246 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
The general opinion of the mid-nineteenth century public
concerning the Peculiars is shown by the following extract
from Ritchie's Religious Life of London(9): "They have
great faith, these poor people; they have great scorn also
for people more benighted than themselves . . . Religion
has no difficulties for them, no mysteries; nothing beyond
the reach of Man . . . To come together and express their
unspeakable joy is all they have to do. In turn, they all
preach and pray with a zeal which is literally not according
to knowledge. They . . . express their feelings in a way
which, to a stranger, may be thought unnecessarily noisy.
They profess to have no ' leaders ' : they have elders who
are simply elders, become such by lapse of time alone . .
In spite of much public disapproval and discouragement,
by the turn of the century the continued labours of the
Peculiar People led to the establishment of many chapels
throughout the County of Essex, and to a small extent in
London and Kent. The extreme north and north-west
of Essex seems to have been least influenced, and there is
no record of a Peculiar People's Chapel north of Colchester.
It should be noted that although their meeting-places are
called "chapels", the present-day officials of the Peculiar
People call each meeting-house and its congregation a
"Church"; in former days this was often referred to as
a Cause .
The principal "Sturdy Causes", as they were called,(1)
were established where some still remain, at Rochford and
its neighbouring villages, Tillingham and Steeple, at
Witham and Baddow, Daws Heath, Ramsden Heath and
Wickford, together with a succession of chapels in London
and one each at Woolwich and Upchurch in Kent. Those
in London were superseded by one at Bath Street, Kenning-
ton (now re-named Conquest Street, S.E.I). In 1951. this
building at No. 5, Conquest Street, was a small factory,
having previously been a Boys' Club, but the caretaker
remembered the "Mission" there 30 years earlier, and the
original purpose of the building is still apparent in the shape
and arrangement of the windows. Another chapel has now
been built nearby in Warham Street, Camberwell, to con-
tinue the "London Cause" there. The Peculiar People's
cause at Upchurch appeared in 1951 to have vanished