THE HISTORY OF DOWNS CHAPEL

History of Downs Chapel
Clapton

1867 - 2004

Simon Payne Ó 1997

Chime Egembah (updated, 2004)

First Things                                                                 

Among the founders, and the fifteen who formed its first Executive, were the renowned Charles Spurgeon and William Landels. Dr. Landels was brought up in the Church of Scotland but became a Baptist at the age of twenty-three. Dr. Landels ministered at Regent's Park Chapel in London from 1855 to 1876. He held the Presidency of the London Baptist Association during 1868 and, as the third of its annual church-building projects, he initiated the building of the Downs Chapel.

The Chapel was also, however, conceived with grass-roots enthusiasm. In December, 1867 six local gentlemen met with a deputation from the Baptist Association to discuss 'the best means to adopt for building a Baptist Chapel in the neighbourhood of Hackney Downs'. The Clapton gentlemen formed a Committee which, within just over a week, selected a plot of land and started negotiations for its purchase. The London Baptist Association's churches would contribute a total of £1,500 towards the scheme but the remainder of the costs (approximately £6,500) were met locally.
The Building                                                                              

The foundation stone of the Chapel was laid on November 3rd, 1868. However, it took another ten months before the Chapel could open for worship in September 1869. Congregational Manual No.1 for 1870 lists contributors who helped pay for the building work, including all expenditures.  The total sums laid out to the end of 1870 were £8,078, one shilling and eightpence. Notable contributors were the prosperous men who formed the initial Committee: sums being given which would have amounted to several years' wages for a member of the working class.

Morton M. Glover was the architect. He was a young man, inexperienced in the construction of public buildings: he had designed only private buildings up to this time. Nevertheless, he chose to utilise a radical, new construction material - cast iron, used to support the main roof of the Chapel- in the building.  The engineering properties of iron were, at that time, only incompletely known, so it constituted a risk. Yet it would speed up construction and provide less restricted views inside. Glover's external design was disliked as bad taste. Spurgeon, preaching at the opening service, though, reined back all criticism with the remark that, 'when he got inside he was perfectly satisfied, for he would have to preach inside, and not outside'.
Beginning of Worship Services                                            

The first pastor of the Downs Chapel was T. Vincent Tymms. He ministered from 1869 to 1891, the longest period of all its pastors.  He was 'one of the most thoughtful preachers in the London pulpit...Under his fostering care the Downs became a centre of abounding activities, a school for producing some of the finest Baptist laymen, and a strong missionary society'.  Specific areas of the Downs' activity were: the planting of Woodberry Down Baptist Church, the opening of the Rendlesham Rooms and Waterloo Rooms as mission halls for touching the local community, and the Chapel's sending of people to the foreign mission field.
The Mission Field                                                               

The Dixons ministered in China from 1885 until 1900, first in Shansi and then in Hsin Chou.  They planted a church here, working alone for three years. They had four children. Herbert and Elizabeth Dixon were captured and beheaded by Boxer rebels during the rebellion in 1900.
1891-1908                                                                             

Stresses and Tensions in the New Century

Thus, when David Lindsay came to the Downs' pastorate in 1910, he and the congregation were facing the need to change. Mr Lindsay ministered at the Downs for 17 years, including during the First World War.

By that time, the Downs Chapel had 'a strong, but conservative Diaconate' of twelve men. This number was sufficient for a spread of opinions to be held among persons who had held the Chapel together during the 1908-1910 interregnum. Mr Lindsay found, within two years, that tension within the leadership threatened to cause a split. Deacons were involved in most of the no fewer than 52 activities on the weekly schedule in 1912, though they varied in the depth of their exertions. The diaconate Minutes for September 5th, 1913 tell of multiple resignations from 'engagements and appointments' at the Chapel. These included deacons as well as ordinary helpers. The ministries of Wayside Tracts (open-air evangelism), outdoor evangelistic Services, the Sunday Schools, Waterloo Rooms, Missionary Literature Association, Young People's Missionary Union, Rendlesham Room Mothers Meeting, Church Magazine and the Organist were all affected, to name only a few. Walter E. Chick, Secretary of the very substantial Sunday Schools Committee, gave the shadowy reason that 'there was an undercurrent at work'. His colleague, Arthur Sorrell, was more candid  in his letter of resignation, feeling that 'the time has now come when [I and the other Sunday School teachers] should retire in favour of those more in sympathy with the Workers of the Downs Chapel'. This, clearly, can only have been a rift between the deacons. David Lindsay, new to the post, could place each letter on the table with dispassion, but must have worried for the future. He replied to Mr Sorrell that, '[t]he matter will receive attention in due course' and added, 'the work however is God's and will go forward none of us being indispensable...'

