Dr. William
Antliff, assisted, and afterwards, succeeded by Mr. T. Greenfield,
trained candidates for the ministry. The college was afterwards
transferred to a new building at Alexandra Park, Manchester.

In 1889, at the 70th Annual Conference, held in Bradford, the membership
of the society numbered 194,347, with 1,038 itinerant and 16,229 local
preachers; 430,641 Sunday School scholars, 4,436 chapels and 1,465
smaller places of worship; the value of the connexion's property being
estimated at over 3,218,320 pounds.

For these details I am largely indebted to the notes of the late Mr.
William Pacy, of the Wong, Horncastle, and to the courtesy of the Rev. R.
B. Hanley, Minister 1903-5.

THE INDEPENDENTS.

Next in size to the Wesleyan Chapel and its Sunday Schools, on the west
side of Queen Street, are the Chapel and Sunday Schools of the
Independent, or Congregational, community, which stand nearly opposite,
on the east side of the same street; the former being a handsome
substantial building of brick, enclosed by a high wall, and tall iron
rails and gate, to the precincts in front, at the north end. Its
dimensions are 50-ft. by 36-ft., with schools behind, of the same solid
structure, as will be seen hereafter, erected at a later date.

Like the Baptists this society dates from the time of the Commonwealth,
or even earlier, though at first known by a different name. They arose,
indeed, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The persecutions of
Protestants, under Queen Mary, drove many to take refuge in Germany and
in Geneva, where they became familiar with the worship of the sects
established there, which, as an unchecked reaction from the superstitious
and elaborate ceremonies of Roman Catholicism, took a more extreme form
than the carefully developed Reformation of the English Church allowed.
These persons, returning to England in the reign of Elizabeth, found, as
it seemed to them, too much Romish doctrine and practice still retained;
the Reformation, according to their ideas, had not gone far enough.

The Queen, as head of the English Church, was not disposed to listen to
their demands for further change, and they were themselves too much
divided to have the power to enforce them; dissension and disruption were
the consequence. A chief mover in this process of disintegration was
one, Robert Brown, who founded a sect called the "Brownists." He was the
son of a Mr. Anthony Brown, of Tolethorpe near Stamf