Dissenters, or Non-Conformists, opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational institutions and communities. They tended to see the established church as too Catholic, but did not agree between themselves on what should be done about it.
The Methodists were dissenters and their Blackwell Parish stories are told separately. Baptists also fall into this category, and were active in the nearby towns but to date we have no knowledge of their followers in our parish. We welcome any input if the record needs correction.
An earlier occupier of Newton Old Hall, Mr John Richardson 1619-1682, was a member of the Old Meeting House at Sutton, a house for Independent Non-Conformists. and a record exists of a request being made there in 1672 for a preacher to attend the house of Mr John Richardson at Newton; perhaps this is the reason for the old chapel known to exist at Newton Old Hall.
His daughter-in-law is believed to have been the owner of the farm where the tenancy was held by Jedediah Strutt’s uncle and subsequently by Jedediah himself. He was also a dissenter, as was his his wife Elizabeth Woolley, and went on to build the Unitarian Church in Belper financed with his profits from his Derwent Valley Mills.
The story below of William Downing and Newton Old Hall also shows more links to the Old Meeting Houses of Mansfield and Sutton in the early 1800s.
The Quakers were prominent in Skegby and Toadhole Furnace where there is a graveyard opposite The Amber Hotel, but again no followers in Blackwell Parish have been brought to light.
William Downing and Newton Old Hall