congregationalists

Congregationalists were one of the main protestant dissenting sects. Since they believed strongly in the autonomy of each congregation, they were also known as independents or separatists. The first congregations were established in the late 16th cent. and increased rapidly during the Civil War period. Another great expansion took place in the early 19th cent. and at the time of the religious census of 1851 they were said to have 3, 244 churches in England and Wales—more than the baptists though less than a third of the methodists. The Congregational Union, formed in 1831, was necessarily a loose federation: in 1972 it joined with the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church.