ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to the third of their priorities—the penumbra. An idea of its scale, wide distribution and matrix in a society where there was a general stress upon participation in ambitious and continuous voluntary associations. A deputation of members went from Wycliffe Baptist Chapel to Burnley early in 1907 to report on a potential pastor. Commitment to the centre of church/chapel life was intended as more than an incidental by-product. It was the ultimate rationale for the whole array. Endless age-specific groups were adopted, tailor-made for the difficult cohorts of post-Sunday School youth. The grouping of business and political elites in embryo around chapels and this type of agency, and their subsequent separation and change in loyalties and style of life was an important part of the whole change in context for religious organisations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Alphabetical members at the start were ‘chiefly the rising young men of the congregation’.
