Welsh Journals

George Morgan had registered his house as a meeting place for the Independents and on the same day a George Robinson is registered as a minister at the same address. Another member of the church was registered as a minister in the parish of Llangybi nearby. In 1675 Mr Thomas Quarrel became its minister cojointly with other Independent churches in Usk, Llantrisant and Llangwm. (The Quarrels were natives of Radnorshire and members of the family were prominent Nonconformists in Shropshire and Herefordshire). The concord between the Independents and the Baptists came to an end around 1690 and there is uncertainty about who acted as minister from then until 1695 when Mr Hugh Pugh, already minister of Usk and Llangwm, ministered to the Llanofer congregation which met at Abergwaenfan in the nearby parish of Goitre. He was a popular and respected minister but, to the great sorrow of the congregations, in 1709 he died. The next minister that we can trace is Mr Morgan Thomas who sent in a return of the membership of the church and the social standing of its members in 1718 to Dr John Evans of London whose records of Monmouthshire Independent churches are listed in some detail. The average attendance is a hundred and twenty (probably without counting the names of women and children) and included in that number were five gentlemen, five yeomen, twelve farmer ratepayers, twelve business men and fifteen employed men. Thirteen of these were able to vote in Monmouthshire parliamentary elections and fifteen in Monmouth borough elections. This suggests that Nonconformity even at this early stage succeeded in attracting to its ranks men who were financially independent. In 1724, Mr Rees Davies was invited to become the minister of the congregation which still met for worship at Abergwaenfan. Under his leadership the members acquired a home through the conversion of part of his house into a chapel which was used for the next twenty years until a more permanent meeting place was built nearby. A stone in the wall of the building still records its use as a dissenting meeting house. (see Figure 1) The letters could well stand for Dissenting Religious Meeting or Fig. 1: The stone in the wall