On this day … 7 June 1856

The Preston Guardian reported a large emigration of Mormons from Preston to America. Preston was where the first Mormon missionaries from America had established themselves when they arrived in Britain in 1837, and, soon after their arrival, they conducted the first baptisms in the Ribble. Before long they were attracting converts for miles around.

The place where they had most success was Longton where they were so successful that the Methodist chapel in the village was soon empty of worshippers. A good many of the converts were among those who emigrated to Salt Lake City.

The story of their arrival and establishment in Preston was told at length by the Preston historian and journalist Anthony Hewitson in his book, Our Churches and Chapels. He makes his dislike of Mormons, and his view of religions in general, clear at the beginning of the book, when he declares:

‘We don’t believe in the Parish Church; but a good deal of people do, and why shouldn’t they have their way in a small fight as well as the rest of folk? All, except Mormons and Fenians, who honestly believe in anything, are entitled to respect.’

Elsewhere in his writings, he extends that dislike of the Fenians to the whole community of poor Irish Catholics who had settled in the town.

When he turned to tackle the Mormons, he dipped his pen in vitriol before proceeding to devote more than three thousand words to his subject. It shows why his journalism both pleased and provoked:

‘There are about 1,100 different religious creeds in the world, and amongst them all there is not one more energetic, more mysterious, or more wit-shaken than Mormonism. It is a mass of earnest “abysmal nonsense,” an olla-podrida of theological whimsicalities, a saintly jumble of pious stuff made up – if we may borrow an idea ¬ of Hebraism, Persian Dualism, Brahminism, Buddhistic apotheosis, heterodox and orthodox Christianity, Mohammedanism, Druidism, Freemasonry, Methodism, Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, and Spirit-rapping.’

He then tells the story of the Mormons in nineteenth-century Preston from the arrival of the first missionaries, who included Orson Hyde and Heber C. Kimbal, in 1837. They first borrowed the pulpit at a chapel in Vauxhall Road, but not for long:

‘Things got hot in a few minutes here; it became speedily known that Hyde, Kimball, and Co. were of a sect fond of a multiplicity of wives; and the “missionaries” had to forthwith look out for fresh quarters. They secured the old Cock Pit, drove a great business in it, and at length actually got about 500 “members”.’

They then took their message to the surrounding villages, including Longton, where:

‘Mormonism fairly took the place by storm; it caught up and entranced old and young, married and single, pious and godless; it even spread like a sacred rinderpest amongst the Wesleyans, who at that time were very strong in Longton – captivating leaders, members, and some of the scholars in fine style; and the chapel of this body was so emptied by the Mormon crusade, that it was found expedient to reduce it internally and set apart some of it for school purposes. To this day the village has not entirely recovered the shock which Mormonism gave it 30 years ago.’

By the time Hewitson came to write his book, in 1869, the Mormon numbers in the Preston area had shrunk to just seventy.

He paid a visit to one of the Mormon services, which were then held in the Temperance Hotel in Lune Street, where he had great fun in fulfilling his ‘half-solemn, half-comic desire to see the very latest development of Preston Mormonism in its Lune-street home’.

And great fun he made of it:

‘There were just six living beings in the room – three well-dressed moustached young men, a thinly-fierce-looking woman, a very red-headed youth, and a quiet little girl. For about 30 seconds absolute silence prevailed. The thin woman then looked forward at the red-haired youth and in a clear voice said “Bin round there yet – eh?” which elicited the answer “Yea, and comed whoam”.’

Hewitson was beginning to wonder if this was going to be the extent of worship at the meeting, when the ‘general’, as Hewitson termed the minister, two elderly men and a young lad arrived and the congregation got down to singing hymns:

‘… and the singing was about the most comically wretched we ever heard. The lad who came in with the elderly men tried every range of voice in every verse, and thought that he had a right to do just as he liked with the music; the elderly men near him hammed out something in a weak and time-worn key; the woman got into a high strain and flourished considerably at the line ends; the little girl said nothing; the three young men seemed quite unable to get above a monotonous groan, and the general looked forward, then down, and then smiled a little, but uttered never a word, and seemed immensely relieved when the singing was over.’

Hewitson’s verdict:

‘The whole of the speakers at this meeting–which may be taken as a fair sample of the gatherings–were illiterate people, individuals with much zeal and little education; and the manner in which they crucified sentences, and maltreated the general principles of logic and common-sense, was really disheartening. They are very earnest folk; we also believe they are honest; but, after all, they are … beyond the reach of both physic and argument.’

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Source
Anthony Hewitson: Our Churches and Chapels: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10479