The effect of the disagreements was that membership fell. However, it did not happen immediately, and not as a result of the First World War, either. Membership on January 1st, 1912 totaled 560; on January 1st, 1913 it was 551, 548 the following year but 468 in 1915.  Although 70 men left to join the Services, few of these would have canceled their membership. The tendency among those who did so was, not as today, to found a separate meeting, but to join other churches. Ninety-eight persons took this route in 1914. The slow response to the divisions in leadership makes psychological sense. To Mr Lindsay, 'Some were nominal; others were real; and we regret their departure'.
The Great War                                                     

'Some of these Evening Meetings have been suspended during the War'.

Mr Lindsay spent two periods in France working with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) among British troops. Activities such as the Men's Meeting and Bible Class, and the Men's Orchestra, were closed for the duration of hostilities. Other events, such as the Fishers' Band (an evening group for young women), had to cease as a black-out was imposed on London's streets owing to the danger of aerial bombing from 'Zeppelins'. For that danger, the Church had to take out a special insurance policy. On the foreign mission field, Alfred and Katherine Teichmann, who were working at Chittagong in Bengal (now Bangladesh), were interned by the British in a prison camp, owing to Alfred's German citizenship. However, they turned things to advantage by holding Bible studies and Christian meetings amongst the other internees.

The numbers of men occupied by the conflict totaled 115. To add to this, a number of women would have entered nursing auxiliary work with the Red Cross in France or Britain. The First World War proved appallingly costly in terms of men's lives. From the Downs' membership and congregation, those killed in action numbered twenty men, indicated by a red dot (now darkened under the varnish) placed alongside their names on the Roll of Honour. This figure represents one in six of those who went to fight. The Memorial itself was originally hung in the Schoolroom, although it now resides inside the main entrance. It was constructed to match the Missionary Roll of Honour, and yet it proclaims the tragically incongruous imposition of war on the community of Christians at the Downs.

Inter-War Years

Frank C. Bryan succeeded Mr. Lindsay at the Downs' pastorate. He ministered from 1928 to 1933. The Chapel Manual was renamed the 'Downs Review'. It changed from an annual report style to a lively monthly news and discussion magazine, price 2d.  Mr. Bryan took forward the cause of pacifism through the League of Nations Union (the League of Nations was the pre-war equivalent of the U.N.O. and was set up in 1919 by the U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson, to foster international peace). Downs Chapel involvement in this cause started under Mr Lindsay, and Mr Bryan's sermons often referred to it. In the late '20s and early '30s, large rallies took place in Hackney and Central London, to which members of the Church and congregation were encouraged to make their way.

Mr Bryan was a very charismatic individual and was a friend to many. He also took an active interest in youth work. In March, 1929 the Downs Review contains a provocative article entitled, 'Youth's Place in the Church'. The same edition refers to 'the starting of the Young Worshippers' League,' (1929) 'whereby the Morning Service has been brightened with children's faces; the presentation of 'Pilgrim's Progress' ...and ... the Campaign to reach non-Churchgoers in the neighbourhood, through a personally-addressed letter and a syllabus of special services and subjects'. The play of John Bunyan's story hugely succeeded and was re-run. It was during this period that Florence Longcroft (later Mrs. Heath) and Miss Opie, the primary teachers of the Sunday School, started a 'children's church. 'We divided off a section of the upper hall, along by the windows, made curtains and laid carpet, etc. and used junior chairs to give the appearance of a 'little church'. This was run entirely by the children except for an adult speaker. When the service ended there was just time for us helpers to get into the church to hear the sermon', she recalls. backtop

