Mexborough and Swinton Times July 14, 1939
Wesleyan Reformers’ Red Letter Day
In 1849 the delegates at the Wesleyan Church Conference passed a resolution which some members described as ‘a violation of conscience.’ There was a split. Small bands of Wesleyans scattered throughout the country left the mother Church and established their own cottage Churches. It was in this way that the Wesleyan Reform Union came into being.
More than fifty years ago a group of reformers, small in numbers but high in faith and hope. formed a Church at “Wath and took quarters in Church Lane. From the beginning the Church premises were unsatisfactory, but for a time they served.
To-morrow (Saturday) the ambition of those earnest founders will be fulfilled: a new School-Church will be formally opened.
Fifty Years’ Wait.
For at least fifty years the members of the Wath Church have carried in their minds the vision of a new building which would enable them to do their work more fully and effectively. By dint of hard work and sacrifice they were able seventeen years ago to buy from the Urban Council a site in Coronation Road. That was the first step forward. Then they had patiently to begin their struggle to raise the money for building. A year ago they felt able to go on with the scheme and plans were prepared by Mr. D. W Harrop, the Mexborough architect, and in March representatives of almost every Wath Church attended a foundation stone laying ceremony and wished the Wesleyan Reformers well.
To-morrow at 3.30 p.m. the School Church will be opened by the honorary secretary of the Union, Mr. W. Brookes, of Sheffield, under the presidency of Mr. Richard Payne, of Newhill, a benefactor of the Church. The dedicatory sermon will be preached by the Rev. W. S. Goodwin, of Bradford, who was elected president of the Union at last week’s Conference in Mexborough.
In the evening there will be a public meeting over which Mr. M. C. Martyn, M.C., J.P., will preside, and speakers will be Mr. Goodwin and Mr. A. E. Fullelove (Chapeltown). The preacher on Sunday will be Mr. Goodwin, who will also lecture on Monday evening.
The events of the week-end will be proudly followed by the twelve members of the Wath Church whose patience and industry has made the scheme possible. They will justly feel that they are worthily maintaining the traditions of the Reform Church—the traditions of independence, faith and evangelism.
Members of the Wath Church showed commendable foresight when, seventeen years ago, they bought the site on Coronation Road for it is now tactically well placed in the heart of one of the Urban Council’s largest housing schemes —the Burman Road estate. The estimated cost of the building is £1,100.
Pleasing Building.
The School-Church is of brick and has a pleasingly simple exterior. Inside, neatness is again the keynote. The decoration is to a scheme of deep green, so far as the pulpit and choir stalls go, and a pale cream for the walls. Large windows provide abundant natural lighting, which is augmented by the lightness of the interior. Roof lights are also incorporated. The pulpit and choir stalls, in wood, are in one and make a very shapely foreground to the Church. Behind are the vestries.
The contractor for the building is Mr. C. F. Ibbotson, of Windyridge, Windmill Road, Wombwell, and the work is up to his usual high standard. Mr. Kingsley Beeson, of 46, Main Street, Mexborough, has been responsible for the well-considered lighting installation, and the plumbing and glazing are by Mr. R. Lythe, 8, Smith Street, Wombwell.