended human freedom and moral reasoning.
Cazden, Elizabeth. Antoinette Brown Blackwell. Feminist Press, 1983.
190
Cultural formation Harriet Taylor
Her parents were active Unitarians , whose social circle included many London intellectuals and dissenters.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge, 1989.
Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages. Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
101
Cultural formation Margaret Fuller
MF 's Unitarian ism introduced her to a vibrant intellectual community in Cambridge, and at a fairly young age she became a central figure in a social circle that included George Ripley , William Henry Channing

Timeline

1749
David Hartley published Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duties, and his Expectations, which established a materialist theory of the human mind.
1771
Political thinker Richard Price (who was later a Unitarian ) published probably the best-known attack on enclosures, Observations on Reversionary Payments, which went through six editions.
17 April 1774
The inaugural service was held at the first Unitarian chapel, in Essex Street, London.
April 1792
Mobs attacked houses and mills owned by Unitarians in Nottingham; two months later, meeting-houses in Manchester were sacked, and, in November, mills in Belper.
11 May 1792
Edmund Burke in his Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians argued that Unitarians, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity, could not claim toleration like Catholics , Presbyterian s, Quakers , and others.
1796
Joseph Priestley published at PhiladelphiaUnitarianism Explained and Defended, in a Discourse Delivered in the Church of the Universalists, at Philadelphia.
1813
An Act of Parliament conferred legal status on the Unitarians by absolving them of the official charge of blasphemy.
October 1891
The Labour Church , an organization professing Christian Socialism, held its first service, in Manchester. Its founder, John Trevor , had been a Unitarian minister.
29 September 1904
Gertrude von Petzold , a German Unitarian , became the first woman to act as a minister in England since before the Victorian age.