Rob Shotliff
DPhil in English Local History
Thesis
The Reluctant Denomination? The Trajectory of the countess of Huntingdon's Connexion in the Nineteenth Century. The Connexion without the Countess
Research abstract
Charting the trajectory of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion in the nineteenth century through the lens of four pivotal chapels; The Vineyards, Bath, North Street, Brighton, Ebley, Stroud, and Spafields, Clerkenwell, London. A common framework of four sections, The Formative Years, Congregational Makeup, Contours of Chapel Life and the Local Ecclesiastical Ecology steers the analysis. Differences between the chapels are interpreted through the framework which then augments historiography in arguing that, rather than explaining the Connexion as a failing denomination, it should be understood as an organisation that failed, until the century end, to establish itself as a denomination.
