Unitarian New Meeting

Our congregation was founded in 1692 when, following the passing of the 1689 Act of Toleration, a chapel known as the Lower Meeting House was opened for public worship in central Birmingham. In 1832 this chapel was replaced by a new building in Moor Street called Unitarian New Meeting. In 1862 we built a new larger church in Broad Street, known as the Church of the Messiah. Finally, in September 1973, following inner city redevelopment, we moved to the present church, a modern functional building better suited to present day needs, and reverted to our traditional name of Unitarian New Meeting.

The church has been served by a number of distinguished ministers including Joseph Priestley (1780-1791), theologian, political activist and scientist - he discovered oxygen; Henry William Crosskey (1869-1893), prominent in the struggle to establish non-sectarianism in education; and Lawrence Pearsall Jacks (1894-1903), who enjoyed a national reputation for his writings and public comments.