Fairfield Moravian Church facts for kids

Fairfield Moravian Church

The Fairfield Moravian Church and its village were started in 1785 in Fairfield, Droylsden, England. It was set up by Benjamin La Trobe to help the Moravian Church spread its message in the Manchester area. Some of the buildings in Fairfield Square (numbers 15, 28, and 30) are very old and important, known as Grade II* listed buildings.

History

How the Village Started

A historical map of Fairfield Moravian Village

Fairfield Square today

The house of Charles Hindley, a famous person from Fairfield

The Moravians first set up a main base in the North of England in 1742, near Halifax. Later, they were asked to come to the Manchester area by James Taylor and John Wood. In 1751, a church group began in Dukinfield, Cheshire, followed by a small village in 1755. This was meant to be a center for their work on the western side of the Pennines mountains.

However, there wasn't much room to grow in Dukinfield. So, in 1783, the Moravians bought 60 acres of land in Droylsden. They bought it from Mrs. Greaves and her neighbors, Mr. Saxon and Mr. Kirkenhead, with a very long lease of 999 years. This land became the Fairfield Moravian Village.

The person who designed the village was a Moravian Church member named Brother John Lees from Clarksfield, Oldham. There's a story that he might have sold two coal mines he owned to help pay for building Fairfield. Other money came from Moravian churches in England, Germany, and America. The total cost was about £6,000.

On June 9, 1784, the first stones for the church and special "choir houses" were laid. By May 1785, these choir houses and 13 other homes were finished and people moved in. In the 1700s and early 1800s, Moravian villages often had people grouped into three "choirs" or communities: married people, single men, and single women. The single men and women lived and worked together in their own shared houses.

Opening the Church

The church was officially opened in a private service on July 15, 1785. During this service, a single woman from Oldham joined the church, and Brother Joshua Sutcliffe became a deacon. A deacon is a church helper, and he was ordained by Bishop Tranaker, who came from another Moravian village called Fulneck in Yorkshire.

The church's public opening happened on Sunday, July 17. About 1,500 people came to the morning service. It started with music played on the new organ by Brother Christian La Trobe, along with brass bands from Fulneck and Fairfield. Using brass instruments in church music was a special Moravian tradition.

Brother Benjamin La Trobe, who was in charge of the Moravian Church's work in the United Kingdom, gave a sermon that lasted over three hours! His son, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, later became a famous architect who designed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in the United States.

Life in the Village

In 1785, the Fairfield community had 110 members. This included 22 men living in the single men's house and 45 women living in the single women's house.

The church group was looked after by a team of elders. This team included the minister and his wife, and leaders for the single men's and single women's groups. Later, two elected members from the married group also joined. These elders then chose a group of overseers to manage the village. They took care of things like repairing buildings, maintaining roads, street lighting, and overseeing the village's businesses.

The people in the village had many jobs. The single men did weaving, baking, and saddlery (making things with leather). There was also an inn, which closed in 1848 but reopened as a hostel in 1861. The single women ran a farm, a laundry, and a needlework shop. The village even had its own fire engine! Later, people also made bricks and worked with cotton.

In the 1700s, the church building was called the "hall." It didn't have lights or heating. There were hard benches around a pulpit and a communion table in the middle of the north wall. The women sat on the east side, near their house, and the men sat on the west side, next to theirs. When married people came to church, the men sat with the single men, and the women sat with the single women. This continued until the late 1800s. On the wall opposite the pulpit, there was a balcony with an organ and a choir that sang during the service.

The Lot System

The Fairfield church group used a special method called the "Lot" to make important decisions. This included things like deciding if someone could become a member or even choosing who someone should marry! After praying, they would ask a question and then draw one of three slips of paper randomly. One slip said 'Yes', one said 'No', and one was blank. This practice was based on ideas from the Bible and showed the Moravian belief that Jesus was actively guiding their church.

