Virtual Methodist

After a few years as “ecclesiastical gypsies” by 1893 the Mission Committee realised that they needed a permanent home and towards the end of that year the site on which Grosvenor House now sits was bought by the Committee treasurer... And on 25th October of the following year the first Grosvenor Hall was opened...Or rather the Central Hall as it was formally called... But it quickly became known as the Grosvenor Hall by all who used it, and passed on the name officially to the second building that replaced it, in 1927. At first an adjacent building to the hall on Glengall Street was rented to host the social work and smaller meetings, but this was quite a costly arrangement, and so two years after the hall was opened an annex was built that not only increased the size of the main hall to 3000 if needed (slightly more than we need today) but also offices and smaller meeting rooms. But the cost of all of this was massive in those days. Crawford Johnson and his faithful treasurer Thomas ...

Custom House Square is central to a lot of Belfast's history down through the years. The Farset River which gave the city its name as Béal Feirste, the "Mouth of the Sandy River", runs under it and empties into the Lagan just beyond the building which gives it its name "The Custom House" which was erected here in the middle of the 19th century… As such it reflects Belfast’s origins as a maritime trading town, and its development as an industrial and commercial powerhouse in the 19th century under the British Empire. It’s one of the many buildings in Belfast (including Queens University) designed by Charles Lanyon. But McHugh’s Bar across the square which dates from the 17th century, reflects another dimension in Belfast’s origins as a port. Both it and DuBarry’s Bar that used to sit beside it, were “houses of ill repute” frequented by sailors.  So Custom House Square was a space where people from all levels of Belfast society could meet. The statue on the steps ...

Another of our stops en route last Sunday was opposite the site of what for many years was the Grosvenor Hall's city centre sister congregation, or perhaps, arguably step mother, Donegall Square Methodist on the east side on of City Hall. It opened on that site in 1806, with the remaining façade being part of a building erected in 1846, and is referred to as the Mother Church because in its lifetime it birthed many other congregations...Indeed when I previously asked where the story of the Grosvenor Hall began, it could be argued that it began in earnest here. Because in February 1889 two lay mission workers John Coulter and John Adams who had been employed to work among the unchurched of Belfast gave a graphic account of the social and spiritual plight of the poor of the city... This led directly to the petition which went to Conference in June 1889 for the establishment of a City Mission. However when Crawford Johnson was set aside as Mission Superintendent, he was not attached ...

The Mission operated out of Hermon Hall until January 1890 when Mr Ginnett needed the building back again, meaning that they had to decamp once more, leading Crawford Johnson to describe them, in thoroughly un-PC terms, as “ecclesiastical gypsies" (I used a less controversial synonym for the title). Their primary Sunday venues for the Mission were St. George’s Hall in High Street and the Ulster Hall, with repeated returns to Hermon Hall, from time to time until it was knocked down to prepare for the building of the Opera House. The weekday activities of the Mission were even more scattered... in lecture rooms and halls in north, south and east Belfast... Some of these were Bible studies and classic Methodist Class meetings, but increasingly more of them were working to address social needs of the people around, including food programmes rudimentary alcohol support groups, men’s and women’s groups, and work with (in another un-PC phrase) “street Arabs” – children running wild on th...

The story of the beginnings of the Grosvenor Hall congregation and Belfast Central Mission as shared with our Reflective Pilgrimage last Sunday afternoon continues... A tent is not exactly conducive for winter meetings... so towards the end of October they started to look for a new home, and found it on the site of what is now Belfast's Grand Opera House. It first opened on 23rd December 1895 (and contrary to popular opinion the opening show was not a pantomime starring May McFettridge). It was designed by the most prolific theatre architect of the period, Frank Matcham, and was originally called New Grand Opera House and Cirque. The term Cirque referred to the fact that the building that stood here before that, called the Hermon Hall, was one of a range of Halls across Britain and Ireland owned by the Ginnett family (often miss-spelt as Ginnet in Belfast histories, including the original published history of BCM), who were theatrical and circus promoters. Ginnett’s ow...

This is the first of  a few short posts in the run up to the closure of the Grosvenor Hall congregation that I currently have the honour of ministering to, this coming Sunday, after 136 years of faithful worship and witness. Last Sunday I organised a Reflective Pilgrimage for a small band of interested people, looking at the history of the congregation and Belfast Central Mission, especially the early years, and I included in it a few new poems. We began at the building where Sandy Row Methodist Church used to meet, before its closure 2 years ago. In its much larger predecessor, for the first 2 weeks of September 1889, the newly appointed Superintendent of what was then referred to as Belfast City Mission (leading to much confusion with the Presbyterian initiative of the same name) Rev. Crawford Johnson led a series of evangelistic services. But after 2 weeks of packed services, Johnson dismissed the initiative as a failure, because those who attended were already regular church-go...