Whilst acting as a volunteer at a Methodist Heritage site this summer I was asked by an elderly visitor, if people still paid for the seats. To most the concept of pew rents is confined to history. It is suggested that the practice of renting pews continued through to the 1930’s when the practice died. If that is the case then the pew rent envelope and receipt illustrated above, in respect of the Wesley Church Bolton , dated July 1935 must be one of the last- a fragile reminder of a past feature of church finance.
Some chapels had visual display of a plan of all the pews in the chapel and marking those in debt with a red peg, and those in respect of which rent had been paid with a black one. What a public incentive to be in the black! At least two such display boards exist. The museum of Primitive Methodism at Englesea Brook has one on display in the chapel, (but relating to another chapel) and Gressenhall workhouse museum in Norfolk has one from the Methodist Free Church, Calvert Street Norwich —apparently minus all the pegs- both red and black.
If readers are aware of other examples it would be helpful to know.
David Leese