The Second Missionary Generation

Frank Bryan left the pastorate in May, 1933 and George Evans took up the post in January, 1934. Mr. Evans came from a Lancashire working class background, having worked in a cotton mill after leaving school. He was far less charismatic than Mr. Bryan, and must have felt cold at stepping into his shoes. His sermons were less mystical but more doctrinal than Mr. Bryan's, emphasizing how relevant traditional Christian teachings are to our lives. Mr. Evans ministered at the Downs Chapel for six years. One strategic step was the inauguration of a 'Forward Movement' at the Downs (1938). He proposed five aims for the Church: to strengthen the Sunday meetings, to establish Wednesday Bible teaching, to develop children's work (especially in the 'new flats in Pembury Road'),to touch the community through evangelistic cell groups, and to draw the Waterloo Rooms mission hall on Prout Road more into the centre of the Church's activity (the Rendlesham Rooms were closed in February, 1923, owing to the expiry of the lease). Had these five aims been carried through, without the interruption of the Second World War, who knows what could have taken place. Mr. Evans' pastorate ended in 1939.

The 'Hard School'   

As Mrs. Heath writes, 'sadly, the war came, and put a stop to all our activities'. This was certainly the case in part, especially as the Manse was requisitioned by Hackney Housing Committee, probably to house 'bombed-out' civilians from the East End, and the Sunday School and Young People's Fellowship ceased. Yet not all activities ended. Elsie Evans remembers growing potatoes in the garden at No. 2, Downs Road (the Chapelkeeper's residence) as part of the 'Digging for Victory' offensive. Furthermore, a note in the 'Downs Record' of November, 1946 reminds ex-service men and women that, 'we have kept [the Downs Brotherhood] going through all the difficulties of air raids, doodle bugs and rocket raids...'

The war years were described as a 'hard school' for Christians at the Downs, by its first post-war minister, Leonard P. Cook.'The war has left its mark', he wrote in December, 1946. This damaging influence was made material by the descent, one night in 1942, of a German bomb into the main Chapel. It punctured a hole in the roof and ceiling, and started a fire which caused some charring of the wooden pews.
Re-kindling                                                               

r. Leonard Cook received the pastorate in 1946. Progress in the immediate post-war atmosphere was slow. The late 1940s were a time of austerity and rationing in Britain. He wrote, in his letters, of 'the staleness of life and the meager harvest...' Perhaps referring to the Chapel when he described 'a dead, half-empty place'. Attendances of many at the meetings in the upper hall were irregular, and numerous former members stayed away. Mr. Cook was also inconvenienced by having to travel to work each day from his home in Hounslow, as the Housing Committee refused to de-requisition the Manse.

Leonard Cook departed in 1949 and two years passed before Fred. Morris took over the pastorate in 1951. He minister at the Downs until 1958. It was an important period for the Church, in which it was forced to consider how to raise funds to complete repairs to the Chapel roof and interior. With the Chapel open to the sky, decay to the structure was greatly accelerating and the Chapel might fall into dereliction if no action were taken. Mr. Morris moved for the sale of No. 2, Downs Road, a decision which was an efficient and vital piece of surgery in the circumstances. The funds thus released enabled the Chapel to re-open. The Church Secretary, Mr. John Heath (husband of Florence), worked hard to encourage attendance at the re-opened Chapel. The first meeting was memorable. Soon, people were again being baptised in the repaired building. Mrs. Emmy McGee was one of the first to be baptised at the Chapel after its re-opening and is still a faithful and enthusiastic member of the Downs Chapel.

