Mill Hill Chapel
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Description
Faith Rating
History
As early as 1674, only a dozen years after the Great Ejection, the Dissenters in Leeds had built a chapel on the main town square. One of the founders was the father of the historian Ralph Thoresby who guided the chapel toward the Dissenter movement which, at Mill Hill Chapel, would become Unitarianism.
During the late 18th century, Mill Hill's sister chapel was the Independent Congregationalist Call Lane Chapel, Leeds. Many of Leeds's leading families such as George William Oates at Low Hall, Potternewton and the Dixon family of Gledhow Hall were heavily involved with both churches at this time. Some local gentry, such as Hans Busk, even "maintained a private Unitarian chaplain" or "Preaching Room" on their own estates.
From the late 18th century, Mill Hill Chapel continued to "penetrate county society" with prominent politicians, industrialists and merchants such as the Lupton family – who were also committed to the Call Lane Chapel – being its strongest supporters.
The Kitson family were also deeply involved in the chapel. William Morris designed a window to Ann Kitson, who died in 1865. Her son James Kitson, 1st Baron Airedale, paid for the extension of the vestry in 1897. After James's death, Archibald Keightley Nicholson created a window in his name, representing the continuation of Christianity.
The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society drew many of its supporters from the chapel. "There was a careful consciousness of middle-class identity and independence...which combined easily with the utilitarian and scientific interests" of the Mill Hill congregation. Mill Hill Chapel became known punningly as "the mayors' nest", as so many mayors and later lord mayors belonged to it. There are memorials to, for example, Francis Garbutt (1847) and John Darnton Luccock (1864).
The church guidebook describes the early twentieth century as "a small but politically active and very influential congregation led by the Revd Charles Hargrove, Sir James Kitson and Deacon Greer Harker". A notable member of the congregation prior to the First World War was Jogendra Nath Sen, who came to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds. He volunteered to fight in September 1914 and joined the Leeds Pals.
Current Circumstances
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_Hill_Chapel