Liverpool Sunday School Society

Chronicle and Annual Visitors reports, newscuttings, rules, correspondence, records relating to Hope Street Church

Deposited in February 1997 by Margaret Procter, Special Collections and Archives, Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool, L69 3DA.

Acc. 5225

These items were found during the transfer of archives from the Education Library to the Special Collections and Archives. Their original provenance is unknown.

The Liverpool District Sunday School Teachers Association was founded in 1870 "on the demise of a previous association of teachers connected with our group of churches in Liverpool" (see Liverpool Sunday School Society Report 1888 - 89, printed in the Helper, March 1889, mounted on p. 117 of 288 SUN 1/1 below). According to the Rules (pasted to the inside front cover of 288 SUN 1/1) the Association was to "consist of working Sunday School Teachers and Officers in connection with Unitarian and other Congregations of Liverpool and the neighbourhood". Its object was "social communion among the Members and the discussion of topics relating to Sunday School Management and Teaching". In 1885 the Association was "reconstituted" as the Liverpool Sunday School Society (the label on the outside front cover of 288 SUN 1/1 reads "The Liverpool Sunday School Teachers Association founded A.D. 1870 - Reconstituted the Liverpool Sunday School Society A.D. 1885"). A copy of the new Society's Rules are pasted onto the inside front cover of 288 SUN 1/1.

The Society's chronicle and annual visitors report book (288 SUN 1/1) was compiled by George Eyre Evans, Superintendent of the Mount Pleasant Sunday Schools and given by him to the Liverpool Sunday School Society in November 1888 (see note of dedication preceding first annual report on p. 1). An undated newscutting pasted on to the inside front cover of the volume states that "The Council of the Liverpool Sunday School Society has just received a valuable record at the hands of one of its oldest members, by whom the work has been compiled .......". Entries in the volume were continued after its transfer in 1888.