Southampton, Shirley Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Church Street, 1843

Attached to the announcement of the opening of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Shirley, Southampton is a typewritten note “THE ABOVE INTERESTING DOCUMENT after having long been preserved by my sister (Laura) is now presented to the stewards of dear old SHIRLEY CHAPEL by WALTON ADAMS the youngest son of the late John Hughes Adams who died at Southampton 1846, and is interred in the cemetery of that town. Date of presentation August 1911.”

The event is also recorded in the memoirs Richard Wake jnr, then aged 12: “Good Friday -1843 – New Wesleyan Chapel opened in Shirley – by Rev Robt Newton DD who preached in the morning on the subject of the Transfiguration, and in the afternoon on a theme which at this writing (Nov. 1897) I have forgotten. Rev T Adkins of Above Bar [Congregational] Chapel preached at night.”