The National Church in Local Perspective - "We live so far North"! The Church in the North of England

Author: Francoise Deconnick-Brossard, published 2003

Editors Review

Brossard brings to life the early years of non-conformity in the North East and how at various times non-conformity is seen as a threat to the established Church and how at Local level the clergy had varying viewpoints.  What is noticeable is how maybe apathy and agnosticism had a larger impact on Church attendance than non-conformity.  Brossard illustrates how Catholicism was on an equal footing with other non-conformists in the North East, while in other parts of England Catholics were treated differently from other groups of non-conformists.  He also illustrates how in the County of Northumberland, the Established Church's a minority and increasingly so the further North you travel towards the Scottish border.

This short work is excellent for those who have very little knowledge of the religious history of the area and for those researching their non-conformist Ancestry.  Finally, one must remember that non-conformity means not conforming to the Articles and Beliefs of the State Church and covers such diverse groups as Catholics, Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterian's and Methodists, although in the case of the latter it was a distinct group within the Anglican Church, but after the death of its founder it ceded from the Anglican Church and split into varying groups, the major ones being Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists.