Gilbert Burnett, the Bishop of Salisbury, persuaded Queen Anne that help was needed, and this resulted in 'Queen Anne's Bounty for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of the Poor Clergy.' All the royal revenues from First Fruits and Tenths would be paid to the clergy.

This act would reignite the enforcement, and the resistance to, tithe payments right up to the late 20th century.

At the time this building was known as The Independent Chapel. The website https://burystedmundsurc.org.uk/history/ has a description of this first building:-

Walsham le Willows had grown from only 3 to 400, and Wattisfield from 49 to 350.

Also, " That year a devastating smallpox epidemic swept through the town and anyone who could afford to do so fled Bury; Sir Thomas Gage and Mr Bond fled to Thetford, ostensibly on a fishing trip, and took Jones and Howard with them."

The ageing Hugh Owen was left to minister to dead and dying Catholics.

One section in the book covered the church:-

"The ecclesiastical government is under the Bishop of Norwich, it being part of that see....it is divided into two archdeaconries, viz Suffolk containing the Eastern parts of this county, and Sudbury including the Western parts. These two archdeaconries are subdivided into 22 Deaneries.......The Deaconries in the Archdeaconry of Sudbury are, Sudbury, Stow, Thingoe, Clare, Fordham, Hartsmere, Blackbourne and Thedwastry...."

"The civil government of this county is in the High Sheriff, for the time being. The division of this county ...was formerly divided into the Geldable and the Liberties of St Edmund, St Etheldred, and St Audrey; but the present division is into the Geldable and the Franchise or Liberty of St Edmund, each of them furnishes a distinct Grand Jury at the Assizes..."

Unfortunately the established church were strongly opposed to it, led by the Bishop of Salisbury, who wrote a pamphlet called "The Country Parson's Plea against the Quakers Bill for Tythes." Lord Hervey wrote a reply, called "The Quakers reply to the Country Parson's Plea". He stoutly defended Quakerism, although it was not his own calling, and praised their piety, their thrift and industry, and their support of their own poor.

The Quaker burial ground can be seen in Well Street, labelled as "Q'rs Burial Ground", and a better view can be seen by clicking on this thumbnail. The location is shown adjacent to the "W" of Well Street.

In 1752 England and Wales adopted the Gregorian Calendar and an 11 day correction was needed to bring Britain into line with Europe. The day after September 2nd became September 14th 1752. The new year now began on January 1st. This new system had been in use in the Catholic world since 1582 when Pope Gregory had fixed the months of unequal length, and refined the calculation of the leap year to keep local time in step with the movement of the planets.

At Bury the Quakers officially took over their newly built Meeting House in St Johns Street, where it remains today. It had been in progress since John Drewett bought the land in 1750 for this purpose. This fine building remains today, although it was then in the street called Long Brackland, becoming called St Johns Street in the 19th century. It could hold 500 people and has had a Suffolk white brick facade added on the east side in the mid 19th century.

Meanwhile Roman Catholicism, whilst illegal, was quietly practiced in Bury. Sometime in the 1750's a large extension on stilts was added to a substantial red brick house in Southgate Street, butting on to St Botolph's Lane. It seems that this was used by John Gage, a jesuit priest, as a chantry chapel to say the Mass.

At this point the Jesuits returned to influence in Bury when John Gage saw this opening. John Gage was the brother of Thomas Rookwood Gage of Coldham Hall. John Gage had established a chapel in his mother Elizabeth Rookwood’s house in Southgate Street in 1753, and now wanted to take over the Bury Catholic Mission. The Short family, always against the Jesuits, tried to set up a rival Dominican Mission, but Gage had greater financial resources.

"John Gage’s chapel is truly remarkable: it is one of the first semi-public and purpose-built Catholic chapels in England. Although the penal laws had ceased to be enforced by 1761, Catholics remained on the alert. As recently as 1745, all horses and firearms had been confiscated from Catholics as a result of the Jacobite rising, and as the Gordon Riots of 1780 would prove, anti-Catholic mob violence was far from over. Yet John Gage felt safe and confident enough in Bury to build a chapel behind his house which, although invisible from the street, was quite obvious from the rear.

John Gage’s chapel was a pattern for other chapels built after the Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791, which allowed the licensing of privately owned chapels. But how was it that, thirty years before his chapel was legal, John Gage felt safe enough to build it? All the evidence suggests that Bury was an unusually tolerant town towards Catholics; indeed, it was such a good place for Catholics to live that they chose to move there."

