Memorial Hall Trust and Congregational Library

We have been asked by the trustees of the Congregational Memorial Hall Trust and Library to publicise their new website which can be accessed at www.conglib.ac.uk.

The Congregational Memorial Hall Trust was founded in 1872 to create a memorial to those Christian ministers who were forced out of their positions in the Church of England following the Act of Uniformity in 1662. The fund established by the Trust was used to create the Congregational Library and encourage and assist Biblical studies. Since 1872 the Library has occupied a number of sites in London and is now lodged with Dr Williams’s Library in Gordon Square, London, who manage the Congregational Library collections on behalf of the Trust.

The United Reformed Church, the Congregational Federation and the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches, all of which grew out of Congregationalism, each have an interest in the Trust and have a right to appoint its trustees. Among the collections held by the Congregational Library are the archives of the Congregational Union/Congregational Church, 1831-1972, and some of its successors, 1972 onwards: namely the United Reformed Church, and the Unaffiliated Congregational Churches Charities. The Congregational Library holds over 50,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals concerned with Congregationalism, Puritanism and Dissent in general.