Mr. Arthur Walmsley, the oldest trustee, outside the Inghamite Church, Wheatley Lane.
The controversy at the Wheatley Lane Inghamite Church over the sacking of the minister, the Rev. Gwllym Jones, has prompted many people to ask, "Who are the Inghamites?"
The chapel at Wheatley Lane was the first of 13 Inghamite places of worship to be built. The movement, a sect of Protestant dissenters, was started by the Rev. Benjamin Ingham, who was born in Yorkshire in 1712. He was ordained as a Church of England clergyman in 1735 and on returning from a missionary expedition to Georgia with John Wesley, he began preaching in the North of England. He soon gathered a large number of followers round him, and in 1750 the Wheatley Lane church was built. On Christmas Day of that year about 100 people attended the first service at the chapel, conducted by Ingham himself.
In 1783 Wheatley Lane had a membership of 56, the highest of the 13 chapels then in existence. Others built after Wheatley Lane included premises in Winewall near Colne, at Salterforth and at Todmorden.