These records relate to the Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist and Methodist Church Circuits covering the Vale of White Horse area, which formerly lay in Berkshire.
The complex history of Methodism, compounded by various circuit reorganisations, makes it difficult to arrange the records of the Wantage and Abingdon Circuit coherently. Minute and account books often include entries from more than one circuit or branch of Methodism. In such cases documents have been listed under their original circuit, and cross-referenced. Wantage, for example has surviving records as follows:
1837-1905 Wantage Wesleyan Methodist Circuit
1905-1911 Wantage and Swindon Wesleyan Methodist Circuit
1911-1934 Wantage section, Oxford Wesleyan Methodist Circuit
1934-1959 Wantage and Wallingford Methodist Circuit
1959 onwards Wantage and Abingdon Methodist Circuit
Abingdon, too, was once part of the Oxford Methodist Circuit, from 1905-1958, and researchers should also consult the NM5 catalogue for records from this period.
The collection includes records of individual chapels, some of which are no longer in the circuit. It is not always possible to state whether a chapel belonged originally to the Wesleyan or Primitive Methodist connection, especially in villages where there were chapels of both denominations.
The documents in this collection include property deeds, registers of baptisms and marriages, circuit plans, minute books, accounts, membership registers, Sunday School records, and newsletters. They were deposited at various times as accessions 5596 (deposited in 2006), 5631 and 5683 (both in 2007), 5738 (2008), 5825 and 5900 (2009). Other Wantage and Abingdon Circuit material was accessioned as 2593/a and formerly listed under the reference code W&AMC has been recatalogued and combined with the accessions listed above. A concordance at the back of this catalogue indicates the new references for the relevant documents.
The collection is organised as follows:
NM6/A Wantage Wesleyan Methodist Circuit
NM6/B Wantage Section, Oxford Wesleyan Methodist Circuit
NM6/C Wallingford Primitive Methodist Circuit
NM6/D Wantage & Wallingford Methodist Church
NM6/E Wantage and Abingdon Methodist Circuit
NM6/1 Abingdon All Saints Methodist Church
NM6/2 Blewbury Methodist Church
NM6/3 Brightwell Primitive
NM6/4 Charney Bassett, Wesleyan
NM6/5 Childrey, Primitive
NM6/6 Childrey, Wesleyan
NM6/7 Childrey Methodist Church
NM6/8 Didcot Methodist Church
NM6/9 Drayton Methodist Church
NM6/10 Fawler
NM6/11 Grove
NM6/12 East Hagbourne Methodist Church
NM6/13 Harwell, Wesleyan
NM6/14 Harwell Methodist Church
NM6/15 East Hendred, formerly Wesleyan
NM6/16 West Hendred
NM6/17 Letcomb Regis, Primitive
NM6/18 Milton Methodist Church
NM6/19 Stanford-in-the-Vale
NM6/20 Steventon Methodist Church
NM6/21 Upton
NM6/22 Wallingford, Primitive
NM6/23 Wallingford Methodist Church
NM6/24 Wantage, Wesleyan, later Wantage Methodist Church
NM6/25 Long Wittenham
NM6/26 Wootton Methodist Church
Further information on chapels in the Circuit can be found in 'Berkshire Nonconformist Meeting House Registrations 1689-1852', published by the Berkshire Record Society (2003).
Catalogued by Hannah Jones, October 2009