Fairfield Moravian Church
It was founded by Benjamin La Trobe as a centre for evangelistic work for the Moravian Church in the Manchester area.
[1] In 1742 the Moravians established a headquarters for their evangelistic work in the North of England at Lightcliffe near Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
[6] (The Augsburg Confession contained the core doctrines of the Lutheran Church, by which the Moravians had been influenced during their time of renewal at Herrnhut on the estates of Count Nicolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony, Germany in the 1720s.)
Some 1,500 people attended Morning Service which began with a musical ode performed on the new organ by Br Christian La Trobe supported by the brass bands from Fulneck and Fairfield.
The use of brass instruments in worship is a Moravian characteristic now largely defunct in England but alive in Germany and the United States.
[9] Benjamin La Trobe, of Huguenot descent,[10] was the Provincial Helper or superintendent in charge of the Moravian's work in the United Kingdom, reporting to the Unity (international) headquarters in Herrnhut, Germany.
La Trobe’s son, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, was the architect of the Capitol of the United States in Washington, DC.
[12] In turn, the elders appointed a college of overseers to manage the settlement, deal with repair of buildings, maintenance of roads, street lighting and supervision of economic activity.
The young men were frequently admonished for drinking too much at the settlement's inn; on one occasion, they had some fun at a fire drill by turning the hosepipe on a Br Gilpin who took offence.
The practice was based on Biblical precedent and reflected the Moravian belief in Christ as the active and directing Head of the Church.
This may be partly due to a result on 8 May 1815 when a married woman, Hannah Kenyon, earnestly sought on her death bed to become a member of Fairfield.
The congregation provided small uniform gravestones which lay flat on the earth, bearing only the name and age of the departed as an expression of the equality of brothers and sisters.
It involved creating societies which would quicken spiritual life within existing Protestant denominations or among people who were unattached to any church; and taking the Gospel to those, especially in the Danish, Dutch and British colonies, who had never heard it before.
[23] Fairfield supported missionary work overseas: Mellowes (1984) lists 17 brothers and sisters who, within living memory, had served in missions in Labrador, Jamaica, the Eastern West Indies, Ladakh in northern India and Tanzania.
[26] The work of the scripture readers led to chapels being created at Edge Lane and Gorton Brook in Droylsden and the Westwood Moravian Church in Oldham.
The social life of Fairfield was moving to a form typical of nonconformist chapels, with a dramatic society, a musical choir and a young men's club for billiards and smoking by the 1880s.
[29] The Moravian Theological College, which trained ministers for the British Province and its overseas missions, moved to Fairfield from Fulneck in 1875.
[30] It closed in 1958 and its building was restored as a Sunday school and community centre, under the leadership and toil of Anthony Torkington, a Moravian Architect.
