biscuitsarenice:

They’d been displaced from their communities, they’d lost their sense of identity and they needed to find a new way of being and belonging, and that’s what they found in the chapels.  

By the early 20^th century the Primitive Methodists had grown into a political movement, through their preaching they had learnt leadership skills and how to hold a crowd. Trade unionism was born in chapels like the one in Cromford.

Pubs, Ponds and Power: The Story of the Village