1960s Changes

Roger Collins benefited from the support of dedicated individuals; among others, Leslie Whitaker, who ran the Sunday School, and Hugh Minton, an independent-minded youth worker. Hugh Minton ran a youth club at the Chapel from 1960-65 which opened several nights a week, majoring on football. His attendances were about 100 lads.

At this time, changes were again taking place in the social make-up of Hackney, as important as those which occurred in the 1900s. Caribbean and African families began to move to the Borough. When Hugh started his youth group in 1960, most or all of the lads were British White in ethnic origin; by the time he ceased involvement, in 1965, a large proportion of boys were from West Indian or African cultural backgrounds. This change in the balance of peoples took place rapidly during the 1960s. It affected the style and feel of the Downs. One notable new member was Emanuel Okewole, who attended the Chapel for several years during the 1960s, until he returned to Lagos, Nigeria to train as a Baptist minister in his own right. He now ministers in Nigeria.

One special area in which the Church aided its community during the 1960s and 1970s followed the passage through Parliament of the Mental Health Act 1959. This statute sought to take away the emphasis in psychiatric care from long-term institutions for the 'insane' to short-term treatment and day-care centres. The Psychological Rehabilitation Association came into being as the first 'drop-in centre' for the mentally disturbed in the United Kingdom. The Downs Chapel provided facilities for it to operate. It did so for a number of years. The upper hall of the Chapel and downstairs rooms beneath it were dedicated to the use of the P.R.A. and they were permitted to conduct renovations and alterations, including the installation of a kitchen upstairs.

Facing up to Shrinkage

Roger Collins left the Downs in 1965, and the Church were without a minister for three years. This was a difficult time, as numbers continued to be low. Between 1968 and 1973, however, two deaconesses stepped in to support the fellowship. These were Sister Eileen Perry Holton and Sister Margaret Popham. Sister Margaret was able to encourage inter-church relationships during the early 1970s, including the establishment of the Good Friday 'March of Witness' and a joint evangelistic outreach to the newly-built tower-blocks of the Nightingale Estate (1970), the latter of which resulted in a number of people being counseled.

The Downs Church also received help from the ministry of John Evans, who operated as a youth coordinator and leader covering the North-East Group of the London Baptist Association (including churches such as Vernon at King's Cross, Shoreditch Tabernacle and the Downs) during the early 1970s. He led an open Youth Club together with Leslie Whitaker. Sister Margaret Popham left the Downs in 1973 and moved to Trinidad where she worked with the Baptist Missionary Society, and later at its Headquarters in London.
To Be Concluded...                                                    

The membership of the Downs increased during the “ Latham years” to 60 per person (i.e. trebled). New members tended increasingly to arrive from Pentecostal or other non-Baptist backgrounds, contributing to a broad range of doctrinal understanding. Most excitingly, ethnic profile of the Church has been consistently neither black nor white but multi racial: the Downs is truly, a mixed fellowship.

An important step came in 1989 when the   church responded to an influx of Kurdish refugees from the Middle East, fleeing persecution at the hands of both Iraqi and Turkish government. The Kurds are the largest people group in the world who have no diplomatically- recognized national home. Two thousand came initially to Hackney and Steve offered a number of families basic emergency accommodation in the Down’s upstairs lecture hall until the local authority could respond with appropriate housing. By opening the Church’s door to the Kurds, the Downs began a relationship with people International and Operation Mobilization (OM), missionary societies who specialize in ministry to Moslem people groups. Furthermore, the church now receives the blessing in the ministry of Tim and sue spring, Christian workers who have dedicated their lives to the evangelization of Turkish-speaking peoples. The Springs are based at the Downs and work as part of the London City mission’s  outreach to the Capital. OM’s Turning Point ministry has dispatched live-in teams of young missionaries to stay at the Downs over several years. Although the resident OM teams ceased in 1996, the Church continue to receive short-term evangelistic teams as part of the ‘Love London’ ‘and ‘Love Europe’ campaigns.

