Registration and Early References in Cardington

In 1672 Charles II issued a Declaration of Toleration for Protestants dissenting from the Church of England; this had the effect of some dissenting meeting houses registering with the Secretary of State. The Toleration Act of 1689 enshrined the right of protestants to dissent from the Church of England and, once again, encouraged meeting houses to register voluntarily with local quarter sessions and Anglican church. Registration provided protection against persecution, laying a duty of protection upon magistrates and so was popular with nonconformists. Most registrations were made with quarter sessions until the middle of the 18th century, presumably due to the mutual antagonism of nonconformists and established Church. However, from that point registration with the Church, via the local archdeaconry began to become the favoured method, because the archdeaconry Registrar would issue a licence at any time rather than during the days each quarter when the quarter sessions met.

Visitations by the Bishop of Lincoln to Bedfordshire in the early 18th century give some idea as to the number of nonconformists in each parish from returns made by the vicar or rector. Former County Archivist Patricia Bell has compiled returns from 1706 to 1720 for the Bedfordshire Historical Records Society (Volume 81, published 2002); information forCardingtonincludes the following:

• 1706: "Having about 140 families in it. Of these 42 are Dissenters from the Church of England, most of the Independent perswasion (sic), and have two Meeting Houses".
• 1709: "Families 140. Souls 570, of which about 180 Independents. No Papist."
• 1712: "Families 140, of these 80 intirely (sic) Conformable, 32 intirely Dissenters, the rest mixed".
• 1717: “157 families, of which 50 and one are Dissenters, under the Denomination of Independents.”
• 1720: “There are in this Parish 163 familys, and of these 50 are Dissenters, chiefly, according to the best information I can meet with, of the Independent Sect."

Bedfordshire Archives has a reasonable number of registrations of nonconformist meeting houses in both the Quarter Sessions and Archdeaconry of Bedford archives. Registration continued through the 19th century even though persecution faded away - this was because registered buildings were allowed to claim exemption from parish poor rates, were exempt from control by the Charity Commission and were allowed to be licensed to carry out marriages. These things meant that registration became almost compulsory in practice for well established nonconformist meetings. This is fortunate for the local historian because sometimes the only surviving references to a nonconformist meeting occur as registrations. One drawback with the registrations are that they do not usually inform the reader of the particular type of denomination involved, though sometimes it is possible to infer it from other evidence.

Bedfordshire Archives has the registrations of one meeting house in Cardington of which the denomination is uncertain. The first was at the house of Robert Huckle in 1775, registered by Joseph Smith of Cardington, John Whitemore of Cardington and Joshua Symonds of Bedford [refs: ABN1/1; ABN2/35]. Symonds was Minister of the Bunyan Meeting in Bedford before becoming a Baptist. It seems likely that these registrations were probably for Independent meetings, which shared many points of belief with the Baptists and which later became known as the Howard Meeting.