Dr Francis Young has pointed out the following note from this visit, to illustrate local tolerance to Catholicism:

"The reminiscences of the French aristocrat François de la Rochefoucauld, who visited Bury with his brother in 1784, are also very revealing - everyone knew what was going on when the Catholics went to mass, François recalled, but no one did or said anything because everyone got along so well. It is possible that some of the Protestant gentry may have shared in François’ own fashionable Enlightenment indifference to matters of religion. "

Dr Francis Young has noted that, "Elizabeth Inchbald brought Bury’s tolerance of Catholicism to the attention of the nation in 1791, when she published a two-volume novel entitled "A Simple Story. " In the story, "Mr Dorriforth, (is) a Jesuit who ends up being dispensed from his vows when he inherits an earldom – Inchbald based this part of the story on Sir George Mannock of Gifford’s Hall, who was killed in a coach accident in 1783 on his way to obtain a dispensation from Rome from his Jesuit vows."

"Another key character in the story is Mr Sandford, a severe Jesuit whom Inchbald based on her own childhood tutor at Coldham Hall, James Dennett."

He seems to have been willing to travel wherever he was invited and he would preach in the open air using a farm wagon as a pulpit. His diary states at times he preached to a congregation of 3000 people at Glemsford.

He also carried out baptisms in a specially dug pool by the River Glem at Scotchford Bridge at which he claims there were never less than 20 candidates, some almost 80 years of age. Many of the Glemsford congregation would regularly travel to Bury to worship with Elvin in the Lower Baxter Street chapel.

By 1821 the Primitive Methodist movement reached East Anglia, and by 1829 two such preachers from Brandon came on a mission to Bury St Edmunds. They were so successful that a house in Garland Street was quickly purchased and converted into a chapel.

Primitive Methodist services began in Garland Street in Bury St Edmunds on January 22nd, 1830. This chapel is now a private home, number 15A Garland Street. Meanwhile, in Bury, the old Wesleyan Methodists continued to attend chapel in St Mary's Square.

The rivalries on the council frequently caused divisions and contests on elections, and a successful candidate was then expected to pledge his vote and support to whoever introduced him to office.

The report noted a bias in favour of churchmen, as no dissenters had been elected. Nobody had been excluded for political reasons at Bury, but the Report said that "a bias exists in favour of persons whose political opinions coincide with those of the majority."

Bury also possesses three charity-schools, in one of which forty boys, and in another fifty girls are instructed and clothed. They are supported partly by subscription and partly by an endowment of £70 per annum ; as well as two Lancasterian schools, one for boys, the other for girls, established in 1811.

Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker, published an account of his educational work in 1803 called "Improvements in education as it respects the industrial classes of the community".
Joseph Lancaster had found that at his 'Lancasterian School' in Southwark one 'teacher' could teach say five boys one item of knowledge in reading, writing or arithmetic. These five boys would teach another five. These would teach five more. He also adopted use of the slate and slate pencil to replace costly pen, ink and paper. In this way education could be provided very economically, and each boy paid 1p per week.
Financial difficulties led in 1808 to the schools being taken over by a non-conformist group who formed the Society for Promoting the Royal British or Lancasterian System for the Education of the Poor ( renamed in 1814 as the British and Foreign School Society or BFSS).

In 1836 the Tithe Commutation Act was passed which ended the practice of delivering one tenth of all agricultural produce to the titheowner, who was often the local parson. In many ways the new Tithe Rentcharge was a worse burden on farmers as they had to find the rental payment whatever the state of the harvest, or the effort of the farmer. What was worse was that with an increasing number of religious denominations, they could not accept that the fruits of their labours should go only to the Church of England parson.

"We believe that the expense of this edifice is defrayed from the general fund for the creation of Catholic Chapels upon which every town has a claim in its turn. This fact may serve to quiet the alarms of some of those persons who see in every announcement of a new Catholic place of worship the approach to the restoration of ‘Popish’ supremacy in this Country........."

Following a dispute with their pastor, Cornelius Elven, about 30 members of the Baptist Church left and set up their own Rehoboth Congregation. They set about creating their own chapel in Westgate Street, which was ready for worship by 1840. Elven was brought up a Congregationalist but had joined the Ebenezer Baptist congregation following his own bible studies. He became their Pastor in 1823, and was responsible for gaining a great number of new worshippers, to the extent of needing to move to a new chapel in Garland Street. He was a liberal Baptist, and the breakaway group desired a stricter form of worship.

