The Patterns of Missionary Work and Emigration in Early Victorian Buckinghamshire, England, 1849–1878

Latter-day Saint missionaries from America began proselyting in Buckinghamshire, England, in the 1840s and established the first branches of the Church there in 1849, but they did not experience the same dramatic successes their colleagues encountered in other regions of the British Isles. Indeed, most of the baptisms in this more rural county came as a result of missionary work by local converts. Several factors help explain the Buckinghamshire experience, and in many ways missionary work in this region may actually be more representative of Church growth in other parts of the world than the phenomenal conversion rates experienced in certain more industrial areas of England in the middle to latter years of the nineteenth century.

As is true of most historiography on the Church, historical analyses of Mormonism in the British Isles tend to focus on prominent individuals or principal institutions.¹ J. F. C. Harrison observed that historians have typically emphasized the decisions and accomplishments of those in positions of authority or prominence. He suggests this might occur because of the difficulties associated with gathering pertinent information about “common people.”² Despite this difficulty, Harrison says, documents relative to the “common people” are the historian’s witnesses, and “our task is to force them to speak, even against their will,” because “the real, central theme of History is not what happened, but what people felt about it when it was happening.”³

Regarding the tendency of historians to focus on larger or more prominent institutions, Andrew Phillips has noted that a closer analysis of LDS congregations from a regional perspective would bring a richness and color that might otherwise be missed. He asserted, “The diversity of local circumstances makes it possible to distinguish trends and conditions that do not necessarily correspond to national patterns.”⁴

This analysis will address both of these concerns, utilizing the stories of heretofore unheralded missionaries and members who lived and worked in this diverse region. After considering Buckinghamshire in its Victorian context, this paper will examine the genesis of the Church in this area, exploring patterns of missionary work and emigration in this region and how they correspond to or diverge from national trends.

Early Victorian Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is one of the English “home counties,” located immediately northwest of and adjacent to London (fig. 1). Despite its proximity to London and Bedfordshire, Mormon missionary work, subsequent conversions, and emigration patterns in Buckinghamshire are unique in many respects. For example, an exhaustive examination of extant historical data pertaining to those who labored as missionaries in this county during this time period shows no evidence that any Apostle, General Authority, or other prominent Church leader worked in, visited, or even walked through its confines. Likewise, there is no evidence that any convert from this county ever rose to the level of known prominence in the hierarchy of Church leadership.⁵

The socioeconomic makeup of this county was also unlike other regions that have been the predominant focus of studies of the Church in early Victorian England. Scholars have asserted that the vast majority of Mormon converts came from the working class living in industrialized urban centers.⁶ In contrast, Buckinghamshire experienced few of the direct effects of the Industrial Revolution that transformed many other parts of Britain in the nineteenth century.⁷ Consequently, it had no major industrial center to attract large numbers of people from elsewhere—a pattern typical of areas where missionary work, convert baptisms, and emigration have been more closely examined. Moreover, Professor John Clarke argues that it would be incorrect to describe rural Buckinghamshire farm laborers of this time period as working class. “Class is about more than income,” he notes. “It also involves values and perceptions, and . . . farm workers and factory workers had a rather different take on most things.” It would be more correct to describe the residents of Buckinghamshire during this period as “landless laborers” or “the rural poor” rather than “working class.”⁸

In addition, the success of Mormonism in England during this time period (1849–1878) was subject to certain geocultural limitations. For example, while missionaries laboring in the West Midlands and North West reported success, those working in the vicinity of London described a vastly different experience. These early missionaries referred to that locale as the “seat of Satan,” “the great babylon,” and “the hardest place I ever visited for establishing the gospel.”⁹ Empirical studies approaching this phenomenon from different disciplines have proffered diverse but complementary explanations for why this may have been so.¹⁰ In terms of the actual geography, John Gay suggested there was a line of demarcation that divided the country into north-northwest and south-southeast regions. He claims the line represented “a clear divide” in terms of the success or failure of post-Reformation Catholicism, the front-runner of nonconformity. Figure 2 shows the line of demarcation: the counties that were immediately north of this “line” were Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire. The counties that were immediately south of it were Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk.¹¹

Interestingly, Stephen Fleming suggests a similar, although not identical, demarcation (fig. 3):

The line from the Wash to Bristol (called the Wash-Severn line) that divides Great Britain between its Northwest and Southeast was the dividing line between the Mormons’ most and least receptive proselytizing areas in the Anglo world. The apostles added six thousand converts during their year in Britain, and at their departure 98 percent of British Mormons were in the Northwest. In 1844, 93 percent of British Mormons resided in the North and West. . . . By 1851 the numbers were less stark, down to 77 percent; however, over seven thousand British Mormons had left for America by 1850, and the numbers suggest that these individuals were overwhelmingly Northwesterners. Thus the percentage of total Northwestern British Mormons in 1851, the year Mormonism reached its peak in Britain, was likely higher than the percentage still remaining in Britain. While the Wash-Severn line presents no absolute dividing line between areas of Mormon success and subregional variance certainly occurred, the line does indicate a larger trend in early Mormon British conversions.¹²

Regardless of where the division may have occurred, these studies provide empirical explanations for the contrasting success and failure Mormonism experienced in these two different geographical regions during the early Victorian period.¹³ Either dividing line placed Buckinghamshire in the southeastern region.

