334 STOURBRIDGE AND OLDSWINFORD.

remaining 130 years without being consecrated, the church recently received that sacred rite at the hands of the Bishop of Worcester.

St. John's District Church was built in 1859-61, on a site in Warehouse Field; architect, Mr. Street; cost, £4,000, of which Earl Dudley gave £1,000; and it is endowed with £200 out of the income of the parish church at the next avoidance of the living. Rev. T. Williams incumbent; Earl Dudley patron.

At the Lye is a church, built and endowed by the late T. Hill, Esq., of Dennis, in 1843. Wollaston also has a church, erected and endowed by W. 0. Foster, Esq., M.P., and is a separate parochial district, of which the Rev. J. Gilbank is minister. Amblecote has likewise a district church, of which the Rev. J. Boldero is incumbent. It is worthy of note that the whole of the church erections, and (with the exception of Oldswinford, which has extensive glebe and a small amount of tithe payable in the hamlet of Amblecote) the whole church endowments are the result of voluntary effort. There has been but one church-rate levied during the last forty years, and that was in the year 1845. The present rector of Oldswinford, Rev. C. H. Craufurd, is opposed to church-rates, and his parishioners by their liberality amply provide for the decent and orderly performance of Divine worship. The annals of Dissent in this town commence with (so far as known) the Quakers. In 1674, Sarah Reynolds, a poor Quaker woman with five children, was sent to Worcester gaol for not paying 9d. towards the repair of the "steeple-house." The Quakers erected a meeting-house here in 1680. In 1697 the house of John Scott was licensed for Divine worship, and in 1715 the house of Samuel Carter. The Presbyterians date from 1698, at which time the Rev. G. Flower, domestic chaplain to Mr. Foley, of Prestwood, began to preach alternately at Prestwood and Stourbridge, and so continued to do in the chapel (now a warehouse) in Coventry Street until 1716, when he ceased to be chaplain at Prestwood, and for many