The Downs has supported a number of social outreach projects in the 1990s, notably a week-long Christmastime night shelter for local homeless people which ran from 24-30 December 1991 and left a lasting impression of kindness and hope on the lives of several rough sleepers and alcoholic men and women in Clapton area. The Church currently supports a weekly drop-in for elderly people (the ‘Friday Club’) which aims to show Christ’s lobe for older people and that they have not been forgotten by Him, even though society is obsessed with youth these days.

Challenging Injustice

In March 1994, a local elder from a neighboring Baptist fellowship  approached Steve Latham with an unusual and unnerving request. He, his wife and children, Nigerian nationals, were the subject of deportion notice from the British Government’s Immigration and Nationality Department. It was claimed by the Home Office the Sundays and Olubunmi were ‘overstayers’: persons who had entered Britain in 1981 as students, but whose courses- and permission to remain in the United Kingdom- were now at an end. Sunny and Bunmi had, however, married I Britain and brought three children into the world. The 1981 Nationally Act forbade their children Deborah, Tunde and Phoebe, to receive British citizenship, and recent changes to immigration legislation had extended the period of legal residency which gave entitlement to permanent abode from ten to 14 years.

Realizing the urgent nature of Sunny’s request, Steve decided unilaterally (without consulting either the Down’s elders nor the assembled membership) that the Ogunwobi family would be allowed to take up residence by way of ‘ holy sanctuary’ in the Chapel building. The Home Office was informed of this fact and the Downs Baptist Church, together with many supporters from across the United Kingdom and the world, took a moral stand against the British Government immigration legislation.  

The Ogunwobi family received the strong support of the Down’s fellowship from Day One of the sanctuary until July 1997,when a new government relented and granted their request of permanent right to remain I the United Kingdom. For three-and-a-quarter years, Sunny and his family battled with the cold of the building, the physical restriction of having to remain there except  for rare forays out, and the constant pressure of that political opinion which saw them as a nuisance, foreigners who were trying to stay in Britain but were not wanted by the people. They resisted these lies with courage, prayer and the conviction that “you will not go out in haste”, the promise God had given to the prophet Isaiah (Is 52:12) which the family received by way of a dream the night before the deportion notice arrived on their doormat. Numerous trade unionists, socialists, members of Parliament (in two Early Day Motions over 90 MPs signed their names to say that the family should stay), Christians of all denominations including Anglican Bishops and Archbishops, the Reverend Jesse Jackson of the United States Southern Baptist Convention, all parties of the Council of the London Borough of Hackney, the Churches’ Commission for Racial Justice. The Ogunwobi Family Campaign became o long-running sanctuary campaign in British history. When news of their success finally broke in July 1997, the joy of friends and supporters were unbounded. Victory had been for the truth against lies, for racial justice against racism, for community against bureaucracy, for integrity against cynical, vote-catching politics, and more than anything, for the fair aspiration of moral, Christian people to challenge wickedness in high places, wherever it stood or in whose ever language and typeface it was couched.

Steve Latham begun to study for a Doctor of Philosophy in 1996 at Kings’ College, London. Having taken personal responsibility for the Ogunwobi sanctuary, he continued as Senior Pastor until its close. However, during 1996/97, he handed on actual responsibility of the Church’s running to Kevin Brown. Steve then traveled and researched widely to develop his thesis on contemporary prophecies, which combined his findings on the very contentious modern subject of personal and theological radicalism which he both preached and practiced during his pastorate at the Downs.

‘Little Kev’ The Rev

Kevin G. Brown (who dislikes the appellation ‘reverend’) took over from Steve Latham in August 1996. The Downs is his first pastorate, he has acquired many years’ experience in youth and community work despite what he informs us was a late start to his education (he began to study for formal qualifications in his twenties). Kevin is a big man in both bodily build (he stands at a powerfully-built six feet three inches) and ambition for the Church and its role in the local community. A notable highlight of his first year has been the introduction of the ‘Alpha Course’ Christian discipleship cum evangelism group meeting, three of which have run so far.

