Description | Summary
CHURCH ADMINISTRATION: church meeting minutes, 1964-2013; correspondence, 1963-1965, 1986-1994.
DEACONS: minutes, 1967-2013.
COMMITTEES: Dedworth Mission Committee minutes, 1927-1939; Dedworth (Workers) Committee minutes, 1939-1966; minutes of committee investigating independence, 1965-1966; Missionary Committee minutes, 1942-1966 (incomplete).
TREASURER: cash book, 1940-1947; accounts, 1967-1977; annual statements, 1928-2001 (incomplete).
PROPERTY: fabric papers, 1932-1990; building loans accounts, 1966-1975; papers relating to manses, 1962-1983.
CHURCH ORGANISATIONS: Sunday School minutes, 1940-1979 (incomplete), and accounts, 1967-1971; Young People's Fellowship minutes, 1964-1966, and accounts, 1964-1970 (incomplete); Youth Club subscription accounts, 1965-1967; Women's Own/Baptist Women's League/Ladies' Meeting/Tuesday Fellowship: minutes, 1961-1994, and accounts, 1941-1994 (incomplete), programmes, 1968-1993 (incomplete), membership registers, 1970-1997, and annual report, 1988/9.
REGISTRATION AND MEMBERSHIP: membership certificate, c.1960s-1970s.
SERVICE OF THE CHURCH: special orders of service, 1963, 1970; workers' plan, 1936; constitutions, 1967-2005.
MINISTER: church profile, 1991; miscellaneous, 1967-1985.
PUBLICATIONS: church newsletters, 1958-1965 (incomplete); Windsor Baptist Church newsletters, 1939, 1963-1964 (very incomplete); year books, 1958-1964; history of the church, 2000.
OTHER BODIES: circular letter from Victoria Street Baptist Church, Windsor, 1982; applications for support from Baptist Union, 1961-1976; statistical returns to the Berkshire Baptist Association, 1984-1993; leaflet of Special Commission of the Whole Church in Windsor, 1967. MISCELLANEOUS: entries relating to the chapel from Fifield Village Mission minutes (1869-1921); papers relating to exchange with a church in the USA, 1989-1990. |
Admin History | Fifield Village Mission began working in Dedworth in 1869, at a tin chapel in Dedworth Road. The Mission abandoned Dedworth in 1919, but leased the chapel to the Free Churches of Windsor (Wesleyan, Congregational and Baptist), who managed it as an undenominational mission.
In 1939 the work was taken over by Windsor Baptist Church. The lease of the tin chapel expired in 1956, and services were held at Dedworth Community Centre while a new church was built on a site in Smiths Lane, which had been purchased in 1947. The new church opened in 1959, and in 1960 was named Dedworth Green Baptist Free Church (later changed to Dedworth Green Baptist Church).
In 1962 a minister was appointed with sole responsibility for the church. During the 1960s it became more independent from Windsor Baptist Church, becoming completely separate in January 1967. The building was extended in 1970.
From 1981 the ministry was again shared with Victoria Street Baptist Church, Windsor.
The entire archive of the church was severely damaged by a fire which destroyed the church building in 2000. Many items before this date are too fragile for consultation. |