CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE ISLE OF MAN
SOME sixty or seventy miles of broad sea lie between the Isle of Man and the Lancashire coast, yet its name has become a household word in this county. Thousands of busy Lancashire toilers, set free for a brief season from the mill, the office, and the exchange, find their way each yeare to its quiet glens, climb its mountains, make merry upon its charming bays, and come back to life's duties charged with new supplies of vigour and healthfulness, which a visit to the Isle of Man always ensures. That fact alone makes the insertion of the story of Manx Congregationalism in the "History of Lancashire Nonconformity " not altogether inappropriate. The truth, however, is that the Congregational churches of the Island are, and have been almost from the beginning of their existence, a part of the Lancashire Congregational Union. Before proceeding, however, to give their story, the reader will probably welcome a brief account of the general ecclesiastical history of the Island.
Population, 50,000. Diocese, Sodor and Mann. The existing churches will not afford room for more than 9,000. In Douglas, 7,000 inhabitants, and the Episcopal churches cannot accommodate 1,400 hearers. After a century of disputed ownership between the English and the Scots the Island was 'given', by Henry IV, to Sir John Stanley in 1405 on condition 'of rendering to our heirs the future Kings of England, two falcons on the days of their coronation'. There is not in the Isle of Man any trace of the Reformation. There was, however, very considerable religious excitement amongst us at the period when the Pope issued his papal brief, constituting a Hierarchy in England and Wales, in place of the Vicars Apostolic. England was thereby divided into Roman Catholic Dioceses, and the late Dr. Wiseman appointed Archbishop of Westminster.
The Stanleys derive their descent from Adam de Stanley (c.1125-c.1200) to whom his cousin, Adam de Audley, conveyed the Manor of Stanley in Staffordshire close to the Cheshire border. The Stanleys were one of the great families of England whose main houses were at Knowsley and Lathom in south-west Lancashire between Liverpool and Ormskirk. Sir John Stanley, K.G. (b. 1350? d. 1414), the first of the Stanley family who ruled in Man, does not seem to have visited the island. Sir John, who in his youth had served in Aquitaine, held important posts in Ireland between 1386 and 1391, and on the Welsh and Scottish borders. After his accession, he again visited the island in 1417, on account of a serious rising against his lieutenant-governor, John Letherland. The next recorded event in Man was in 1429 when " a Court of all the Commons of Mann " wa held at Tynwald under the presidency of Henry Byron, lieutenant-governor. By 1736 the last of the Derby line died and the Island passed to the Atholl family.
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