By 1815, they started using the Lot less for deciding who could join the church. For example, in 1815, a married woman named Hannah Kenyon wanted to join the church as she was dying. The elders thought she was sincere, and everyone agreed, but the Lot said 'no'.

Records show that in 1803 and 1810, six marriages were arranged by the elders and confirmed by the Lot. If someone married outside the church group, they were asked to leave. By 1820, using the Lot to choose wives was also fading away. However, it was still used to choose ministers and other church leaders. As late as 1822, the church leaders tried to find a wife for a Brother Light who was working in Jamaica. A Sister Mary Savile from Fairfield was chosen by the Lot. She accepted and sailed to Jamaica.

God's Acre (Cemetery)

A special burial ground, called 'God's Acre', was created in front of the church, surrounded by hedges. The church provided small, simple gravestones that lay flat on the ground. They only had the person's name and age. This showed that everyone was equal, whether they were rich or poor. At first, men and women were buried separately, continuing the "choir" system even after death.

A sundial in the graveyard had the saying, 'I die today, I live tomorrow'. Sadness was not encouraged at funerals. Instead, the person's body was taken to the grave with music from a brass band and the minister. On Easter Sunday, the church group still meets in God's Acre at sunrise to celebrate the idea of new life. This is still a tradition in the Moravian Church today.

Part of the Fairfield Moravian Village conservation area

Schools in the Village

A boarding school for girls was started in 1796, and another for boys in 1802. The boys' school closed in 1891, and the girls' school closed in 1919. The girls' school later became Fairfield High School.

Missionary Work

The Moravian Church, after it was restarted in Herrnhut, Germany, had a strong desire to share its message. This didn't mean trying to get people to leave other churches. Instead, it meant helping people find a deeper spiritual life within their own churches or among those who didn't belong to any church. They also wanted to share the Gospel (their religious teachings) with people in other countries, especially in the Danish, Dutch, and British colonies, who had never heard it before.

Fairfield supported missionary work overseas. Many brothers and sisters from Fairfield served as missionaries in places like Labrador, Jamaica, the Eastern West Indies, Ladakh in northern India, and Tanzania.

In the 1800s, people from Fairfield also tried to start new church groups in several nearby places. By 1822, Brother Lees had started a group in Clarksfield, Oldham, with preachers from Dukinfield and Fairfield. In 1825, this group became a new church called Salem. Another group was started in Glossop, Derbyshire, in 1825, but it later closed, and its members joined other churches.

In the 1840s, the church group supported "scripture readers" for the Manchester Town Mission. These readers visited people's homes and used the Bible to teach them how to read and write. Brother Chambers was paid ten shillings (about 50p) a week for this job. In the 1850s and 1860s, Brothers Hines and Gibbs continued this work, visiting 3,523 homes.

This work led to new churches being created in Edge Lane and Gorton Brook in Droylsden, and the Westwood Moravian Church in Oldham. There was also some missionary work in Liverpool. Only Westwood, where a new church opened in 1865, became a permanent church. The people of Fairfield were very generous in supporting Westwood, giving £600 and even forgiving a debt of £550 in 1871.

Another new church group started near Fairfield in 1899, on Wheler Street. This group was made up of existing church members who lived nearby. An iron church building was built for £215, and the first service was held on November 26.

Changes Over Time

By the 1860s, life in the Fairfield village had changed. It became more like a regular church, with members coming from a wider area. Fewer people living in the village itself were connected to the church. Activities that were once seen as wrong, like plays, became accepted. The social life of Fairfield started to look more like other non-conformist churches, with a drama club, a music choir, and a young men's club for billiards and smoking by the 1880s.

Training for Ministers

The Moravian Theological College, which trained ministers for the British Moravian Church and its missions overseas, moved to Fairfield from Fulneck in 1875. It closed in 1958. The building was then fixed up and became a Sunday school and community center. This was done thanks to the hard work of Anthony Torkington, a Moravian architect. It opened in its new role in July 1983.

Ministers

See also

• Listed buildings in Droylsden