Tramps nightclub in Worcester began life as a church school for poor

It wasn’t a nightclub then of course, not even featuring a lute duet backed by drum and bass, but Angel Street Congregational Church. Although strictly speaking it wasn’t that building either, because the original Angel Street church stood a few yards away.

The impressive Angel Street Congregational Church, designed as a counterblast to the Church of England Gothic, which was at the time thought to be the only fit style for a place of worship

But the sentiment was the same, because the Congregationalists who comprised the congregation were pioneer educationalists in Worcester.

Their first Angel Street church was built in 1702. Like many other Dissenters chapels of the time it was erected in a low key position in the garden of a house off The Butts to give it some protection from the mobs who would oppose this version of Christianity. According to records it was “a brick building with the interior antiquated  in appearance”. 

The original interior of the new Congregational Church, which cost £6,000 to build in 1859. With galleries and a glass roof under a dome, it could seat 1,000

And there is remained until 1859, by when many of the Congregationalists were rich and in no mood to build in back alleys. So they funded the new church nearby fronting Angel Place, which is now one of Worcester architectural gems.

Being described as “Greek Ionic and Roman Corinthian, like a tiny exuberant opera house.” Although I doubt it hears much opera today. 

In the late 1700s a movement to educate the poor had been gathering pace and Worcester’s first effective school to meet the need began in the original Angel Street Congregational Church in 1797. The minister, the Rev George Osbourne, wrote: ”Soon after coming to Worcester I noticed multitudes of poor, idle, miserable looking children, sauntering and begging about the streets. It struck me that Sunday Schools might help to prevent such a nuisance.” 

The Sunday School for the new Angel Street Congregational Church took place in a building on the corner with The Butts, which dates from 1887 and is a now community centre

In fact the Rev Osbourne had been pre-empted, because the earliest record of a Sunday School in Worcester was in St Nicholas church on The Cross in 1785 and there was certainly another in St Helen’s off the High Street in 1794.

But it was the Congregationalists who took things forward. Mr Osbourne added: “We commenced a Sunday School for boys on August 20, 1797 and through the encouragement then offered we established another school for girls.”

St Helen’s Church in Fish Street dates from the 15th century and is probably Worcester’s oldest church. For many years the County Records Office, it is now a community facility

Two teachers, one for the boys and one for the girls, were paid to conduct the Sunday Schools and a rota of visitors ensured the teaching was being properly undertaken. The children were taught to read, write and spell and were rewarded with clothing if their attendance and behaviour had been good during the year.

The interior of St Helen’s Church, which hosted a flourishing Sunday School in the late 1700s

Angel Street  church was going out on a limb over this, for no other Sunday School in Worcester did anything more than Bible readings and learning hymns. In fact education was generally considered rather dangerous in case it led to dissent among the labouring classes.

Some religious bodies forbade it and the established Church in Worcester was none too keen. Leading the Rev Osbourne to preach a sermon defending the wider teaching in his schools from local critics who accused him of organising “seminaries of atheism”.

The earlies reference to a Sunday School in Worcester is in St Nicholas Church in 1785. It was held in the church tower and also in a building in the Trinity

The Sunday Schools certainly prospered and generally did good work, although it was noted those who were their keenest advocates seemed oblivious to the need for some leisure for children, who in an era of child labour were working 10 hours a day, six days a week. Certainly with no time to be going to Tramps Nightclub.