Crumbs from the Table

The first Baptist church in Bury was Providence Baptist Strict and Particular Baptist church which started in March 1835 (with a building from 1836). In 1845, Ebenezer Baptist church started (with a building on Knowsley Street from 1853). Later, there were Baptist churches on Rochdale Road (from 1860), and on Chesham Avenue (from 1881).  Anyway, until 1835, there were no Baptist churches in Bury.  The first Baptist churches began in the early 1600s (between 1609 and 1638). Starting among English speaking Christians in the Netherlands, churches then spread from London outwards. During the time of the Civil War, there were Baptists in the Model Army of Oliver Cromwell. A certain John Wigan was pastor of a Baptist church at Birch from about 1649/50. In 1669, the vicar of Bury parish complained of various conventicles "constantly kept at private houses of Independents, Presbyterians, Dippers and other such like jointly, of the bset rank of the yeomanry and other inferiors." ...

In Bury (Greater Manchester), on the corner of Hornby Street and Birch Street (just off Walmersley Road), there is a set of buildings which look like a church.  This is what they look like today.  This is the former St John's schools, which appear on old maps, such as the one below dated to 1890.  Here is the school on a map of Bury dated to 1908:  I have found a reference to these schools (one for boys and one for girls) in Barrett's 1883 Directory of Bury. Based on the name, the school had links with St John's Church of England which used to be on St John's square in Bury (near where Costa is now on "The Rock"). Old St John's church dated back to 1770. From 1956, most of its services were held at Seedfield Mission Church on Parkinson Avenue, later the site of the church hall. From 1964, the congregation of St John's church permanently relocated to a new building at its present location on Sunny Avenue. Here is some information about the school/s take...

This year (2025) marks the 500 anniversary of the translation of the Bible into English by William Tyndale.  There were translations of the Bible from Hebrew/Greek into other languages from the earliest centuries of the Christian church. The first languages to "get" translations were Syriac (the area stretching eastwards from Antioch), Latin (Rome and western Europe) and Coptic (Egypt). Later, in the centuries from the 300s to 500s, translations were also made into Gothic, Armenian, Georgian and Ge'ez (Ethiopia) languages.   There had been translations of the Bible into English before Tyndale. The Venerable Bede, a leading monk living at Jarrow from the late 600s, undertook a translation of John's gospel into English. Also, King Alfred (849-899) translated the first five books of the Old Testament into English. Later, in 1384, Reformer John Wycliffe and his followers completed a translation into English from the Latin (Vulgate). However, the institutional church durin...