Unless otherwise stated, the articles below appeared in the Brethren Historical Review (which was known as the Brethren Archivists and Historians Network Review until vol 4. no.1 (2006)). The articles are the copyright of the Brethren Archivists and Historians Network. You are free to cite the articles or make copies for educational use, but please acknowledge them in the usual way by citing the title of the journal and its volume and page number(s).
Based on a PhD thesis in French, this paper gives a succinct summary of the thesis in Engliish, providing an overview of Open Brethren in France.
The first Brethren assemblies developed in Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century. This unique primary source in English, written by one of their key leaders, traces their origin, development, and years under Communist rule.
The former archivist of the Christian Brethren Archive lists the most significant works on the Brethren to appear in the twentieth century.
A biography of the important early Open Brethren publisher, David Walther, with a comprehensive list of his publications.
The American humorist and novelist explains in this exclusive interview what he owes to his Brethren upbringing and makes some shrewd observations about the movement.
The New Zealand novelist and autobiographer Noel Virtue has portrayed the Brethren unsympathetically in his writings. David Brady considers how accurate his depictions are.
A brief biography of George Lawrence and his missionary work in Caldes, near Barcelona, including the school he maintained.
Dr Ronco was the historian of the Italian Brethren Movement, the Churches of the Brethren (formerly the Free Italian Churches). The English Brethren historian, Roy Coad, outlines her life in this obituary.
This paper, which appeared as Christian Brethren Fellowship Occasional Paper Number 2, sets the eschatological views of the early Brethren in the context of Christian history and concludes with some practical propositions on the nature of prophetic enquiry.
Robert Stanes’s story contradicts the politically correct version of evangelicals in India. He was a merchant in south India who was associated with the Brethren for a while and who greatly admired George Muller. He gave away much of his wealth in imitation of his hero.
Kelly was a seminal teacher in the early Brethren. This is the first study of his doctrine of scripture.
William Reid was a Presbyterian minister who joined the Brethren in Carlisle and became a Brethren pioneer in Sweden.
An account of the response of the members of one Scottish Exclusive assembly to war which offers an alternative account to the stereotype.
A portrait in its cultural context of a Glanton Brethren assembly in Edinburgh.
The Authorised Version (or King James Version) had a revered place in Brethren life. This article examines its changing valuation, and also its competition from Darby’s translation, the RV, RSV and the NIV.
Prof. D. W. Bebbington has written a classic account of Protestant evangelicalism in Britain. In this exclusive interview, he discusses the forces shaping contemporary evangelical historiography, and the challenges it faces.
This paper appeared in the Records of the Scottish Church History Society, and it surveys the theology and work of female evangelists in the Brethren in the 1860s and their eventual suppression in the following decade.
This paper originally appeared in vol. 35 of Studies in Church History. Although the source material is drawn from the Open Brethren in Scotland, much of the paper is applicable to Brethren views of the Lord’s supper in other contexts.
The Baptist Union of Scotland initiated a dialogue with some Open Brethren churches in Scotland with a view to having closer links. This paper, based partly on oral testimony, explores what happened to the process.
Clicking on this link will take you to an external site which gives this PhD thesis completed at the University of Stirling in 2000. The thesis later appeared in a slightly adapted form as Brethren in Scotland 1838-2000.
A group of B.W. Newton’s followers emigrated to Kyneton, Victoria, and established a religious community (known locally as the ‘Holy City’). This paper describes the foundation of the community and its eventual demise when the members set out to re-establish it in Jerusalem.
It is a commonplace of writing on Brethren missionaries that they avoided political involvement, yet when chocolate manufacturers, Cadburys, received reports that the plantations which supplied them were being worked by what amounted to slave labour, the missionary Charles Swan played an important role in investigating the allegations.
Edwin Cross was an important preacher, publisher, and writer among Kelly-Lowe Brethren. This obituary outlines his contribution to the Brethren movement.