Whether due to the lack of prominent missionaries and members who served or lived in Buckinghamshire, the county’s nonindustrial and rural nature, or its geographic location, the study of Mormon missionary work and conversions in and emigration from Buckinghamshire during this time period proffers a unique perspective to early Victorian LDS Church history. With this context, this paper will address the following relevant topics:

1. Extant records of branches in Buckinghamshire and evidence that other branches may have existed.

2. Buckinghamshire natives who joined the Church, how they came in contact with the Church, and what role they played in Church growth in Buckinghamshire.

3. The religious climate in Buckinghamshire and how it affected missionary work and convert baptisms.

4. A comparison of conversion rates in this county and other regions.

5. A comparison of emigration rates in this county and other regions and factors that may have affected these rates.

The Genesis of the Church in Buckinghamshire:
Nineteenth-Century Branches of Record

At the general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held on April 6, 1844, it was reported that a branch of eight members was located at Wolverton, Buckinghamshire (see fig. 3).¹⁴ The first three known families with ties to Buckinghamshire who joined the Church were originally from Sherington, which is only six miles from Wolverton.¹⁵ The membership of the branch at Wolverton could not have been composed of the Sherington group, however, because those early converts either emigrated before or joined the Church after 1844.¹⁶ Apart from this reference to Wolverton in general conference of April 1844, no other evidence of the existence of this branch has yet come to light. Consequently, we do not know who any of the members of this branch might have been. What we do know is that rapid social and economic change caused a good deal of internal migration in Britain. In 1833, Parliament approved plans to build a railway line from London to Birmingham. Wolverton was the midpoint on this line, so a station was built to facilitate changing engines. By 1845, the railway had built some two hundred houses for its workers, along with schools, a church, and a market. In 1846, Wolverton became the site of the locomotive works of the London & Northwestern Railway. The works grew rapidly and eventually employed over two thousand men.¹⁷ A thorough investigation of the activities of LDS missionaries reveals no evidence that any missionaries labored in the area around Wolverton and Sherington at this time. Of course, much missionary work was taking place in London and the northwestern “home counties.” A possible—though still speculative—explanation of the Wolverton Branch is that it consisted of a single family who joined the Church earlier, perhaps in London or Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and then relocated to Wolverton. They could have come from even further afield, since some of the more highly skilled workers at Wolverton came from the north of England.

Five years later, on April 1, 1849, the first branch of the Church in Buckinghamshire for which there are extant branch records was established in Edlesborough.¹⁸ Missionaries had been laboring in the neighboring county of Bedfordshire since 1837, and Edlesborough lies very close to the Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire border.¹⁹ One unanswered question—which will require further exploration—is why it took twelve years for Mormonism to take root in Buckinghamshire when it grew so rapidly in the neighboring county of Bedfordshire. This question becomes particularly intriguing in light of the fact that a robust branch of the Church existed in Luton, Bedfordshire, only seven miles from Edlesborough.²⁰ Luton was the chief center of commerce for straw-plaiting, the major cottage industry in both eastern Buckinghamshire and western Bedfordshire,²¹ so there would have been regular interaction between some residents on both sides of the county border.

The Edlesborough Branch was actually the reorganization of a branch at Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, which was established on February 27, 1848.²² It became the Edlesborough Branch on April 1, 1849, after its relocation.²³

On April 4, 1846, Elder Elisha Hildebrand Davis, an American missionary and the president of the London Conference, baptized Benjamin Johnson, a native of Northall, Buckinghamshire, in the small community of Whipsnade, Bedfordshire.²⁴ Whipsnade was less than eight miles north of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where Davis had worked during the previous six months.²⁵ Benjamin’s wife, Charlotte, also a Buckinghamshire native, was baptized three weeks later, on April 27, 1846, by Elder Thomas Squires, a local convert.²⁶ Squires had been serving in the Hemel Hempstead Branch presidency.²⁷

The Johnsons were somewhat atypical converts because of their unusually high social status. Both were more educated and culturally refined than the typical rural or working-class converts who joined the Church in nineteenth-century England. Benjamin purportedly graduated from Oxford, and Charlotte from a girls’ finishing school. Benjamin loved music and often earned money playing the bass violin. He also played other stringed instruments, as well as the flute and the clarinet.²⁸ Charlotte was known for her passion for reading the classics and memorizing and reciting poetry.²⁹ Benjamin and Charlotte became the founding members of the Eaton Bray (Bedfordshire) Branch, and, with the exception of the traveling Elders, they remained the only members of the Church in the area for over five months.³⁰ On December 1, 1846, Elder Squires ordained Benjamin an elder; Benjamin later served as the president of the Eaton Bray Branch.³¹ As the Church grew in this area, the branch was divided and the Johnsons became the founding members of the Whipsnade Branch, where Benjamin again served as president.³² It is interesting to note that the subsequent change in the name of the Whipsnade Branch and its relocation to Edlesborough occurred at about the same time the Johnsons moved back to Northall, Buckinghamshire, a hamlet of Edlesborough.³³

