The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist Methodist movement of George Whitefield.
John Marrant (1755–1791), an African American who became an ordained minister with the Connexion. In the 1850s John Molson built a church for the Connexion group near his brewery in Montreal. It was poorly attended and soon became used instead as a military barracks.
Today the Connexion church has 21 congregations in England and some in Sierra Leone. Of the UK churches seven normally have full-time pastors: Eastbourne, Ely, Goring, Rosedale, St. Ives, Turners Hill and Ebley. Total attendance at all churches is approximately 1,000 adults and children.
The Connexion has churches at present in:
Bells Yew Green, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Bolney, Haywards Heath, West Sussex
Broad Oak, Canterbury, Kent
Copthorne, West Sussex: Copthorne Chapel
Cradley, Herefordshire, near Malvern, founded 1823
Eastbourne, East Sussex: South Street Free Church
Ebley, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Ely Cambridgeshire: Countess Free Church, Ely
Ely, Cambridgeshire: New Connexions Free Church, Ely
Goring-on-Thames, Reading, Berkshire
Hailsham, East Sussex
Middleton, Greater Manchester
Mortimer West End, Padworth Common, Reading. Berkshire
Rosedale, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire (Rosedale Community Church) [1]
Leysdown, Isle of Sheppey, Kent
Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex: Shoreham Free Church
St Ives, Cornwall
Turners Hill, West Sussex: Turners Hill Free Church
Wivelsfield, East Sussex
Woodmancote, Gloucestershire: Woodmancote Evangelical Free Church
Wormley, between Hoddesdon and Cheshunt, Hertfordshire: Wormley Free Church
Connexion churches were formerly active in:
Bodmin, Cornwall, in January 1880 the congregation bought the ″very desirable″ property known as Springfield for a minister's residence.
Brighton, East Sussex, the first of the churches, founded at North Street in 1761.
Fordham, Essex, active in the 19th century.
Preston, Lancashire, founded before 1826, in Pole Street, the church is now closed.
South Stoke, Oxfordshire, founded in 1820, is now a private house.
Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, founded 1789, known as Tyldesley Top Chapel.
