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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
The "Peculiar People"- An Essex Sect
BY LAURENCE S. HARLEY
[Read 27 November, 1954]
It is natural for dissenting religious movements to adhere
most strongly to their place of origin, but also it is usual
to find some members and churches widely dispersed in the
course of time. The Peculiar People, who originated over
a century ago at Rochford in Essex, are an exception, in
that although they have endured, and at times flourished, in
the County of Essex, there has been practically no extension
into the adjoining counties or other parts of England.
It seems possible that the very simple, uncompromising
tenets of the Peculiar People's faith are particularly suited
to the character of the East Saxons, and do not appeal in
like manner to the Angles of Suffolk or to the Jutes of Kent.
That these racial differences of character do still obtain is
clear to any observer who crosses the River Stour and com-
pares villages but a few miles apart on either side the
County boundary, or who sails the 10 miles from Sheppey
in Kent to Paglesham in Essex, to make a like comparison.
Be that as it may, many rough men and women of the
Essex villages have had their hard lives softened and made
more kindly, and many a bad character has been redeemed
and purified, by the power of unquestioning faith in the
simple, literal doctrines of the "Peculiars".
The Movement owed its inspiration to a Church of
England minister in the Isle of Man, one Robert Aitken
(or Atkin, as sometimes given).(1) In 1834, finding the
complex dogmas of his Church unsatisfying, he seceded and
preached in private houses his simple doctrine of the
possibility of realising holiness in this life and of the
assurance of ultimate salvation for those who believed and
strove to this end. He later hired a room in White's Row,
Holborn, so that he might preach in London. Among his
Figures in the text (1) refer to the list of references at the end.