When John Wesley passed through Irchester in May 1783 and visited 'Brother Angrave' for tea and prayer, there were no Methodists in Wellingborough. But in 1786 Martha Tomkins of Northampton visited the town with a view to opening a dressmaking business there. Falling from her horse in Sheep Street , she broke her arm and was given hospitality as well as medical aid in the home of the surgeon George Darby Dermott. He and his family, along with many others were influenced by her to become Methodists He gave up his Unitarian views, became a local preacher and later left his medical practice to enter the itinerancy. The house which Martha bought at the junction of Park Road and Great Park Street in 1787 was licensed as a place of worship. The first chapel was built in Church Street in 1791. In the Religious Census of 1851 it recorded a general congregation of 200 with a Sunday School of 75.

Wellingborough became the head of a circuit in 1810. A new chapel was opened in Great Park Street in 1873, seating 460.

The Primitive Methodists opened a chapel seating 206 in West Street in 1869 and the Independent Methodists had one in Alma Street.

Category: Place
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