[Part 4 of Mrs Chapman's "Story of Manx Methodism"]

Douglas Wesleyan Chapels and Sunday school, and progress of societies.

Following the preaching of Morrison and Gawne and John Mason, all from Peel; open air preaching began in Douglas and a society class was held in the home of Mrs. Mylchreest as early as 1776, a class which John Mason walked. from Peel to conduct each week. By 1786 numerous classes were meeting and cottage preaching was planned in half a dozen homes and farms around Douglas. The land for the first chapel was bought in Corris Garden,. for £30. It faced Thomas Street and bore this name. In the basement the first Sunday School in the island was held and when the chapel was rebuilt the old building became a day and Sunday School.

The local preachers were missionaries in the truest sense. The Local Preachers Minute book records places we no longer associate with preaching services: "That we preach alternate Saturdays at Ballacreggan and. Hampton Court.; that there be preaching at Ballashamrock" "That Cloven Stones and Lonan be joined together." "That Laxey be dropped in winter."

Old plans show which men preached in English and which in Manx. Certain congregations expressed their views "1841, Ballakillmartin to have English preaching, but Ballacowin request chiefly Manx speakers to preach"

The Thomas Street chapel was overcrowded. and Well Road was opened in 1837 to serve that end of the town; yet the Preachers' meeting is asked to supply three services at each place per Sunday to accommodate all who would hear. The island membership around this time was 3,000.

A great strength to the cause at this time was the rapid growth of the Sunday and day schools. By 1834 there were 50 girls and 100 boys on the register. The schoolmaster was paid £50 per annum plus the children's school-pence. In 1843 there were 120 boys and. 193 girls. Attendance must either have been staggered, or more likely, extremely irregular, or the room could not have contained the numbers, even though they were taught standing and without equipment beyond a few bibles.

Well Road also had a day school by 1841, and this also was overcrowded very quickly. The master was Mr. S.B. Moffat and the curriculum, similar to Thomas Street, very limited.

A disastrous fire at Thomas Street destroyed many of the early records, but we have some information. The schools were managed. by ' a committee of ladies and gentlemen' and one needed a recommendation from a committee member to be accepted as a pupil (it seemed easier to get into Eton then! )

The census figures give us interesting comparisons. The teachers were enumerated and had to declare if they had. any other income. - Mrs. Watkins, the infant teacher at Thomas Street had a husband with a pension of 1/- a day.

The Chapel offered excellent library facilities; the census showed that Thomas Street had 470 books while Wellington Street (P.M.) had 350 and these, with Castletown Wesleyan had larger libraries than anywhere else in the island.

In 1850 the schools were re-organised. Thomas Street was for girls and Well Road for boys, and. the first official, more comprehensive, syllabus was approved. Courses were offered instead of single subjects. The method of teaching was based. on the Glasgow system, similar to the monitorial style of Bell and Lancaster where the master taught the monitors and these senior children taught the rest; an inspector of schools said it was "a means whereby fact passed from the book of the master on to the slate of the scholar without troubling the brain of anyone" No one learned anything new; errors were carried from one generation to the next, but at least they learned to read and write.

By 1854 Thomas Street proudly boasts a qualified teacher. It is of interest to know that Westminster (Methodist) Teacher Training College - now in Oxford - had a Manxman's name as No. 1 on its first roll, James Cannell, a former pupil teacher in Thomas Street.

More could be written about the Methodist day schools ⁷ but under the 1871-2 acts the church lost control of the schools as they could not afford to bring the premises and equipment up to the required standard. There was a bitter struggle, but in June 1898 Methodist Schools at Abbeylands, Well Road and. Thomas Street were handed over to the Board of Education, but Methodists keen on education took care to be well represented on the Board, for in the islands eight school boards there were 30 Methodist members, against 17 Anglicans, one Presbyterian and one Roman Catholic.

Methodists were well to the fore in social and civic matters, and when, in 1904 the press scathingly says "The House of Keys has become a Methodist Convocation" the editor of the Wesleyan Record retorted, "Why not, we are the biggest denomination and entitled to speak."

[More about Douglas circuit to be added

Dorcas Society: 1830 on.⁸,1798 Friendly society and its ruin. (E 240 Library)]

Decr. 24th 1802 the new chapel in Victoria Street opened.

Salisbury Street; first in parlour of Thos Bridson Grafton Street, then in a loft above 27 Falcon Street. Two sites were chosen one in Broadway where Baptist Church now stands. and to other in Farrant Street. Great difficulty in getting permission to put on the land. reserved. for houses a chapel, but they used first a wooden hut, then an iron building which had been the offices of the Poolvash quarry, until the present chapel was opened in .. and. schoolrooms added in....

Esplanade Chapel Castle Mona Avenue. date
(Mr. Clucas former superintendent became superintendent at Victoria Street when Esplanade closed)

Still chapels were too full. Preaching rooms are mentioned in local preachers' Books. 'Sept. 25th 1877, That we give preaching to the Hanover Street Rooms' Later the Hanover Street preaching was discontinued and the rooms used for prayer bands only.
1878 Fort Street Mission. - building now a garage in Fort Street opened; closed in 1880, re-opened in 1895 under the name of The Redfern Mission. Still the town grew chiefly up the hill away from the town.

When Thomas Street chapel was built there was a provision for a gate to stop cattle wandering down from Prospect Hill, but Governor Loch's new proposals made a great change. Dwellings were erected higher up the town, and eventually the chapel at Rose Mount was built in 1886, the spire being added in 1908. The organ was opened by the famous W.H. Jude, in 1889

In 1894 there was an unhappy incident which cause distress to friends of Methodism. The Rev. Thomas Rippon attacked from the pulpit the immorality which he said was rife in Douglas. While his words would normally only have reached a few hundred, and they mostly sympathetic, the sermon was printed and sold under the title of The Morals of Douglas. Fanned by articles in the press a libel suit was filed by plaintiffs Spencer and Hannay against Clucas, Faragher and the Rev. Thos Rippon, Eventually the case was dismissed, but it left unhappy memories for some time⁹

Figures for 1906 may be of interest:

Items of interest to incorporate
1914: Young Peoples Guild undertook to clean up Ballacowin
- Mount Rule is a disgrace, either clean it up or shut it up. (It closed 1919)
1915. Rev. Copeland Smith, knitting factory etc to help provide work for landladies who had lost their livelihood by reason of the war,¹⁰