Reference has already been made to the fact that in most places where there had been General Baptist Chapels that had become ‘unitarian’, mainstream Baptist Churches had come into being and it remains something of a mystery why for so many years there was no such Church in Chichester. Mention has been made of the hints that not all those concerned with Eastgate Chapel over the years were of the unitarian persuasion. It is possible that some of the group that reasserted their right to Eastgate in 1849 were trinitarian. There is no record what the ‘dispute’ then was about. Although the unitarian (or perhaps the ‘free’ aspect of unitarianism) influence prevailed, there must surely have been throughout the 19th century many people in a city the size of Chichester who held Baptist views. Where did they worship?

For a tentative answer – and we shall never know with certainty – we must look at the development of other churches which took place in Chichester.

The original Independent³ (later Congregational) Chapel was in West Lane (now Chapel Street) in 1774, to be followed by the Independent Calvinists, who had been meeting in the city for at least six years, before building ‘Providence Chapel’ in the same street in 1809.⁴

Both these held ‘Calvinist’ doctrines, which would have been close to Particular Baptist views. The form of church government of the Congregationalists (until merging with the Presbyterians to form the United Reformed Church) was very similar to that of the Baptists and “numerous calvinistic independent congregations changed their minds over the question of infant baptism, which they normally practised and strict baptism secessions frequently took place, with the result that many chapels (in Sussex) which are now ‘Strict Baptist’ were formerly Independent.”⁵

It is interesting that William Woods, Pastor of Providence Chapel from 1875 “did not believe in infant baptism, which he made clear before accepting the pastorate.”⁶ The record does not say whether he therefore baptised believers only, nor by what method nor where. Certainly Providence Chapel appeared as an associated Chapel in Strict Baptist Yearbooks over some period of time.

Thus Baptists of a calvinistic persuasion would have had much in common with either the Congregational Church or Providence Chapel and worshipped fairly happily in either, whilst still holding personally to believers’ baptism. Others would have preferred the worship in the several branches of the Methodist Church, of which there were three in Chichester in the early part of the 20th century.⁷ The ‘Open’ Brethren, meeting at the Gospel Hall in Chapel Street, (later moving to Swanfield Chapel, Swanfield Drive) practised believers’ baptism and there were members of St. John’s Church (Anglican) who had been baptised as believers.

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, attention had been drawn to a church of believers connected with the “Old Baptist Union”. It appears that they did not own a building in Chichester, and they are not referred to in papers relating to Baptists in the County Record Office. To complete the record of Baptist life in Chichester, an account of what is known about them is in Appendix 8.

Certainly in the period immediately after the second world war there were baptists worshipping in both the Congregational and Southgate Methodist Churches. Also, with the improved transport of the early 1900’s, it was not difficult to travel from Chichester to Bognor Regis, Walberton, Westbourne or Emsworth, where there were Baptist churches.

³Historical Account of a Congregational Church, Chichester, by M Timpson, prefixed toMinute Book beginning 1893
⁴Providence Chapel, Chichester, by J. S. Reynolds. B.Litt., M.A. Chichester Papers No. 19.
⁵The Strict Baptist Chapels of England. Vol. II. The Chapels of Sussex pp 2, 3.
⁶Providence Chapel Ibid. Page 44, note 6.
⁷The Wesleyan Methodist Church at Southgate, the Bible Christian Methodist Church inThe Hornet and the Primitive Methodist Church in Broyle Road.