LiveTheirStory

Held in Chatteris Museum is a slim ledger recording the seat subscription payments made by members of the New Road Methodist Chapel between 1910 and 1962. Their story started in Chatteris much earlier, and a high point was when the congregation built its own Sunday School further along New Road between 1901 and 1903. This survives, and features foundation stones laid (and bricks paid for) by congregation members. My particular favourite is that of Thomas Blow, laid ‘on behalf of the children’. Mr Blow was a hairdresser in Park Street (he lived next door to Walter Powell, who also sponsored a stone plaque).

Turning to the ledger, its first entry from 1910 records that 158 seats were sold, denoting a still substantial and active community. By the last entry in 1962, however, the congregation subscribing had dwindled to 57, and soon afterwards the chapel closed.

The chapel itself, no longer standing, was arranged on two levels, with seats downstairs and upstairs, with subscription prices to match. Downstairs at the front was priciest, whilst the ‘cheap seats’ were up in the gallery. The apparently dry columns of figures, therefore, reveal a social history in miniature.

Over the course of the 50 years recorded in the ledger, it is possible to see people moving up and down within the chapel. It was also the meeting place for future spouses, and ‘Miss’ in a row would join a family group and then re-appear in a later year as ‘Mrs’. Conversely, widows took over their husbands’ payments and sometimes moved seats to be with friends or other relatives. Certain families, such as the Gautreys and the Kemps, bought out entire rows, and we can also see visitors to the congregation paying a one-off subscription and then disappearing from the list. Defaulters were named and shamed even in their absence: ‘left Chatteris not paid’ appears next to John Harlow’s name!

Below is the list of subscribers and when they were active. Most are identifiable, some not. But the list offers all sorts of possibilities for family historians, and an excuse to visit the Museum!