Unlike other areas in Buckinghamshire, the Church grew quickly in Edlesborough. Under the leadership of Benjamin Johnson, the Edlesborough Branch became the largest branch in nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire, with over 160 members at its peak.³⁴ It was also the only LDS congregation in Buckinghamshire listed in the 1851 Census of Religious Worship. The census record states: “170. Edlesborough. Latter Day Saints Meeting Place. Erected before 1800. . . . On the 30th March Afternoon General Congregation 90; Evening General Congregation 100. Dated 31st March. Signed Benjamin Johnson, Presiding Elder, Northall Bucks.”³⁵ According to local histories and historians, the building mentioned in the census record was actually a public house referred to as The Good Intent (fig. 4).³⁶ An adjacent pond was used for baptisms. The building is still standing and has since been converted into two private houses. An identifying placard still stands by the building.

Historical records indicate that the real key to the growth of the Church in Edlesborough was not so much the impact of the American elders, but rather the enthusiastic work of the locals who had themselves only recently joined the Church. In less than seven years (from April 4, 1846, to March 27, 1853), for instance, Benjamin Johnson helped bring more people into the Church than anyone else in nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire.³⁷ Johnson was the only person the American missionary Elisha Hildebrand Davis actually baptized and confirmed in any of the three branches the Johnsons belonged to.³⁸ In other words, the Edlesborough Branch continued to grow and prosper because of the efforts of recently baptized members who began serving as missionaries, some immediately following their baptism.³⁹ Johnson, however, was only one of several local convert missionaries, all of whom enjoyed almost as much success. In the Edlesborough Branch alone, Benjamin Johnson baptized thirty people; Robert Hodgert, twenty-three people; George Smith, fifteen; Berrill Covington, twelve; John Mead, a priest, nineteen; and Samuel Impey, also a priest, twenty-six.⁴⁰ These missionaries did not confine their efforts to the Edlesborough Branch; Benjamin baptized nearly twenty people into the Eaton Bray and Studham (Bedfordshire) branches, and each of the other local missionaries baptized members in nearby branches.⁴¹ In essence, the heavy involvement of newly baptized converts was crucial to the growth of the Church throughout Buckinghamshire.

The Edlesborough Branch grew to be nearly four times larger than any other nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire branch for which records can be located. Elder Robert Hodgert, a local convert who became a missionary, noted the success of the Church in this area: “The work continued, steadily increasing; truth was triumphant; the word was confirmed with signs following, much to the astonishment of the people. The truth had now taken deep root. . . . Nothing else was talked about except this new doctrine and these men who are turning the world upside down.”⁴² By 1850, the growth of the Church in this area was formally recognized by Church leaders in London, and on January 5 of that year, Elder John Banks, then president of the London Conference, transferred the Luton, Edlesborough, Flamstead, Hemel Hempstead, and Studham branches from the London Conference to the Bedfordshire Conference.⁴³ Interestingly, this formal action, recorded in the Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, is the last mention of the Edlesborough Branch in any known official or Church document.⁴⁴ This could well be the result of the large number of Edlesborough Saints who emigrated from 1851 through 1872. Of the 163 names found on this branch record, 77 (47 percent of the branch’s total membership) can be identified as emigrants. The majority of these families emigrated through the Church’s official emigration offices in Liverpool.⁴⁵ One noteworthy exception, the George Cheshire family, emigrated through London on the famed Amazon;⁴⁶ an account of their emigration was included in Charles Dickens’s The Uncommercial Traveller.⁴⁷

The next Buckinghamshire branch was presumably the one created at Simpson (fig. 5), not far from Wolverton. The first members of this branch were baptized by William Reed, of North Crawley, who had been baptized in 1845.⁴⁸ North Crawley was a small Buckinghamshire village six miles northeast of Simpson. Reed baptized William Luck; his mother, Rosannah Button Luck; and Ellen Briant.⁴⁹ David Cowley and William Luck’s father, John Luck, along with three other members, were baptized the next month, and Cowley was called as the first branch president.⁵⁰

This branch was unlike the one based at Edlesborough in two significant ways. Although Simpson was less than three miles from the Buckinghamshire/Bedfordshire border, the Simpson Branch’s origins were not linked to the activities of American missionaries working in neighboring counties, but rather to the work of a recent convert.⁵¹ Furthermore, the Church in the Simpson area was severely hampered by intense opposition from local landowners; these antagonists frustrated missionary activities by attempting to prevent the holding of public meetings and the establishment of a meeting place. This contrasted starkly with Edlesborough, where success may have been a consequence of the Johnson family’s high status.