Thomas Dowglass is a neglected figure in Brethren history. A former army officer turned evangelist, he founded a Brethren assembly in Totnes, Devon, but then under the influence of Edward’s Irving’s ideas, it became an Irvingite congregation. His career shows the interest of early Brethren in charismatic phenomena, but also throws up issues surrounding their soteriology.
A study of the tensions in the Churches of God viewed through the prism of one congregation in Belfast.
The Left Behind series of novels have been immensely popular in America. A recent discovery sheds new light on the earliest extant example of prophecy fiction. The first two chapters of this fictional treatment of the Rapture are included.
Written in 1911 by the son of one of the original members of the pioneering Brethren assembly in Plymouth, this is an important primary source which gives an account of its early personalities and disputes.
The Brethren movement traces its orgins to a group which met in a house in Dublin. But has homage since been paid at the wrong address? This paper provides the definitive answer.
Daniel Danielsen, or ‘Dollin’, was the first missionary who came from the Faeroe Islands. As a mechanic on a boat on the Congo he took Roger Casement up the river in his enquiry into the King Leopold’s atrocities. Danielsen then came back to Britain and began campaigning against the policy of ‘cut hands’.
The life of a successful businessman and his impact on the Brethren movement in the Faeroe Islands.
The Faeroe Isles contain the highest percentage per head of population of Brethren in the world. This paper examines the factors within the islands that allowed for this growth.
‘Living by faith’ was adopted by the Brethren founders, such as A.N. Groves, George Muller and J.N Darby. This paper shows how flexibly the principles could be applied, and examines late twentieth-century revisionist approaches to it.
William and Hephzibah Carter were Christian workers on the fringes of the Brethren movement in the eastern slums of Victorian London.
The story of a missionary family from Bremen in Germany and their links with the Brethren movement.
The American preacher, church planter, and writer Gene Edwards is a founder of house churches. This article traces his development and shows the indebtedness of his ecclesiology to the Brethren and to figures such as Watchman Nee.
First appeared in the Christian Brethren Review. It shows how views among the early Brethren about speaking in tongues developed, and how this affected their emergence among assemblies in New Zealand in the 1960s.
An account of how a local dispute in Auckland had worldwide implications for the Exclusive Brethren, and ultimately for the rise of James Taylor Jr. as the universal leader.
This paper on the life of the founder of the Brethren in Singapore explodes some of the myths which have surrounded him and showing how his twin role as merchant and active church member makes him unique in the history of the colony.
An account of the various ways in which the Churches of God (or ‘Needed Truth’) have changed since their separation from the Open Brethren in 1892.
R.T. Hopkins is a neglected figure among Brethren revivalists, perhaps because of his association with the Churches of God schism and ‘Hopkins Brethren’ in Australia. But this paper argues he was essentially ‘open’ in his Brethrenism.
John Montgomerie was a leader in the ‘Vernalite’ section of the Churches of God. This is an extract from his MS account of his trial and imprisonment as a conscientious objector to fighting.
Anthony Norris Groves was highly influential in the founding of the Brethren movement and was the first Brethren missionary, but where is he buried? This paper solves the mystery.
From South Wales to New Zealand and back, this paper traces the remarkable social and spiritual journey of William Herbert (1859-1937) and his involvement in the Welsh Revival of 1904, placing him and the assembly he founded in their social and historical context.
The son of Anthony Norris Groves, Edward Groves had a troubled life, both mentally and theologically. This paper, by a medical professional, examines how his mental health affected his life.
A study of how the Brethren mission at Kalene Hill in Zambia has affected not only the religious, but also the social, economic and political aspects of daily life of the local population.
The 1920s were a time of change for the Open Brethren. Many had made separation from the wider Christian world of central importance, yet by the end of the decade, others were increasingly willing to enter the evangelical mainstream.
The Brethren in Hereford were among the earliest in England. This congregational history traces their story from 1837 until the beginning of the 21st century.
Two of the leading historians of the movement pay tribute to the life and writings of the Brethren historian Roy Coad who died in 2011.
