Description
The commemoration at Newcastle-under-Lyme for the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage took the form of an address by the Rev. A. Wilkes, of Tunstall, President of the North Staffordshire and District Free Church Federation. The chairman for the event was Rev. E.L. Rowlands, whose opening remarks struck a mildly defensive tone, the local Free Church Council having apparently been criticised for a lack of energy in regards to its tercentenary preparations, which Rowland naturally denied. Following this, Rev. Wilkes gave an address that summarised the political and religious history of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and introduced the primary events of the Mayflower story. Freedom was the theme of the talk and Wilkes emphasised the Pilgrims’ desire for a “free Church” and a “free State” with a very limited relationship between the two. Wilkes also gave the address at nearby Goldenhill the following month, but he refrained from references to the disestablishment of religion: the Goldenhill event was multidenominational.
Source
Stafford Sentinel, “Newcastle Free Church Council”, 18 October 1920.
Stafford Sentinel, “The Mayflower Tercentenary, Celebration at Goldenhill”, 3 November 1920.