John Trevor

Born in Liverpool in 1855, after the death of his parents John Trevor was raised by his maternal grandmother, a strict Johnsonian Baptist. This upbringing marked him for life, and possibly as a reaction against it, Trevor embraced Unitarianism, assisting Rev. Philip Wicksteed at his chapel in Upper Brooke Street, before founding the Labour Church. 

Its first service was held in Manchester in 1891, with Trevor attacking the lack of support given to the working classes by the traditional churches. Other Labour Churches were soon established in other industrial towns including Barnsley, Birmingham, Bradford, Bolton, Dundee, Halifax, Leeds, London, Nottingham, Oldham, Plymouth and Wolverhampton.  Support for this movement grew rapidly through the industrial North, and in 1892 Trevor founded the monthly Labour Prophet. Annual conferences followed in 1893. 

Trevor and his followers were Christian Socialists who believed that the labour movement could be the driving force in obtaining "the Kingdom of God on earth". Many of Britain's leading socialists were active in the Labour Church and included Keir Hardie, Ben Tillett, Tom Mann, Fred Jowett, Philip Snowdon and Margaret McMillan.

When a conference was held in Bradford to form the Independent Labour Party, Trevor organised a church service to accompany the event. It was estimated that over 5,000 people attended the service in the Bradford Labour Church.  The central idea behind the Labour Church movement was to add a spiritual dimension to the idea of the emancipation of labour, but Trevor's views on this subject brought him into conflict with other church members, and with the Independent Labour Party, which he believed failed to recognise this aspect. 

In Manchester John Trevor ran a Shelter for the Homeless and provided a Cinderella Club for underprivileged children in the Deansgate area of the city. In January 1892, Trevor also began publishing a monthly magazine, The Labour Prophet. The motto on the cover was "God is our King" but later it changed to "Let labour be the basis of civil society". This resulted in complaints as the word God was not included and eventually Trevor reverted to the original motto. The Labour Prophet continued until 1898 when it was replaced by the smaller, quarterly, Labour Church Record.

Due to ill-health, Trevor resigned from the editorship in 1896, but continued his involvement by becoming chairman of the Labour Church Union. At its height, the Union numbered 25 churches, nearly all in Yorkshire and Lancashire. 

However, Trevor continued his formal association with the Labour Church into the next century, whilst also maintaining links with the Unitarian Church. However, his last decade was one of increasing loneliness and frustration with the established churches. He finally died in 1930, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.

The Rev. G.W. Brassington, from Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, was working on a life of Trevor during the 1960s and 1970s, up until his death c.1976.

Reference: Richard Storey in Joyce M. Bellamy and John Saville (eds.), Dictionary of Labour Biography, Vol. 6(London, 1982)  

Source: See websites:  

http://www.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/mrcclass.shtml