This paper shows how open the Exclusive Brethren remained in admission to the Lord’s supper while J.N. Darby was alive and how they reflected the cultural milieu of Romanticism. But, it argues, exclusivist trends grew, particularly under James Taylor Snr.
The Victorian art critic and public intellectual might seem an unlikely bedfellow for the Brethren, but as this paper shows, there were some very real affinities with Brethren individuals at key points in his life.
This paper which appeared in the Christian Brethren Review, shows how determinative for his later career was Darby’s extended stay in Switzerland in the 1830s.
Is Calvinism biblical? This is currently disputed by many Christians, but this paper demonstrates conclusively what the early Brethren thought.
A profile of an early Brethren baronet and his eventual disilusion with Exclusivism.
Thanks partly to Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son, the Brethren have for long been seen as the antithesis of Arnold’s ‘sweetness and light’. But scholars are now beginning to question the myth constructed by Gosse.
A recent discovery is a MS account of Darby’s visit in 1830 to witness speaking in tongues in Scotland and his assessment of the phenomenon.
A biographical profile of an Anglican vicar who after his secession became one of the early Brethren. His second wife was the hymnwriter, Mary Bowly.
This paper, which was published in the Christian Brethren Review, examines the life of one of the early Brethren missionaries.
This paper provides an introduction to an account of an early Brethren conference at Clifton in 1838. The account by T. G. Bell, too, is reproduced.
A biographical sketch of an early English member of the Bourg-de-Four assembly in Geneva.
J.J. Penstone was an artist, principally known for his etchings, and a member of the early Brethren. This paper examines his work in the context of his life and times, and also discusses his son, Edward Penstone, who was responsible for the portrait of J.N. Darby in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Darby had a wonderfully enquiring mind and kept abreast of a huge amount of contemporary learning and writing, as this paper demonstrates.
This is an assessment of Massimo Introvigne’s book The Plymouth Brethren (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Harris wrote an early account of the assembly in Plymouth, and in this paper, Dr Stunt teases out Harris’s family connections with this seminal Brethren congregation.
An account of the career of Christopher Passmore (1784-1833) and his family which sheds light on the life of George Wigram and other early Brethren.
The subject of this paper was a former naval officer who was the minister of an independent congregation in Sunderland, but he had associations with the Brethren as well as the scandalous Henry James Prince.
Dave MacPherson, author of The Rapture Plot, has been a persistent critic of J.N. Darby’s originality, yet his book raises serious questions about the nature of historical enquiry.
The Brethren movement has an immense debt to the publisher Jeremy Mudditt. Dr Neil Summerton recalls a productive life in this obituary.
This history of a significant north London Brethren church is by a long-term member who examines its evolution over 100 years.
A biography of an early-twentieth century Open Brethren evangelist.
This is a booklet of the most highly decorated noncombatant in the First World War, who was awarded the Victoria Cross, the Military medal and bar, the Distinguished Conduct Medal and bar, and the Croix de Guerre. He was also a lifelong member of a Brethren assembly. It is reproduced here by permission.
Perhaps the most prolific writer among UK Brethren in the late twentieth century, various contributors pay tribute to Mary Batchelor in this obituary.
A German Christian perspective on the First World War and the choice between pacifism and combat.
Some 200 years after his birth, this paper, by a biographer of J.N. Darby, commends the wisdom of Darby’s attitudes and his ideas on Christian unity and ministry.
In 1992 Max Weremchuk wrote a biography of J. N. Darby. Since then he has uncovered new material on Darby’s family background and early years. This illustrated pdf is the revised chapter 1.
An examination from primary sources of the response among the Brethren to conscription in the Australian island of Tasmania.
Submission to the powers that be and separation from the world was a particularly Brethren dichotomy. The considerable range of opinion in reconciling these opposed principles is examined in this paper with special reference to pacifism.
Given their tradition of pacifism, World War I faced the Brethren with a dilemma, but it shocked them out of their insularity, showing them they could not ignore the changing world around them.