St. James's Church, Ryde is a

proprietary chapel A proprietary chapel is a chapel that originally belonged to a private person, but with the intention that it would be open to the public, rather than restricted (as with private chapels in the stricter sense) to members of a family or household, ...

located in

Ryde Ryde is an English seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight. The built-up area had a population of 24,096 according to the 2021 Census. Its growth as a seaside resort came after the villages of Upper Ryde and ...

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

. Until 2020 it was part of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

, when it left to join the

Anglican Mission in England The Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) is an Anglican convocation affiliated to the Anglican Network in Europe that seeks to establish Anglican churches in England outside the Church of England. It was created with the support of the Global Anglic ...

History

The church was built in 1827 on Lind Street, as only the second

building in

. It was commissioned by W. Hughes, with his brother Revd. Augustus Hewitt serving as the inaugural minister. Both brothers left in 1830, with Hughes being elected to Parliament as M.P. for

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

. Revd. Richard Waldo Sibthorp, a Fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

, purchased the chapel and ministered to its congregation until 1841. From then, it was passed on several times, before in 1903 it was transferred to a group of five trustees, which holds it to this day. Since 1904 it has been part of the

Church Society Church Society is a conservative, evangelical Anglican organisation and registered charity formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglican Church Association (founded 1865) and National Church League (founded 1906 by amalgamation of two earlier bo ...

group of churches.

Organ

The organ was built in 1911 by James Ivemey of Southampton. It was later replaced by an organ originally in a Methodist church on St. Peter's Street in

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

. One of the few recorded organists was a certain 'Miss Watts' around 1921. A specification of the organ can be found on th
National Pipe Organ Register

Present Day

St James' Church continues to be highly active with services at 10:30am and 6:30pm each Sunday, as well as a range of youth groups and mid-week groups. It is within the

Conservative Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of the Christian go ...

tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...

of the

and before it left that church had passed resolutions to reject the

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryde, St. James Churches in the Anglican Network in Europe Ryde Conservative evangelical Anglican churches in England Anglican realignment congregations