IPSWICH UNITARIAN MEETING HOUSE

AND ITS CONGREGATION

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The Sunday School was reported as offering a wide curriculum for a general education, and the ministers conducted an academy in one of the buildings between the Meeting House and St.Nicholas Street.

Later in the century, a visiting preacher on several occasions was the nationally eminent journalist, novelist and translator of Spinoza, William Hale White, alias 'Mark Rutherford'. In 1900 the artist E. Lucking Tavener became minister, frequently preaching on themes suggested by famous paintings. One of his own paintings, an interior of the Meeting House, is still in the congregation's possession.

A prominent lpswich Unitarian at the turn of the century was Frank Woolnough. He wrote for both the 'East Anglian Daily Times' and the 'Mercury' (as 'XYZ'), and was a campaigner for the opening of a crematorium. His main contribution to the town was as curator of lpswich Museum  - for 27 years - and as the person responsible for converting the newly-acquired Christchurch Mansion for public use. Frank Woolnough was not progressive in all matters though, and in 1913 he resigned from the congregation's committee in protest at the election of women to its number!

Two ministers in the 1930s and 40s aroused controversy. Dr. John Lewis was an active and outspoken socialist who later joined the Communist Party. His successor, in 1938, was Joseph Burton, whose vocal pacifism got him into trouble when war broke out the following year. He was effectively dismissed by the trustees in 1940, causing a number of members to resign from the congregation in protest. One of those who did so, Marianne Prime, later recalled that she resented 'the intolerance of the trustees... especially as one of our Unitarian principles is tolerance towards others'. A difficult period followed this rupture. Into this less than happy situation came the congregation's - and perhaps Ipswich's - first woman minister, Winifred Brown, who served from 1943 to 1946.

The post-war period saw Ipswich becoming a more multi-cultural place, to which the Unitarian congregation sought to respond. In the 1950s, during Phillip Hewett's brief but significant ministry, the congregation offered its hall to accommodate the newly-formed lpswich Caribbean Association. Later, in 1980 - and for fourteen years thereafter - the Unitarian Meeting House hosted the inter-faith Civic Celebration of Community, an annual event very much in harmony with Unitarian principles.

Something of the changing feel of congregational life during the late 20th century was described in 1986 by Marianne Prime, who first came to the Meeting House in 1922. She recalled, 'No more walking sedately down our drive into Friars Street after service, we now laugh and talk as we wend our way towards our new hall for coffee and biscuits, a chat or sometimes a friendly discussion arising from the sermon.'

It is worth noting, in conclusion, that during Hewett's ministry and that of his successor, Nicholas Teape, there was a return to calling the building a 'Meeting House', after many years being described as a church or chapel. This was felt to be true both to its origins, character and history and to the way its present congregation feel about it  - a place to meet with each other and with God.