Around this time, in the 1830's, several of the dissenting groups reformed new congregations. A few years earlier some Congregationalists left to set up the Chapel at the bottom of Northgate Street.

Meanwhile Methodism was a rising force in some places. Primitive Methodists of the Wickhambrook and Newmarket Circuit had leased the Independent Chapel at Chevington from the Bury Congregationalists by 1840. This arrangement continued throughout the century, and Chevington was regarded as a local centre of nonconformity, along with Wickhambrook.

The builder of St John's Church was Messrs Bell and Sons of Cambridge and the church was dedicated on October 21st 1841. This picture is from about 1866 but even by that date there was no Orchard Street yet built, and very few other buildings around the church.

An Order in Council finally removed the right to control the clergy of St James and St Mary's from the town corporation. These two churches and their parishes were finally made part of the Thingoe Deanery and the Arch Deaconry of Sudbury, under the Diocesan control. The corporation had inherited the Abbot's old freedom from episcopal control when they got their third charter in 1614, and finally this freedom was removed.

In 1851 the primitive Methodists completed their new chapel in Garland Street, located at what is today number 23A Garland Street. This had a capacity of 120 people, and would be in use until 1902.

Their previous chapel, located nearby, at number 15A Garland Street, would be sold to the Plymouth Brethren in 1853.

In 1851 there was a national census of religious worship to measure how many places were available in church and chapel to accomodate the growing population. Census Day was 31st March, 1851. For some reason the Primitive Methodists at Garland Street did not submit a return. Perhaps the change of location caused it to be overlooked.

The St Mary's Square Wesleyans reported attendances well below their capacity of 400 places. Both the Baptists in Garland Street and the Whiting Street and Northgate Street Independent chapels reported congregations larger than the Wesleyans. The Quakers had declined over the last fifty years and reported a very small number attending. The Unitarians in Churchgate Street reported numbers similar to the Wesleyans.

This upsurge in independent religious activity has been seen as very important in ameliorating the economic and political disturbances of the times. In 1848, the year of revolutions throughout Europe, it was able to be thought that "Methodism saved us from a bloody revolution", although it is clear that it was Primitive Methodism that captured popular support.

In the 1850s there was a considerable movement against burial of the dead within town or city limits on health and hygiene grounds. Burial Acts of 1852, 1853 and 1854 gave the crown the right to issue Orders in Council to close specific burial grounds throughout the country.

On 11th August, 1854, such an Order in Council was made instructing that with effect from 21st August, 1854, there should be no more burials within inhabited areas. However the Order included a few exceptions to that general rule, at Diss, Manchester and at Bury St Edmunds.

The chapels and the lodge at the Cemetery were designed by Cooper and Peck, and together with the entrance gates cost nearly £1,900.0.0. Laying out the ground and accomodation works cost another £5,500. The new cemetery was finally opened for burials on October 1st, 1855 and the chapels were consecrated by the Bishop of Ely on 23rd October of that year. A further plot of land would need to be bought in 1880 to enlarge the burial ground.

An extension was built to number 23A in 1865 which brought the seating capacity up to 160 worshippers. The event was commemorated by the plaque shown here, which was photographed by Martyn Taylor. It is slightly unclear, but the inscription reads, "This stone was laid Oct 9 1865 by W Chapman of Barnardiston. M Warnes, T Woodall Ministers."

Externally, the Victorian gothic facade that we still see today was added in 1866. Meantime, in 1851, the Sunday School which had met for 50 years needed new premises so the school-room was built and a further extension with smaller rooms was added in 1887.

At St James's church, nearby, Lot Jackaman the Bury builder, was continuing a long renovation process, started in 1864. Wilkin noted with approval that the galleries there were wiped out in 1863-64, and the "high stiff-looking pews have been superceded by oak benches", giving about 2,000 sittings, of which 400 are free. "Mr F Fearnside, a skilful musician, is the organist, and has succeeded in forming a most excellent choir". The living is a perpetual curacy and the incumbent is Rev Frank Chapman.

Similarly, St Marys Church at Haverhill was being enthusiastically "restored", so that only its tower remains as clearly medieval today.

"It was not until 1870 that the first Vicar of the church, the Rev. B. Rashdall, was replaced by a young and enthusiastic Anglo-catholic priest, Father Stewart Holland. The effect was somewhat akin to a whirlwind descending on the church. During the seven years of his incumbency, the church was completely transformed, to emerge as St John the Evangelist, the county's flagship Anglo-catholic shrine."