ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Naturally these disputes occasioned much personal estrangement, and in 1836 the Unitarian ministers of the Presbyterian Board seceded from the General Body of the Three Denominations, which, they affirmed, thereby ceased to exist. But a minority of orthodox Presbyterian ministers formulated a declaration that they constituted the Presbyterian Board, from which the Unitarians had withdrawn. Their claim was acknowledged by the Indepen- dent and Baptist Boards, and the General Body still subsists, the Presbyterian Board being now the smallest instead of as formerly the largest of the three. In 1837 the Congregational Board first admitted to its fellowship ministers whose congregations used liturgical forms of worship,^"^ but the number of such congregations has steadily diminished. The body commonly known as Plymouth Brethren (though it originated in Ireland) gained a footing in London between 1830 and 1840 ; but there seems to be no record of the date when the earliest meetings were gathered. In 1839 the conductors of the Congregational Magazine compiled a summary, more complete than any before published, of the church accom- modation of all kinds in the metropolis, from which the following figures are extracted : — » a a « M u iS 1838-9 w -0 a 2 ra a III 3 •^ Ji •5 °£ « c C 3
> fS City of London, Westminster, and Southwarli . 6 35 25 5 4 •7 I 12 105 Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, and 6 81 58 S 4 43 8 31 236 Lambeth 12 116 Total places of worship .... 83 10 8 60 9 43 34« Since 1800 the Nonconformist congregations in the central area of the metropolis have steadily diminished in number, while they have increased to a much greater extent in the ever-growing suburbs.^"" Before 1850 at least twelve of the ancient City meeting-houses were either demolished or applied to secular uses, while only two of them were replaced within the City bounds. Meanwhile in the outer area — Westminster, Paddington, Islington, Clapton, Bethnal Green, Stepney, Poplar, &c. — there were built in the same time at least thirty large Independent and Baptist chapels, without counting small edifices or those of other denominations. By this time a marked change had come about in Nonconformist architecture. The traditions of earlier days had grown up under a sense of insecurity, so that meeting-houses were usually in retired situations, domestic in their general aspect, and inwardly bare, unadorned, and planned with little regard to comfort. Probably the best constructed of them in the metropolitan area was the ' Old Meeting ' at Stepney, built soon after the Indulgence (the traditional date is 1674), and pulled down by reason of decay in 1873. The early "' Hist, of Cong. Board in Cong. Tear Bk. 1867. "' Compare Protestant Diss. Almanack of 181 1 with Cong. 7'ear Bks. and Bapt. Handbks. of i860, &c. I 393 50
