page_title: Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel, Wivelsfield
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel, Wivelsfield / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Wivelsfield Strict Baptist Chapel, East Sussex, England.
context_page_description: Bethel Baptist Chapel is a Strict Baptist place of worship in the village of Wivelsfield in East Sussex, England. The cause was founded in 1763 by members of a chapel at nearby Ditchling; Henry Booker and other worshippers seceded and began to meet at Wivelsfield after hearing a sermon by George Whitefield. Although some members of the new church soon returned to the Ditchling congregation, the cause thrived under Booker's leadership, and the present chapel—a building of "quiet and unassuming elegance" set in its own graveyard—was erected in 1780. It has served the Strict Baptist community continuously since then, and members founded other chapels elsewhere in Sussex during the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapel is a Grade II Listed building.
context_section_description: Throughout Sussex, a coastal county in southeast England, many Christian denominations have thrived alongside the Established Church of England since the 17th century, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 extended religious freedom to so-called Nonconformists or Dissenters (people and ministers who worshipped outside the Church of England but were not part of the Roman Catholic Church).  The area around Lewes, the present county town of East Sussex, was a hotbed of Nonconformist worship, and Baptists of all types were well represented.
  Ditchling, a village near Lewes, also supported several chapels in addition to the Anglican parish church, whose vicar said in 1780 that "this place is noted for Dissenters of almost all denominations".  A General Baptist chapel was founded there in the 1730s, and served worshippers from villages across central Sussex and beyond.  The son of Matthew Caffyn was associated with the chapel, as was William Evershed, who later founded the General Baptist Chapel at Billingshurst.
  The ecclesiology of many General Baptist chapels in the area changed during the late 18th century: several congregations developed Unitarian views (following the lead of Matthew Caffyn senior and his son, who founded a chapel at Horsham and oversaw its transition to Unitarianism).  These changes were not always supported by a chapel's entire congregation, and the changes at Ditchling led to a secession by some members and the founding of a new chapel at Wivelsfield.  In 1755, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon moved to Brighton, then a small but increasingly popular seaside resort.  She held Calvinistic beliefs, and invited preachers such as George Whitefield to speak at her house.  Soon after, she built a chapel in the grounds.  In 1762, Henry Booker—a bricklayer from Ditchling and a member of (and occasional preacher at) the Ditchling General Baptist Chapel—travelled to Brighton to hear Whitefield preaching, on the recommendation of a friend.  Whitefield's words had such influence on Booker that he underwent a spiritual conversion and embraced Calvinist doctrines.  These did not agree with the principles of the Ditchling chapel, which by the 1760s was mostly Unitarian in character, and Booker was presented in front of 15 General Baptist ministers and asked to justify his beliefs.  No longer believing "the Ditchling community to be a true Christian Church", he stated he would "tear the church to pieces", and on 20 October 1762 he was dismissed from the church.  Almost immediately, Booker moved to nearby Wivelsfield—taking several members of the Ditchling congregation with him—and together with some Baptist friends in the village he registered a house, Fanners, as a place of worship.  In 1763, it was constituted as a Particular Baptist chapel, and John Simmonds became its first pastor in 1764.  He had been a minister at the Ditchling chapel since 1762, but he too had been dismissed: it was stated in 1764 that "this Church hath sett very unesey under the Hearing of Our Friend John Simmonds ... [we do] not approve of him in the office of the Ministry".
  Another split occurred in 1765, when Simmonds and Booker had a disagreement and more than half the congregation left the chapel, following Simmonds who had returned to his original General Baptist beliefs.  In 1768, Henry Booker became the full-time pastor, and meetings moved to his house at Bankside Farm.  Two years earlier, he had offered assistance to a group of Particular Baptists in Brighton, and had allowed some members of the Wivelsfield congregation to leave and help form a church—the Salem Baptist Chapel—in the seaside town.  (The first building was erected in 1787, and a replacement chapel of 1864 stood until 1974).
  The Wivelsfield congregation became part of the Kent and Sussex Baptist Association in 1779.  The following year, a chapel was built on land next to Bankside Farm.  At that time it was called Wivelsfield Baptist Meeting House, but the name Bethel Chapel was soon adopted.  Booker died in 1799, and the chapel was served intermittently by pastors in the n
caption: The name bethel chapel and the date 1780 are shown above the chapel entrance.
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