WILLIAM BOOTH AND REVIVAL ON TYNESIDE
Methodism became firmly established in Gateshead through the ministry of John
Wesley. His regular visits to the North-East built up a strong and vibrant
community of believers. After his death however his work became fragmented, with
rival groups of Methodists each opening their own chapels and treating one
another like heretics. In Gateshead there were chapels belonging to the Wesleyan
Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the Independent Methodists, the United
Methodist Free Church and the Methodist New Connexion.
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Bethesda New Connexion Chapel, Melbourne Street |
In 1836 the New Connexion opened its first chapel in Melbourne Street, in the
Barn Close area of the town (now underneath the dual carriageway behind the bus
station). Bethesda Chapel was built to seat 1300 people, though it rarely got
such numbers - by 1843 the regular congregation was between 30 and 60. In 1858 a
young new pastor was appointed. William Booth, then aged 29 had already acquired
a reputation as a fiery preacher and a fine evangelist. That was part of the
problem - he wanted to be an evangelist, travelling the country conducting
crusades, but the New Connexion only had evangelists abroad; in Britain they
would only sanction pastors working in a local circuit. Booth was heavily
influenced by the American evangelist James Caughey who had seen over 30,000
converted in his crusades around Britain in the mid 1840’s.
Results began to be seen almost immediately. In January 1859 he began a series
of revival meetings at Bethesda Chapel. He preached three times every Sunday,
then again on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Very quickly the
chapel was packed. Instead of the regular congregation of 120, over 2000 people
were squeezing through the doors, filling every available space to hear the
gospel, and so many were getting saved that the local ironworkers nicknamed the
place “The Converting Shop”. The meetings continued daily for four months,
finally ending with a service held on Easter Monday. The newspaper advert for
this read: “Revival demonstration for the North of England ... Christians of all
Denominations are invited to join in celebrating the Gracious Revival of
Religion with which the Borough of Gateshead has been favored ... The Rev. W.
Booth will deliver an Address explanatory and defensive of Revival Movements.”
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Woodbine Terrace, Windmill Hills |
Booth continued the work
with camp meetings on the Windmill Hills and open air revival meetings in the
town, in spite of the opposition of local publicans (fearing for their business)
and their hired troublemakers. Revival had also broken out around this time in
Ulster, though it has been claimed it did not spread to England until much later
in the year. Booth was well aware of what was happening in the North of Ireland,
and indeed in one meeting in July 1859 he compared what was taking place there
to his own camp meetings on the Windmill Hills and the services at Bethesda. R.E.
Davies in his book on Revival “I Will Pour Out My Spirit” implies that the
commencement of the awakening in northern England was due to a series of
meetings held in Newcastle in August 1859 by an American couple, Walter and
Phoebe Palmer, though it was already well underway by this time. One person who
was greatly influenced by the Palmers was Booth’s wife Catherine. Until this
time she had left the preaching to her husband and busied herself with work
amongst the poor of the town. A local minister Arthur Rees had issued a pamphlet
denouncing Mrs Palmer on the grounds that it was unscriptural for women to
preach. Catherine Booth responded with a 32 page pamphlet of her own defending
the right of women to preach - though she had yet to preach herself. At
Pentecost 1860 she felt the Holy Spirit come upon her in one of her husband’s
meetings and she went to the front and confessed that she had wronged her
Saviour by refusing to speak in the past. That night she preached her first
sermon to a church which was “crowded to the doors, and people sat on the very
window-sills”.
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William and Catherine Booth in 1860 |
The pressure of the revival and the regular preaching was affecting William
Booth’s health, and increasingly his wife began to take on some of the preaching
work - indeed a woman preacher was such a novelty that invitations for her to
speak came from around the region. With things going so well in the centre of
Gateshead, William Booth began to concentrate on taking the revival to the
outlying regions of the circuit, preaching in Sherrif Hill, Felling Shore and
Mount Pleasant. All the time he was begging the Connexion to allow him to travel
as an evangelist, but he was continuously refused. The final straw came with the
Annual Conference of the Methodist New Connexion in May 1861 - the most they
could offer him was a move from Gateshead to Newcastle. Booth refused, and eight
weeks later tendered his resignation. Free of denominational restrictions the
Booths left the North-East and led a crusade in Cornwall. After a series of
further crusades around the country they settled in the East End of London in
1865 where they started the Christian Mission, later to become the Salvation
Army.
After they left, Bethesda Chapel was never able to maintain the momentum of the
revival days and swiftly saw a drop in membership. By the 1890’s, with more of
the population moving to the suburbs, the New Connexion opened a new chapel at
Whitehall Road in Bensham and Bethesda Chapel was closed becoming a printing
works and later a warehouse, eventually being demolished in the 1960’s.
In January 1879, following a certain amount of advance publicity using “huge
placards”, William Booth sent six young women in their twenties, dubbed
“Hallelujah Lasses”, to Gateshead. They began to hold evangelistic meetings and
hired a number of halls for the purpose, including two of the town’s music
halls. Their target was the poorest section of the working classes, amongst whom
the church had failed to make any impact. Within a short time they began to have
a significant effect, and also to attract the attention of the press. The
meetings were packed and large numbers began to repent and turn to the Lord. In
March 1879 the meetings were extended across the river into Newcastle. When
William and Catherine Booth finally came to the area in April 1879, it was
estimated that around 9000 people (mostly drawn from “the masses”) attended the
various meetings held by the Hallelujah Lasses in Gateshead and Newcastle. On
one Sunday, in Gateshead alone, 140 persons - many of whom were well known to
the police - were led to God and repented on that occasion.
A succession of letters began to fill the correspondence columns of the
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, much of it highly partisan to one side or the other.
The Catholic William Madden was shocked. The meetings were “disgraceful scenes”
which “have a contaminating effect”. On the contrary S. Glover wrote “Being in
the Town Hall, Gateshead, the other night, I saw such a sight that was quite
sufficient to make any Christian breathe forth a prayer that God would bless
their efforts”. Numerous papers began to carry articles (one even had a poem!),
particularly on a series of meetings held in May 1879 under the heading “Council
of War”. William Booth was a pioneer in using the media for to get publicity.
His view was that it didn’t matter whether the reports were positive or negative
- if articles were written, more people would attend the meetings and hear the
gospel. A journalist for the Newcastle Daily Chronicle wrote features covering
this for four days, and he had great difficulty describing the things he had
seen. William Booth had come with what was virtually a circus freak show. All
the publicity for the events mentioned the appearance of the One-Eyed Captain,
the Hallelujah Giant (a doctor who weighed 33 stones), the Converted Sweep
(Elijah Cadman - later a Salvation Army Commissioner), and the Hallelujah Violin
(played by Booth’s son Ballington). The climax of the Council of War was an all
night prayer meeting held in a hall on Gateshead High Street which was covered
in three separate newspapers (who appeared to have been there at different
stages during the proceedings). The Chronicle writer was shocked - there was
hysterical laughter, people bent double, swaying, swooning, twitching - and
no-one else there seemed much bothered by what was taking place!
The effect of this campaign was dramatic. In just nine months, eighteen
Salvation Army corps had been set up in the North East (three of these in
Gateshead) - even the Mayor of Gateshead sent a message of support to the
Hallelujah Lasses. He thanked them for lightening the labors of the magistrate;
whilst their meetings were crowded to excess, the pubs were comparatively empty,
and in consequence there were fewer cases in the courts and inmates in the
jails. The Alexandra Music Hall in Gateshead which had been used by the
Hallelujah Lasses for meetings never reopened again as a music hall, becoming
instead a Salvation Army barracks. The methods used by the Hallelujah Lasses and
the Council of War may have been controversial, but in just the first few months
they saw spectacular success with many hundreds being saved in Gateshead alone,
thousands throughout the North East, mostly from those areas of the community
where the established churches had previously seen little fruit.
Andy Williamson
Take a look at some of the material on which my research was based. I have
transcribed a number of articles from contemporary newspapers giving eyewitness
accounts of the 1879 revival taking place.
"THE HALLELUJAH LASSES" AND THEIR WORK
Northern Daily Express , Tuesday 4th March 1879.
"THE SALVATION ARMY": An All Night Meeting
Newcastle Daily Chronicle, Wednesday 21st May 1879.
- an extraordinary piece which really gives the flavour of some of William
Booth's early Salvation Army meetings. Since I uncovered this article, excerpts
have already appeared in 3 different books.
Check out my
1879 Revival Archive for
further material relating to this move of God.