Rev. James Mountain was at the Congregational Church in Quoiting Square Great Marlow between 1868 and 1870.
He was born at Wortley near Leeds in 1844 to cordwainer Joseph Mountain and his Irish wife Mary - Ann. His mother died when he was 16 and his father remarried three months later (to Eliza Reynolds.)
James attended Cheshunt Theological College before spending some time in Germany studying further. Finally he was ready to be ordained and Marlow had itself a new minister.
Shortly after he arrived at Marlow James married. The ceremony took place in a Congregational Church in Clapham. The bride was a widow Joan Hay "late of Singapore", and née Nicholson. She was originally from Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. James would make many trips to Scotland to preach or speak in the years to come.
In 1870 James chaired a meeting in Marlow on the subject of "the suppression of liquor traffic" by which was meant the reduction of alcohol licences that could be granted. A Mr John Hilton came from London armed with a great many statistics illustrating the problems drinking caused which he presented in a "most exhaustive" speech. A motion was passed to call on the government to suppress the sale of alcohol. In his closing speech Rev. Mountain said such a law would mean the ending of pauperism and allow all men to pay for their children's education (as they wouldn't be needing to pay any poor rate taxes or be spending much on their own alcohol). If he thought that the idea of alcohol suppression would take off generally in Marlow he was perhaps just a bit naive. This is a town with over 100 recorded historic pubs or beer houses (and that's just within the research of my sister and I and we are bound to have missed some) and a brewery as one of the main employers. In 1870 there were two pubs in Quoiting Square, another in Oxford Road which runs along one side of the square plus another seven in West Street which runs along another side*.
To read about the violence and trouble the Salvation Army had in Marlow later in the 1800s while promoting abstinence see Kathryn's post here.
James obviously felt strongly about taxation issues. He was taken to court in 1870 for refusing to pay the church rate levied by Act of Parliament in Marlow to repay the enormous loan taken out for rebuilding the parish church. This was of course the C of E church which James would never use. The unfairness of the fact that all denominations were forced to pay for the C of E church was frequently commented on at the time, including by C of E members. Actually a lot of C of E Marlovians didn't want to pay for their church either.
Speaking to the court James said he objected to paying on a general principle as he disagreed with the idea of a state church and also in his particular case he would like to point out that neither he nor his family had lived in Marlow when the money was borrowed. The judge said his court could not rule on the propriety of the rate and ordered him to pay up. He did offer some comfort though by telling James that the church loan was nearly paid off. This was after close to 40 years!
Immediately after he left Marlow I am unsure where James went but from the summer of 1873 to that of 1874 he was at the "Free Church of England" place of worship in New Barnet, Herts. On the 1881 census he and Joan were living in Islington. In the early 1890s he was a preacher at the Duchess of Huntingdon's Connexion church (I think the one at East Grinstead) but found that he could not agree to that church's practice of infant baptism. As he was due to become the main resident minister there, this was a problem. He tried a court case to see if he could win the legal right to take up his position without being made to compromise his conscience but he lost. So he just set up his own church, St John's Free Church Tunbridge Wells. He was by then identifying as a Baptist.
As well as being a minister James was the composer of over 250 hymn tunes and published at least two hymn collections including Hymns of Consecration and Faith (1876 compiled with Robert Pearsall Smith. Expanded edition under Mountain's name only 1890) which was still in print in the 21st century. Dates given for his hymns tend to be for when they appeared in published collections. It isn't therefore easy to tell when they were actually composed. I can't tell if James composed any hymns while at Marlow. If I discover any I will come back and update this post with their titles.
James died at Tunbridge Wells in 1933. Members of various denominations attended his funeral. He was survived by his second wife Frances.
*Those pubs and beer houses were: in Quoiting Square The Queen and Clayton Arms, in Oxford Road The Crown and Anchor, in West Street The Sadlers (qv) Arms, The White Lion, The Red Lion, The Three Tuns, The Ship Inn, The Coach and Horses, The Bonnet O' Blue.
Researched and written by Charlotte Day.
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Sources:
History of the the Congregational Churches in the Berkshire, South Oxfordshire and South Buckinghamshire Association. Digitized by Google and made available at Archive.org.
London Evening Standard May 1868. Leeds Intelligencer 14th April 1860. Reading Mercury 16th April 1870. Windsor and Eton Express 26th March 1870. Newspaper copies in the British Library Archives and accessed via their partnership with the BNA.
Hymnary Website lists some hymns composed by James https://hymnary.org/person/Mountain_James?tab=tunes
1881 census, Islington from Jane Pullinger's transcriptions from microfilm. Census content belongs to the Crown.
GRO birth and death registration indexes from GRO website.
©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this content for family or local history purposes if you credit this blog.
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