One great challenge facing the Downs Baptist Church in 1997 was the restoration and modernization of the fabric of its building. Architects’ estimates of the cost of this range from £300,000 to £1 million. All of us who desire to see the witness of the Downs continue well into the twenty-first century wish to see this task accomplished and funds to be obtained to enable this urgent, practical need to be met. This is not merely in order that the roof may not literally fall upon our heads, but so that accommodation facilities may exist for steadily strengthened outreach into the local community, and for visions to become realities in the lives of people in this area.

Simon Payne ends here and the history is taken over by Chime Egembah

Kevin came to the Downs Baptist Church (DBC) with a passion for children’s ministry. He is gifted in children’s ministry and it soon showed fulfilment in the establishment of  “the pirate praise”.  Pirate praise was a once a month children’s worship and praise activity using the nearby Powell Primary School hall on every 1st Sunday of the month. This ministry involved quite a lot of adults who as time went by developed a niche for themselves in leading youth ministry.

Kevin loved networking with the local community as he was firmly convinced that the proximity of the church to the housing estates was not an accident but for a divine providential purpose.  Accordingly he did not waste time in commissioning a research project in November 1999: “Review of Social Care Projects and Proposal for a Neighbourhood Care Centre”. This research is awaiting implementation when all other factors are in place.

London City Mission Missionary Secondment:-
The London City Mission in response to the presence of Turkish and Kurdish speaking refugees in our catchment area sent an Evangelist Missionary who is fluent in the Turkish language to partner with the DBC in setting up a Turkish /Kurdish Refugee and Asylum Seekers centre at the DBC. This was a very successful partnership venture, with translation service, bilingual Sunday evening services, Bible Studies, Immigration & Asylum Seekers service. The highlight of this ministry was when Turkish and Kurdish converts here in Hackney went through the waters of believers baptism at the DBC.  After about twelve years in post it seemed time for the Missionary to move on.

The Can – Do Club:- The Can – Do Club for people with disability was a thriving organisation meeting one – day a week at the church to give respite to their carers and minders. This service was discontinued due to inadequate heating in the church. That void has not been filled as the need is there yearning to be met.
 The DBC has shown maturity in assisting a few members to go to Bible College, both to London Bible College and Spurgeon’s College.

The Interregnum Years 9th. April 2001 – 31st January 2004.
DBC’s years of wilderness experience (mimicking Moses’ journey with the children of Israel to Canaan, the promised land), fondly called the Transition Period. This was a period of preparation and achievement.  In a typical text book style the Church found itself with “unrestrained freedom”. More members were encouraged to come aboard the ship of DBC destiny. The struggle bore fruits in that the membership numbers understandably dwindled only by natural progression, as people got married, or got new jobs that necessitated their moving home, or even leaving London.

However, by the Grace of God alone enough core members were left to participate in the quest for a new Pastor for the DBC. The Baptist Union’s cumbersome and sometimes labyrinthine process of placement of new  Pastors often caused us to walk the knife-edge between frustration and despair.

As if this was not enough to test our faith, we were saddled with the problem of a Grade II listed building whose structural fabric was on a downward spiral to failure. We tried every option  open to us, we borrowed money to produce  architect’s plans for a part-sell (dare I say half-sell!), part-refurbishment arrangement with developers interested in Social  Housing. This fell through woefully as the congregation at the 11th hour felt that the residual part (so-called half) left for the Church’s activities would hasten the dispersal of the members. The project was aborted and to this day the London Borough of Hackney Planning Department has not had the courtesy of communicating to the church its decision on our Planning Application.
 The big positive aspect of the church building is that its geographical location fronting Downs Park, creates tremendous interests. There has been no shortage of requests from event organisers to hire the building or parts thereof for one event or another, if only the building were in good fettle.

Samuel Emmanuel Ghann (1st February, 2004 - ) 
Revd. Dr. Samuel Emmanuel Ghann was appointed Pastor in charge of the Downs Baptist Church on 1st. February 2004. He is a man of God envisioned to see the asset in the church building.  Our prayers are that God who gave the vision will bless his ministry here at the Downs Baptist Church. backtop