Elder Job Smith, who served for a time as president of the Bedfordshire Conference, wrote of the difficulty encountered by Church members: “Proceeded next day to Simpson. Here is a small branch of the church under the presidency of David Cowley. I staid at the house of William Luck. The landlords of all the saints houses here positively forbid any meetings being held therein, consequently I had to get the saints together in a covert manner and teach them.”⁵² Although Elder Smith and other missionaries sought to minister to the Saints in this branch, the opposition continued. On December 5, 1852, Elder Smith wrote, “Called at Simpson and comforted the few saints there.”⁵³ On May 30, 1853, he penned, “I . . . privately visited the Saints at Simpson.”⁵⁴

Despite intense opposition from local landlords, the Simpson Branch grew from the original three members to thirty, although most of that growth occurred between 1849 and 1850.⁵⁵ As with the Edlesborough Branch, newly baptized convert missionaries made a significant contribution. One notable example was William Luck, a young convert whose efforts brought thirteen people into the Simpson Branch.⁵⁶ Although the records of the Simpson Branch span only the years 1849 through 1853, additional records kept by members in this area have been located.⁵⁷ A surprising twenty-nine of the eventual thirty-eight people recorded as members of this branch emigrated—an astoundingly high 76 percent, compared to the emigration rates of other Buckinghamshire branches, which ranged from 37 to 47 percent.⁵⁸

The third nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire branch for which records exist was established at Wooburn Green. Although this branch was not officially organized until August 22, 1850, it had its beginnings in 1849, just like the Edlesborough and Simpson branches.⁵⁹ Unlike those branches, however, it was located on the southwestern side of Buckinghamshire, and its ultimate origins lay in Berkshire. The first converts to move to the Wooburn Green area were Thomas Tanner and his family, who had joined the Church in 1843 in their hometown of Newbury, Berkshire.⁶⁰ Shortly after the Tanner family arrived in Wooburn Green in 1849, Thomas followed the pattern established by many other Mormon converts; he began to share the message of the restored gospel with anyone who would listen. His efforts eventually led to the first conversions of Wooburn Green natives, William and Susan Beesley and their son Ebenezer, who were all baptized by Tanner in September of 1849.⁶¹ Initially, the Wooburn Green Mormons were attached to the Newbury Branch, but substantial distance led to the establishment of a separate branch.⁶² By 1850, membership of the Church in Wooburn Green had risen to thirty.⁶³ Many joined the Church through the efforts of American missionaries, but Tanner was responsible for ten conversions—thus following the model already identified at Edlesborough and Simpson.⁶⁴ Although Tanner had more experience in the gospel, William Beesley was appointed as the first president of the Wooburn Branch.⁶⁵ This further illustrates that the involvement of recent converts was essential to the growth of the Church in Buckinghamshire.

Members in Wooburn Green, similar to the Saints in Simpson, experienced serious opposition, but the Wooburn Branch was able to meet in public. Although a meetinghouse was not reported in the 1851 Census of Religious Worship,⁶⁶ a local trade directory of 1853 indicated that among the other churches in Wooburn Green, the Mormons also had a place of worship.⁶⁷ It was identified as a “Mormon Chapel.”⁶⁸ Historical evidence, however, indicates there was no dedicated church building in Wooburn Green, and the trade directories do not include a location for the building. The name of Henry Hancock, the second president of the Wooburn Branch, appears in the Wooburn Green census records for the years 1851 and 1861.⁶⁹ By carefully calculating the route followed by the census taker and using known landmarks that existed then and still exist today (for example, The Red Lion Inn pictured in fig. 6), it was possible to identify the residence occupied by Henry Hancock and his family during that time period.⁷⁰ The 1861 census records that a “Minister of the Latter-day Saints” named George Alfred Wiscombe was also residing with the Hancock family. It is possible that the home was used for church meetings, and this may have even been the “Mormon Chapel” reported in the local trade directories of 1853. This conclusion is supported by an entry in the life history of Henry Hancock’s eldest daughter, Sarah, which states, “Church leaders in Wooburn held meetings in the Hancock home.”⁷¹ Fortunately, this home is still standing today (fig. 7) and is included in the local historical site index as “No. 36” on “The Green” in Wooburn.⁷² The index verifies that the home did in fact exist at the time a “Mormon Chapel” was listed in Musson and Craven’s Commercial Directory noted above.

Life for Church members in Wooburn Green was not easy. For a while, at least, they had to contend with aggressive anti-Mormon campaigns spearheaded by the reverend of the parish church, F. B. Ashley.⁷³ Reverend Ashley’s anti-Mormon lectures were published, and multiple editions circulated.⁷⁴ His arguments corresponded closely with other contemporary anti-Mormon tracts published throughout England but appear to be the only anti-Mormon clerical publications that actually originated in Buckinghamshire during the second half of the nineteenth century.⁷⁵ In addition, anti-Mormon sentiments were expressed in the Bucks Free Press, the local newspaper. These reports ranged from accounts of the Mormons in Utah purportedly rising up in treason against the United States government and publicly encouraging immorality to commentary on the pitiable condition of “innocent and deceived” emigrants who were leaving England for Utah.⁷⁶

Despite the opposition, Church members in Wooburn Green appeared to be content with their newfound religion and lifestyle. In contrast to the somewhat disheartened journal entries of Elder Job Smith in the Simpson area, a letter written by Elder Samuel Stephen Jones in 1872 reported, “We have very fair, lively branches at Woburn Green in Bucks, Burbage in Witts, and at Portsmouth. The Saints are rather more numerous at these last mentioned places, and evince a good lively spirit.”⁷⁷ Another missionary, Elder James Payne, wrote that in 1876 he was “laboring with great joy and satisfaction in the London Conference. . . . On this tour I first visited Woburn Green, held meeting, and re-baptized four persons.”⁷⁸ These letters are surprisingly positive, especially since elsewhere in England the fortunes of the Church appear to have been in decline by the 1870s due to the effects of religious persecution associated with antipolygamy campaigns, alleged problems in Utah, and, perhaps most of all, to general apathy and lack of religious fervor in England.⁷⁹

