| Description | Summary
CHURCH ADMINISTRATION : church books, 1827-1974; church meeting minutes, 1817, 1839, 1844-1978; correspondence, 1926-1945; report of commission into youth work, 1942; report of commissions, 1974.
DEACONS : minutes, 1872-1897, 1909-1972; photographs, 19-20 c.
ELDERS : minutes, 1973-1982.
COMMITTEES : committee for managing pews and regulating funds : minutes and memoranda, 1817-1823, 1839; Penny Society : minutes, 1822-1828; accounts, 1826-1831; general committee : minutes, 1821, 1824, 1872-1875; committee for repair of meeting house and purchase of adjoining house : minutes, 1837-1839; building committee : minutes, 1869; centenary committee : minutes, 1885-1886; missionary exhibition committee : minutes, 1904-1905; finance committee : minutes, 1916-1922; heating committee : minutes, 1929; church and society committee : minutes, 1975-1982; world church and mission committee : minutes, 1975-1982; outreach committee : minutes, 1983-1987; church life committee : minutes, 1975-1988; bicentenary steering committee : minutes and papers, 1984-1985.
TREASURER : minister's salary accounts, 1845-1879; general accounts, 1849-1869, 1936-1974; collection accounts, 1961-1963; annual statements of accounts, 1874-1954 (incomplete).
PROPERTY RECORDS : trustees' minutes, 1886, memoranda, 18 c.-1879, and correspondence and papers, 1853-1939; deeds of trust funds, 1760-1815; deeds of manse, Marlow Road, Maidenhead, 1872-1877; ground floor plan of church, 20 c., plan and elevations of alteration at manse, 1956; manse accounts, 1888-1919, 1931-1949, and pass books, 1912-1934; inventory of furniture and fittings, 1940; papers re organ, 1935-1953; and miscellaneous, 1942-1954.
CHURCH ORGANISATIONS : Sunday School : teachers' meeting minutes, 1825-1829, 1845-1852, 1877-1973; register of teachers, 1845-1853; annual reports, 1876-1957 (incomplete), 1970, 1972; infant class register, 1870-1898, and attendance registers, 1883-1892; register, 1908-1930 (incomplete); attendance register, 1966-1972; memorandum book, 1908-1909; accounts, 1932-1973; visitor's report, 1933; theatrical licence, 1950; correspondence and papers, 1970-1974.
Band of Hope : committee minutes, 1891-1913.
Pleasant Sunday Afternoons Society : attendance register, 1894-1897.
Literary and Debating Society : minutes, 1913-1922 (incomplete) ; accounts, 1905-1923; lists of members, 1913-1922 (incomplete).
Youth Fellowship : committee minutes, 1964-1965.
Musical Societies : minutes of joint meeting, 1868.
Gymnasium classes : accounts, bills and receipts, 1919-1920.
Mothers' Meeting : letter re closure, 1941.
REGISTRATION AND MEMBERSHIP : baptisms, 1769-1834, 1844-1846, 1884-1974; marriages, 1879-1895; burials, 1791-1811, 1826-1837, 1844-1908, 1938-1942; lists of members, 1824, 1827-c.1934, 1967-1974; transcripts of MIs, c.1939, 1961; miscellaneous, 1883, 1980.
SERVICE OF THE CHURCH : register of services, 1902-1956; registers of communicants, 1859-1868, 1916-1941; correspondence re supply of pulpit, 1871- 1872, 1886.
MINISTER : pocket book and letter of Revd John Cooke, 1805, 1826; correspondence and papers re settlement of ministers, 1885, 1929-1956; photographs, n.d.
CHARITIES : Eyles charity : copy will of W M Eyles, 1906; register of recipients, 1905-1923; accounts, 1906-1964; annual statements of accounts, 1916, 1922, 1940-1941; miscellaneous, 1937-1950.
Belgian Refugee Home : subscription accounts, 1914-1917; pass books, 1914-1919; rent book, 1914-1919; cash books, 1914-1916, n.d.; copy letter, 1914.
PUBLICATIONS : church magazines, 1893-1996 (incomplete); annual church manuals, 1907-1912; annual yearbook, 1974-5.
OTHER BODIES : Maidenhead British School : statements of accounts, 1882/3-1901/2 (incomplete); estimate for building extension, c.1894.
North Town Mission Hall : correspondence and papers, 1881-1892.
MISCELLANEOUS : printed sermon by Sampson Bond, 1646; Calamy, The Nonconformist's Memorial (2nd ed.), 1778; memoir of John Cooke, 1828; notes on the history of the church, 1939-1981; scrapbooks, 1892-1942; photographs, 19 c.-1985; miscellaneous, 1843-1988. |
| Admin History | The origins of Maidenhead Congregational Church remain obscure. According to tradition, the church was founded in 1662, but there is no certain evidence for this.
The Revd William Brice, ejected rector of Henley, lived in Maidenhead, and is known to have preached to congregations at Abingdon and at Colnbrook and High Wycombe, Bucks, in the 1660s. In 1672 he was licensed (as a Presbyterian) preaching in his house in Maidenhead. William's son John Brice, ejected rector of Easthampstead, preached at Wokingham, Henley, Oxon, and Colnbrook and Wraysbury, Bucks. In 1689 he is recorded as preaching in a barn at Maidenhead, and in 1690-1692 he is reported to have had a congregation of 200, mainly tradesmen and farmers. In 1696, John Brice leased a plot of land in the Back Lane [later West Street], Maidenhead, to four trustees, who built a chapel on the site. Deeds of this chapel remained in the church archives until c.1877, when they appear to have been placed in Connexional custody.
Other sources record a house in Market Street, North Town, being licensed for worship in 1710 [later the Hope public house], and this date is the one given in the licensing records formerly held at Somerset House as being the date of the church's foundation.
The church was in decline during the eighteenth century, although surviving baptism registers begin in 1769. It was at this point Presbyterian in doctrine.
In 1784 the Revd John Cooke was called to the pastorate of the church, which he held until his death in 1826. The congregation increased, and a new meeting house was built in 1784-5 in West Street, Maidenhead. The church was now described as Independent, and later became fully Congregational, joining the Congregational Union in 1848. Rooms were licensed for worship in Cookham, Cookham Dean, Holyport, Knowl Hill, Littlewick and White Waltham, Berks, and Burnham and Dorney, Bucks.
A schism occurred in 1815 when a number of church members seceded to form the Maidenhead church of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion [see D/N 34].
The next period of change was to occur in the 1860s, when the mission work in the villages started by John Cooke ceased. The chapel at White Waltham, built in 1837, was sold in 1866 to the Fifield Village Mission [see D/N 27], and the cause there re-started. The church also tried to sell the chapel at Cookham Dean at the same time. In 1871 a further schism occurred by members who went on to found Maidenhead Baptist Church, Marlow Road, Maidenhead.
A new daughter-church was acquired in 1892 with the North Town Mission [see D/N33/13/2], and the church also provided financial support for the Fifield Mission. In 1898 a chapel was opened at Twyford; in the early twentieth century it had strong links with Maidenhead. Between 1911 and 1923 it was a daughter-church.
In 1972 the church joined the United Reformed Church.
For a general history of the church, see Norman Hardyman, West Street Story : A History of Maidenhead United Reformed Church (1985) (copy in BRO library). |