In April 1693 a new meeting-house was proposed. Ground was bought on 20 June at Plungen's Meadow (now Cross Street); the building was begun on 18 July, a gallery was added as a private speculation by agreement dated 12 February 1694, and the meeting-house was opened by Newcome on 24 June 1694.[2] The "Dissenters' Meeting House" holds a special place in the growth ofnonconformism within the city.
It was wrecked by aJacobite mob during the1715 England riots on 10 June[3] but it was rebuilt and enlarged. The building was renamed the Cross Street Chapel and became aUnitarian meeting-housec. 1761.[4] It was destroyed during the Second World WarManchester Blitz in December 1940. A new building was constructed in 1959 and again in 1997.
In 2012, the chapel became the first place of worship to be granted acivil partnership licence when the law changed in England.[5]
During the construction ofManchester Metrolink's second city crossing in theCity Zone, 270 bodies from what used to be the chapel's graveyard had to be exhumed and reburied in Chorlton’sSouthern Cemetery. The work took place from 2014 to 2017.[6]
Urban historian Harold L. Platt notes that in the Victorian period "The importance of membership in this Unitarian congregation cannot be overstated: as the fountainhead of Manchester Liberalism it exerted tremendous influence on the city and the nation for a generation."[7]
^Hotz, Mary Elizabeth (Summer 2000). ""Taught by death what life should be": Elizabeth Gaskell's representation of death in "North and South"".Studies in the Novel.32 (2):165–184.JSTOR29533389.(subscription required)
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Gordon, Alexander (1894). "Newcome, Henry". InLee, Sidney (ed.).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 40. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