It is possible that relatively favorable conditions at Wooburn Green may have reduced incentives to emigrate, although other factors, which will be discussed later, were also at work. Of the thirty original members, only thirteen (43 percent) can be identified as having emigrated.⁸⁰ Included among those who did not emigrate were William Beesley, the first president of the Wooburn Branch, and his wife Susannah.⁸¹ However, the second branch president, Henry Hancock, and his wife, Esther, did emigrate.⁸² Interestingly, Ebenezer Beesley, son of the first branch president, married Sarah Hancock, daughter of the second branch president. The young couple emigrated in 1859 and settled in Salt Lake City.⁸³ Ebenezer had shown great promise as a musician from his early years, and after emigrating he continued his musical training. He eventually became a director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.⁸⁴ In fact, the current edition of the LDS hymnbook attributes the tunes of thirteen hymns to Ebenezer Beesley, including “God of Our Fathers, We Come unto Thee,” which is sung to a tune Beesley named “Wooburn Green.”⁸⁵

The final nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire branch for which records are extant was organized at Aylesbury on March 7, 1852.⁸⁶ Like other Buckinghamshire branches, this congregation was located near the boundary of another county; Aylesbury is close to the “tongue” of Hertfordshire, which comes within a few miles of the town. Like Simpson, membership of the Aylesbury Branch did not result from a migration of recently baptized members, but rather from the efforts of missionaries sent to the area. Elder Job Smith, then president of the Bedfordshire Conference, wrote of the significant challenges they faced. His entry of March 5, 1852, reads:

Went to Buckingham to visit Elder E. W. Tullidge, one of the travelling elders sent from our conference at Bedford to raise up a branch of the church. Found him at the house of a deist. I soon learned that he had forsaken his mission and mormonism; and that he was now a disbeliever in all revealed religion. I reasond with him but soon found that it was altogether in vain, expressed his disbelief in the Prophet Joseph, in the present authorities and the whole system and in respect to God, he did not know any thing of him, but “if God should curse or otherwise punish him for disbelieving Mormonism, yea if he were consumed in hell by him he would then rise up and damn him.” At Br Underwood’s the same evening I excommunicated him from the church. And this at his own request.

Two days later, Elder Smith continued:

Next day proceeded to Aylesbury where Elder [William] T. Cope was laboring. He had labored here eight months and baptized 5 persons. A very dull prospect presented itself, but as a family that were scattered at another place were about to move thither it was concluded to organise it to be a branch which was done on the 7th [of] March. I endeavoured to get a congregation to preach to, by sending the bellman round the town &c but could not get any body to come.⁸⁷

Two months later, Elder Smith recorded:

May 11, 1852. Tuesday visited Br Cope and in consequence of his ill health released him from his labours in the ministry. . . . May 24, 1852. Next day proceeded to Buckingham found Br Underwood discouraged, counselled him to move to a branch of the church, he said he would. Next day went to Aylesbury. Found Brother Cope trying to heal up difficulties in that young branch which he had raised. Here we had a meeting and cut off two members at their own request; tried to do the best I could to set matters straight with them but I found that the elements were not there for a good branch of the church.⁸⁸

The Aylesbury Branch record only lists the names of three of the first five members baptized by Elder Cope, corroborating Job Smith’s story of excommunication.⁸⁹ Providentially, the “family that were scattered at another place” and was “about to move thither” was the George Smith family.⁹⁰ George had joined the Church a decade earlier in Hemel Hempstead and served as the president of that branch. His family had already lived in the Aylesbury area from 1838 to 1841, and when he returned there sometime after the organization of the Aylesbury Branch, he brought not only his large family of twelve but also his missionary zeal and considerable Church leadership experience.⁹¹ He had already brought nine people into the Hemel Hempstead and Studham branches,⁹² and upon arriving in Aylesbury, he brought an additional sixteen people into the Church, including some of his own family. His efforts helped the branch grow from five members to thirty in two years.⁹³ As in the three branches examined above, most of the missionary work and convert baptisms in the Aylesbury Branch resulted from the efforts of the native English member-missionaries.

