Bloomsbury Chapel, seating 1700, opened in December 1848 and a church of 52 members was constituted in July 1849. It was the first non-conformist chapel to stand prominently on a London street instead of being tucked away in some back alley. Good dissenters were wary of turning chapels into churches but as larger premises were required, buildings became more church like, more Gothic. Indeed, when Bloomsbury Chapel was being planned the authorities stipulated an ecclesiastical character for the building. Peto had seen that the site was a good one, not only handy for the Petos themselves in Russell Square but also on a new road between the comfortable squares of Bloomsbury to the north and the appalling slums of St Giles to the south, where a mission work was begun from the start, under George Wilson M'Cree (1822-1892). Peto also subsidised an elementary school in the basement. Apparently, the freeholders wanted the church to be built with shops beneath but Peto resisted that idea.
Tradition has it that when he sought to lease the land (freehold was not an option) he was told that non-conformist chapels were dull and a church should have a spire - “a spire?” exclaimed Peto, “my lord, we shall have two!”. Twin spires graced the towers of the chapel until 1951 when they were removed for safety reasons. Peto defended them against critics saying that they were necessary as staircases for ventilation. John Gibson (1789-1900) was the architect. Spurgeon, of course, preferred Greek to Gothic style. He observed that Peto was a man who built a chapel in the hope that it would be the seedling for another.
Peto was also instrumental in getting William Brock to become the first minister of Bloomsbury. They saw eye-to-eye on many important religious and social issues. While still in Norwich, Brock had use of a railway mission account with the Norwich Bank to be drawn on at his own discretion and funded by Peto. We say more about Brock in another chapter but he was the original preacher with a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other.
In 1855 the congregation at Bloomsbury paid off a much reduced portion of their debt of £10,000 to Peto and he used it to convert the disused Diorama behind Nash Terrace into another Baptist Chapel. He provided £5,000 for the project. Spurgeon preached there on many occasions. The street where what became Regent's Park Chapel once stood is called Peto Place (he is also honoured in Peto Street, near the East India Dock). The first minister was William Landels (1823-1899).
Peto also built a chapel in Notting Hill in 1863, beginning with materials that had been used for the Great Exhibition. Spurgeon's brother James Archer Spurgeon (1837-1899) was the first minister.
Peto was the generous benefactor and sponsor of more than 300 mission halls in East Anglia and elsewhere to serve the navvies. He also paid for missionaries to work among them. He supported Baptist Union schemes to provide for aged and infirm ministers. His missionary enthusiasm led him to defray the expenses of five deputations to India, West Africa and Jamaica, where he paid a debt of £9,000 and a Mountain was named after him. He also paid for a replacement schooner for Alfred Saker (1814-1880) to carry on work in the Cameroons and encouraged Baptist work in Italy.
Member of Parliament
Peto served as a Member of Parliament for two periods between 1847 and 1868. He was out of Parliament 1854-1859 as he was under government contract to build a railway in the Crimea for the army. It was for this work that he received his baronetcy in 1855. He was Liberal MP for Norwich 1847-1854, Finsbury 1859-1865 and Bristol 1865-1868. During this time he was a prominent figure in public life. He was constantly moving house. In 1843 he bought Somerleyton Hall near Lowestoft and extensively rebuilt it. He also restored the parish church and built an Independent chapel there. He had been a member of the old Devonshire Square Baptist Church under John Howard Hinton (1791-1873) but from 1848 was a member at Bloomsbury. When he moved to Pinner he joined Beechen Grove Baptist church, Watford, and retained membership there after moving to Blackhurst, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where he attended the Congregational Church.
Among his other claims to fame is his making a guarantee towards the financing of The Great Exhibition of 1851, backing Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) the designer of the Crystal Palace. Chown says also that “Reedham orphanage, Haverstock Hill Working School, Essex Hall and Earlswood Asylum, all bear witness to his wide and generous philanthropy” and quotes a journalist saying of Peto and the social reformer Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885), “Night after night you see one of these two men filling the chair at Exeter Hall. How I envy the Baptists Sir Morton Peto, whose twinkling and fine presence bespeak a broad humanity”.
In 1861 he introduced a Bill regarding the Burial of Dissenters in Churchyards. “I believe,” he said,
that were the measure I ask leave to introduce to become the law of the land, one of the causes of offence now existing would be removed; and if the Church of England is to prosper, I am sure it can only be by the exercise of a large-minded, large-hearted charity; by the adaptation of itself to the spirit of the times, and by its seeking the good of the community at large, not by an exclusive action, but by an earnest co-operation in works of faith and labours of love with all those denominations of Christians who, while differing in forms of worship and ecclesiastical polity, are yet united in the belief that the Bible is the only rule of faith, and the revealed will of God, the only guide to fallible man.
He reminded the House that by the rubric, three classes were excluded from Christian burial - the suicide, the ex-communicated and the unbaptised. He told the House that in his denomination those only were baptised who by credible evidence showed sincere repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and asked if members of his denomination should be included in the same category with the suicide and the excommunicated. He concluded his speech
The abolition of the Test Act and other measures have done much to create a better feeling, and I beseech the House not to hesitate in its onward course. What is the first book you place in the hands of your children which most interests them? Is it not the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan? And yet the spirit which dictated this rubric imprisoned John Bunyan himself for 12 years in Bedford Gaol; and Nonconformists have their martyrology, as extensive in its chronicles as any that Foxe ever wrote. But I rejoice that in the present day a better feeling exists. You do not value Milton's immortal works the less because they were written by a Baptist, and I beseech you to join with me in an effort to prevent our differences being exhibited at the grave, where at least we may hope the differences of life would be forgotten, and the mourners be permitted to resign to their last resting-place the precious remains of their friends in that way which would be most in consonance with their own feelings and those of the dead.
One writer says that on most social questions, as the first Baptist MP since 1784 he was progressive without being censorious or rigid. He supported the abolition of flogging in the armed services as dehumanising and advocated reforms of the criminal law where it put the rights of property above those of personal injury and natural rights. "Peto's Act" of 1850 simplified the administration of chapel trusts.
The article appeared in Reformation Today
