ABSTRACT
In urban areas, the Free Churches persistently built chapels faster than the rate of urban population growth, and faster than they could fill them. The Church of England's mission halls, and the newer chapels and mission halls of the Free Churches, were characteristically built for the urban poor. Anglicans and Congregationalists had typically been declining for a good half century, and older Free Churches as a whole had been declining since the 1880s. The empty church characterized most denominations in Britain throughout the twentieth century and continues now into the twenty-first century. The Church of England, entrenched in the parish system, could fall back on their patronage of the poor. While Catholic attendances persisted in this 'suburban area', Anglican and Free Church attendances had continued to decline sharply from 1903: Anglicans from 9.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent and the Free Churches from 10.8 per cent to 4.9 per cent.