George Smith’s missionary efforts apparently had a positive effect on the general morale of the members and missionaries and made an impression on the local community as a whole. On Sunday, December 12, 1852, only seven months after the Smith family relocated to Great Missenden, Elder Job Smith wrote, “Visited Br George Smith of Great Missenden (near Aylesbury) held a meeting and had a good congregation to hear me. Next day visited the Saints in Aylesbury.”⁹⁴ On January 17, 1853, Elder Smith noted he had “received letters of success of Elder [Richard] Aldridge in Aylesbury”⁹⁵ who had baptized seven more people, and on May 29, 1853, he wrote, “Preached at Aylesbury. Br Aldridge is laboring here and at Buckingham. Next day proceeded to Buckingham. Found E. W. Tullidge rebaptised, married and house keeping, and opening his house for meeting. I was much pleased with this, for although he broke loose before he is a young man of singular and peculiarly adapted talents.”⁹⁶

In 1854, George Smith’s family of twelve—who represented 40 percent of the membership of the Aylesbury Branch—emigrated at the request of Church leaders in Utah and were the only members listed in the Aylesbury Branch record to do so.⁹⁷ George and Caroline eventually settled in what they called Pleasant Valley, Nevada (fig. 8). A biographical sketch of George reads: “Mr. Smith was one of the first, if not the first white man to settle along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; and by indomitable will and great energy, has accomplished what very few men could have done. The danger surrounding such an early settlement among the Indians cannot be fully portrayed.”⁹⁸

Although the Smith family were the only members listed on the official branch record who emigrated, other sources suggest at least five other people joined this small branch and emigrated after 1854. The Millennial Star paid tribute to a sister named Amelia Mary Andrews Champneys, born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. She died in Ogden, Utah, in 1893 at the age of 36, and was reported to have been “a faithful Latter-day Saint.” She had emigrated with her husband, Thomas, who was also a member.⁹⁹ In addition, Robert Price and his older siblings Samuel and Matilda emigrated in 1855, one year after the Smiths. Robert was baptized at Great Missenden in 1853 and, after emigrating, returned to England to serve as a missionary. Upon his return to America, he was called as bishop in Paris, Idaho.¹⁰⁰

Ancillary Branches

Cynthia Doxey notes the difficulty of ascertaining the whereabouts or existence of LDS branches in England during the mid-nineteenth century: “As can be inferred from the difference in the number of existing branch membership records and the number of branches reported in the Millennial Star, many English and Welsh branches of the Church from the 1851 time period are not currently documented. With only these two sources of information about the Church in Britain, we have no way of knowing more about other possible branches.”¹⁰¹ A close examination of extant historical documents, however, uncovered evidence of two branches of the Church in Buckinghamshire during this time period, in addition to the four examined herein.¹⁰² One was the previously mentioned Wolverton Branch.¹⁰³ The other is the North Crawley Branch, mentioned in the missionary journal of Elder Job Smith, who served as the president of the Bedfordshire Conference. On April 1, 1851, Job Smith recorded, “Walked 18 miles to North Crawley, where there is a small branch of the church, Wm Reed president.”¹⁰⁴ The whereabouts of these branch records, if they exist, is unknown at present.¹⁰⁵

Impact of Local Converts

As indicated in figure 9, missionary work and convert baptisms in the four nineteenth-century Buckinghamshire branches of record followed a relatively consistent pattern. Each branch began when missionaries from America converted a small group of key individuals, who then, almost immediately following their baptisms, began proselytizing their friends and neighbors. The initial efforts of the American missionaries brought a small group into the Church and a branch was formed; this was followed by a larger group of converts resulting from the efforts of the newly baptized member-missionaries.

Figure 9. Buckinghamshire convert baptisms and associated missionary efforts.

One reason for this pattern may have been the size of the London and Bedfordshire conferences, to which Buckinghamshire belonged.¹⁰⁶ Elder H. B. Clemons reported that on his “stroll through the Bedfordshire Conference” he traveled mostly on foot to over twenty-five locations in four different counties.¹⁰⁷ As late as 1874, Elder Robert W. Heyborne recorded, “During my stay in the Bedfordshire Conference I have walked, while visiting the Saints from village to village, 1,207 miles.”¹⁰⁸ Missionaries assigned to labor in Buckinghamshire were required to walk several miles between branches and members’ homes, inasmuch as “the Saints are scattered—one here and one there.”¹⁰⁹ This required them to be absent from most of the branches most of the time, which in turn necessitated that newly baptized members of the Church assume leadership and missionary roles.

Church Membership Per Capita

Attempting to ascertain Church membership per capita in the county of Buckinghamshire during this time period can be approached in one of two ways. John Gay utilized the 1851 religious census, even though it included only one (Edlesborough) of the four branches for which records are available, and found that Church members constituted between 0.1 and 0.2 percent of the population.¹¹⁰ Use of the composite 1851 census data is another way to arrive at an estimation of members per capita. Providentially, all four known branches existed in 1851,¹¹¹ and only 14 of the 266 members had emigrated before the 1851 census.¹¹² Therefore, approximately 242 members of Buckinghamshire branches would have been citizens of this county on March 30, 1851, the day the census was taken. The population of Buckinghamshire on that same date was 167,095; therefore, Church membership per capita was less than 0.2 percent, by this measure.¹¹³

Figure 10¹¹⁴ shows how Buckinghamshire compares with other counties in terms of LDS membership per capita, according to the 1851 religious census. It is important to note that this data is not representative of the actual numbers of converts from these counties. For example, Buckinghamshire and Lancashire had the same membership per capita in 1851. However, more than 6,700 Latter-day Saints had already emigrated by the end of 1850, many of them from Lancashire.¹¹⁵

Emigration

As is shown in figure 11, of the 266 members on record, documentation could be found for the emigration of only 136, or 51 percent.

Figure 11. Percentage of members who emigrated from nineteenth-century branches.

