The Moravian congregation Church and Sunday School c. 1928 Westwood Moravian Church was founded in 1865 following some initial house-based work by the Reverend Bennett Harvey (the Minister of the
Fairfield Moravian Settlement in Droylsden) and the Reverend Frederic La Trobe over the previous year. The Westwood mission, carried out in what was then a new
industrial district, was organised by the leaders of
Salem Moravian Church in eastern Oldham, with the support of the
British Provincial Board, to serve the needs of some of their members who had moved to work in Westwood. In addition, some members of the Dukinfield Moravian Church had also settled in Westwood. An excellent aerial photograph of the district, showing Westwood Mill, Anchor Mill and the densely packed terraced housing typical of the area in the late nineteenth century, can be found in Law (1999). The first public services were held in the newly built chapel on 12 November 1865. Forty adults attended in the morning and seventy in the evening. At the first anniversary service, over 150 attended in the morning and in the evening the chapel was unable to accommodate the crowd. In 1900, the organist was the subject of complaints that organ voluntaries were too long and that he failed to notice the number of verses in hymns. There were "times when the organist played a solo and others when the congregation sang unaccompanied". This tune was very popular at Westwood and was always the climax of the Christingle Service just before Christmas. The Christingle Service was broadcast from Westwood by the BBC in December 1953. With the introduction of Family Church in October 1965, attendance at morning services numbered 170.
Education and employment From the outset, the Minister at Westwood taught children reading, writing and arithmetic in evening classes. Sunday School teachers also gave lessons at morning and afternoon sessions. The law at that time allowed children and young people to work up to twelve hours a day in mills and factories, with breaks amounting to one and a half hours for meals. State education was not provided in England until 1870. Even then, insufficient school places meant that many children could not be taught. In 1870, there were 18,085 children of school age in Oldham of whom roughly half actually attended school. Just over 2,300 were taught in private schools. Records show that the Westwood Sunday School building was hired by day school teachers for private tuition. The School Hall was also used as an Employment Exchange from 1922 to 1957. A drama committee appears to have existed from 1897, but this society needed to be renewed following the First World War. The rules were relaxed in 1931 and dancing was allowed for up to ninety minutes at any social event. The Westwood Moravian Cricket Club was set up in 1883 and was still in existence in 1965. A recreation club for football, cricket and tennis was set up in 1922. In 1953 a Wakes Club was set up, continuing a much older tradition of voluntary saving, to help people save for holidays. There were youth clubs at Westwood from at least 1943.
Ministry Four Westwood men went on to serve as Ministers of the Moravian Church. In 1904 Br Harry Lloyd, an employee of
Platt Brothers, was accepted for training as a missionary. He eventually sailed to the
West Indies. He died in
Antigua in 1941. His son Ronald was Minister at Westwood from 1945 to 1954. Br George Harp was ordained at Westwood on 21 June 1925 by Bishop Arthur Ward. He had been a minder at the Manor Mill in Chadderton before theological education at Bristol Mission College and medical training at Livingstone College. In July 1925 he set sail to work as a missionary in Labrador.
Closure The church on the corner of Middleton Road and Neville Street remained in use until 2005 when the congregation moved first to St Luke's Anglican Church in
Chadderton and then to smaller premises in Royton some six miles away. This move was prompted by demographic changes in Westwood and by the increasing difficulty of maintaining the buildings there. In 1881 the then Minister at Westwood, Br H Reichel, had recommended Royton to the Lancashire District Conference as a place where a new congregation might be started.
Ministers References:.
Post Moravian use The use of the site immediately following the departure of the Moravians is unknown. The Church building is currently in use by Firwood Church, a free evangelical church. ==References==