The velvet cap

Late on in his biography Fawcett's son says

Were the writer of these Memoirs to endeavour to trace the remainder of his pilgrimage on earth it would prove that when life is extended beyond its usual span the strength of man is but labour and sorrow. It would exemplify the truth of that description which the wise man gives of the infirmities of old age when the keepers of the house tremble the strong men bow themselves and the grasshopper itself is a burden. A coldness and almost incessant pain in his head obliged him to wear a velvet cap, the weakness in his knees was for a long time so great that he was unable to rise from his seat without help or to walk except for a very short distance without support. He had also repeated attacks of the paralytic kind and was subject to violent bleedings at the nose, these might have a salutary effect as the means of preventing apoplexy to which the stupor and heaviness preceding them indicated a strong tendency but their frequent return occasioned great debility and rendered him incapable for the time of attending to his public labours.

Birth Place John Foster

This is the birth place of John Foster the Baptist Minister and essayist, a former pupil of Fawcett. The house is on Wadsworth Lane outsde Hebden Briidge.

 

Machpelah

 

Fawcett ran a school at Bearley Hall and Ewood Hall, where he also lived, but in 1805 he moved to Machpelah to be nearer Ebenezer Chapel and leaving running the school to his son. It is a handsome building with a built-up arch on the right reminiscent of a small coach house. Before the houses in the row could be built, large sections of the hillside had to be cut away. They all have back yards and steps climbing up the hill, as well as their own water supply from the hillside. Fawcett named the house after the cave mentioned in Genesis 23, which Abraham bought as a burial ground. Fawcett had a vault built at the rear as a private burial place for his wife, who died in 1810. Her body was later removed and reburied at Wainsgate.

Hope Chapel, Hebden Bridge

 

After Fawcett, the need to replace Ebenezer Chapel with a larger building led the congregation to move a few hundred yards to the West and to build Hope Chapel, which was opened in 1858. A separate Sunday School building was opened in 1873 across the road on Cheatham Street. In 1879, further seats were added to accommodate the growing congregation. It was sold in 1961 to the West Riding County Council for a library. Inside the chapel is a memorial to John Fawcett and the church has numerous reminders of this heritage, including a members’ roll book, in which the first entry is Fawcett himself. The church apparently continues today. The chapel is used as a communit centre.

Ebenezer Chapel, Hebden Bridge

 

Ebenezer Chapel, Market Street, Hebden Bridge was built in 1777 as Ebenezer Chapel for Fawcett when he moved from Wainsgate Chapel. It was on the main turnpike road from Yorkshire to Lancashire. The space in front used to be the graveyard. This has shrunk with each widening of the road, but all the gravestones are still under the grass. Fawcett’s daughter’s grave is on the right, near the door. Near this, upright against the wall, is that of John Foster the essayist, who had been a pupil at Fawcett’s school. Wording on the stones reflects the Calvinist beliefs of the Particular Baptists. One gravestone is of a Henry Riley murdered in 1818 ‘because he became poor’. The building served as a chapel until 1858 and has subsequently been the home of the Hebden Bridge Times, an arts centre and antiques shop.

Wainsgate Chapel, Midgley

 

A particular Baptist church was founded in Midgley in 1750 by converts of the evangelical Anglican William Grimshaw in Haworth. The first minister, Richard Smith, came from Barnoldswick. On his death, he was succeeded in 1764 by the young John Fawcett, who had been baptised by William Crabtree, minister of Westgate Baptist Church, Bradford and who had himself become a member at Wainsgate. The need for larger premises and better facilities for his school led to his move into Hebden Bridge in 1777. The present building dates from 1859 and was lavishly furnished at the end of the 19th century. The church closed in 2001 and the premises are in the care of the Historic Chapels Trust. Fawcett is buried in the graveyard.

Diary Extract 17 May 1 1760

May 1, 1760 I have been but little this day in prayer and meditation.

I have found pride and ambition working in my heart.

I have reason to fear that I have sought my own praise more than the glory of God in writing the foregoing verses.

I have been very cold in my evening devotions