One explanation for this relatively low number was the poor economic condition of Church members in Buckinghamshire. The Church established the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to aid such members. P. A. M. Taylor notes that from 1849 to 1852, approximately four thousand emigrants were aided by this fund. This suggests there were only two years when this fund could have benefited those emigrating from Buckinghamshire. Furthermore, for the years 1853 through 1856, members could benefit from this program only if they were able to provide between £10 and £13 of their own support, which, as will be shown below, was extremely difficult. After 1856, the fund never assisted more than one hundred persons per year, and they were almost entirely returning missionaries.¹¹⁶ Considering the years Buckinghamshire branch members emigrated (see fig. 11), many members had to rely on their own resources.

Missionary correspondence highlights the indigent circumstances of the members of these branches and the effect that had on emigration rates. On February 4, 1863, Elder Joseph Bull wrote:

In this Conference, as well as in many others, the Saints are poor as it regards the goods of this life. . . . Though surrounded by poverty and hard task-masters, with their attendant train of trying circumstances . . . many are looking forward with eager anxiety for the emigration season to open, that they may gather to the bosom of the Church. That they may do so, nothing is being left untried on their part which will help them to accomplish this so-much-desired object. Several, who have struggled with poverty for years, will have the privilege of emigrating themselves with their own means, having a rigid economy saved out of their weekly pittances, through years of struggling, sufficient to accomplish the much-desired object.¹¹⁷

This highlights several important points: (a) the impoverished condition of many of the Saints, (b) their near-universal desire to emigrate to Utah, and (c) the necessity for Saints to save for their own travel instead of relying on Church assistance.

Elder R. F. Neslen explained the difficulty facing the Saints who were seeking to acquire the resources needed for emigration:

Saturday, March 24, [1871,] found me visiting around among the Saints in Stony Stratford [Buckinghamshire] and Deanshanger [Northamptonshire]. In these places I found the Saints still rejoicing in the work, and hoping fervently that their way of deliverance might be shortly opened. They seemingly have not got discouraged concerning gathering yet, although, so far as their own means is concerned, their prospects are not much brighter than they were when I became acquainted with them in 1855.¹¹⁸

Later that same year, however, Elder George W. Wilkin, also writing from Stony Stratford, noted, “The Saints, as a general thing, are poor in this world’s goods, but the greater portion of them are rich in faith. Quite a number have emigrated since my arrival, and many more are expecting to go this season.”¹¹⁹ Despite their poverty, some gradually acquired sufficient money. More than two years later, on October 29, 1873, Elder Robert W. Heyborne reported the following, also from Stony Stratford: “We have been able to emigrate forty persons from this Conference for Utah. Considering the small number in the Conference, and the impoverished condition of most of the Saints, I feel highly satisfied.”¹²⁰ He wrote again on April 23, 1874, “Considering the impoverished condition of many of the Saints through their limited wages, they are doing well in saving means for emigration, which will enable them, at no very distant day, to effect their deliverance.”¹²¹

Stories of financial challenge, difficulty, and even tragedy abound in the personal journals and diaries of Saints waiting to emigrate. For example, Charlotte Johnson (fig. 12),¹²² widow of Benjamin Johnson, was left with the responsibility of raising nine children between ages two and sixteen.¹²³ Before he died, Benjamin gathered his family around him and said to Charlotte, “Mother, when you sell what little property we possess and pay off our debts you will have enough money to take you and the children to Utah. So after I die you take our family and go to Utah where you can live with the Saints and enjoy the blessings there.”¹²⁴ Following her husband’s wishes, Charlotte sold their property and sent the necessary money to the mission office, entrusting it to a missionary going to Liverpool and then to America. He agreed to open an account in her name with the Emigrating Fund. When he arrived in Liverpool, however, he decided to keep the money and emigrate to California instead. After waiting eleven years for the Church to somehow help her recoup the money, Charlotte gave up hope of ever being able to emigrate. To her delight, Elder Franklin D. Richards, president of the British Mission, became aware of her situation and made arrangements for the entire Charlotte Johnson family to emigrate, which they did in 1868.

Trying as their own personal circumstances were, some members of the Church were moved to compassion towards their fellow Saints. When Sister Emma Austin of the Edlesborough Branch read in the Millennial Star that part of the ship Minnesota had been chartered by Mormon emigrants, she felt impressed this was the vessel that would take her family to America. Unfortunately, the Austins did not have sufficient means. But two weeks before the Minnesota was due to depart, Bartel Turner (fig. 13),¹²⁵ a member of their branch, offered to lend them the money for their emigration. At first John Austin “hesitated to accept this generous offer, fearing that he might never be able to repay the loan,” but he finally became convinced that his family’s prayers were being answered in a miraculous way. As a result of Brother Turner’s generosity, John and Emma Austin and their ten children sailed from Liverpool on June 22, 1868. Bartel Turner and his family also sailed on the same voyage of the Minnesota.¹²⁶

Recent converts were not alone in their struggle to raise sufficient funds to emigrate. Expected to proselyte following the New Testament model, without “purse or scrip,” full-time missionaries were almost completely reliant on charitable offerings for their daily sustenance, as well as for sufficient funds to emigrate.¹²⁷ One historian noted a “systematic fund-raising was undertaken in behalf of elders returning to Zion. . . . Local converts who spent their full time in the ministry were not always so fortunate . . . , but they were usually able at least to borrow the means to emigrate.”¹²⁸ This appears to be the case with the missionaries who served in Buckinghamshire. Elder Job Smith wrote about his fund-raising efforts for returning American missionary John Spiers while he preached in Eaton Bray, Studham, and Hamstead: “In all of these places I asked the Saints to raise funds to assist Elder Spiers to emigrate, as he was liberated to return to the valley. . . . I therefore labored faithfully to render him assistance. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday visited the branches of Luton, Hensworth, and Eaton Bray, holding meetings and raising funds for Br. Spiers.”¹²⁹ The collection began on October 24, 1851, and by January 10, 1852, Elder Spiers had emigrated. However, when Elder Thomas Squires, a local convert who had served as a full-time missionary for “many years” expressed a desire to emigrate, he apparently experienced a longer wait, although means for his emigration were eventually provided. His life sketch records, “Finally the authorities of the Church . . . gave him the privilege of emigrating to Zion. The conference over which he presided furnished the means to defray the expenses of that journey.”¹³⁰

Comparing emigration rates from Buckinghamshire and other counties is difficult because, as P. A. M. Taylor notes, “The passenger lists do not include information about emigrants’ places of origin.”¹³¹ In fact, he contends that “figures for individual . . . counties are often too small to be relied on: a ‘trend’ might be set by the decision of two or three families.” In addition, “in no clear-cut fashion do figures for the rural element in Mormon emigration differ from those of the urban.”¹³² But some general comparisons can be made. According to historical data, 52,182 persons were baptized in England between the years 1851 and 1870; 23,066, or 44 percent, emigrated.¹³³ During that same time period, 132, or nearly 50 percent, of the 266 baptized members of the four Buckinghamshire branches emigrated.¹³⁴ Thus, the percentage of members who emigrated from Buckinghamshire during this time period was actually higher than the national average.¹³⁵

Reappraisal of Buckinghamshire Branches

There were at least six branches of the Church in Buckinghamshire between the years of 1849 and 1878. Records for four of these branches are extant although incomplete.¹³⁶ Historical data indicate there were at least two other branches, although records for these branches are unavailable.

The first Buckinghamshire natives to join the Church did so outside the confines of the county as early as 1841. However, it was not until 1849 that the Church was formally established within the boundaries of Buckinghamshire. Unlike other areas, there is no historical evidence of any apostolic ministrations, nor were other persons of known Church prominence responsible for the establishment of Mormonism in this county. Rather, the first branch prospered under the direction of its founding member, Benjamin Johnson, and the majority of converts joined the Church through his efforts and those of other early convert missionaries. In fact, this phenomenon occurred in each of the four branches: the initial efforts of one of the traveling American missionaries brought a small group into the Church and a branch was formed. This was followed by a larger group of converts resulting from the efforts of the newly baptized member-missionaries.

The local religious climate appears to have been different for each of the four branches. The Edlesborough Branch fared well. It grew to include a membership of over 160 people. They were able to meet without any apparent opposition in a public house that had been converted into a church building. On the other hand, Simpson Branch members struggled against the intense opposition of local landowners. Consequently, branch membership remained relatively small, and they were able to meet only covertly. The members of the Wooburn Green Branch also experienced intense opposition. This came from the local clergy, however, instead of landowners. Perhaps this explains why they were able to hold public meetings in a Church member’s home and were portrayed by traveling elders as having a “good, lively spirit.” Finally, the Aylesbury Branch was extremely difficult to establish, and the missionaries assigned to this area felt “the elements were not there for a good branch of the Church.” This led to discouragement and even apostasy among these missionaries. However, when George Smith, a recent convert, relocated his family to this region, his enthusiasm had a profound influence on the missionaries who had forsaken their ministry as well as the citizens of the area, and the branch was finally able to take root.

The American missionaries who proselytized in Buckinghamshire did not experience the phenomenal success their counterparts enjoyed in other regions of England. This paper has provided several empirical explanations for this. First, Taylor and others have concluded that “Mormonism appealed mainly to an urban population, and the great majority of Mormon emigrants were urban.”¹³⁷ Mormonism was also more successful among the working class living and working in the industrialized centers. Buckinghamshire was rural during this time period and did not have an industrialized center, and its citizenry were not classified as working class. Gay and Fleming have also shown the propensity for nonconformist movements to be less successful in the southeastern portion of England.

Despite the small number of converts who joined Mormonism in Buckinghamshire during this time period, both numerically and per capita, a larger portion of them emigrated than their counterparts in other regions—usually against the challenges of abject poverty. Upon arriving in Utah, none of them attained prominence in the Church hierarchy. In many respects, their story is the story of the rank-and-file convert from England during this time period. Most of them were not brought into the Church by Apostles, other prominent leaders, or even missionaries from America, but rather through the untiring efforts of local convert-missionaries. And most of these converts were unable to emigrate or did not ascend the hierarchy of Church leadership and prominence themselves after their emigration.