Obituary E K Alexander

This short obituary appeared in the Baptist Union Handbook for 1958
ALEXANDER, ERNEST KENNARD, was born in Newport, Mon., on December 26th, 1886. He attended Charles Street Baptist Church. In 1911 he entered Harley College to train as a missionary. In 1915 he went, under the auspices of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, to the Belgian Congo, where he served for ten years. He developed a large Mission Station with a church of three hundred native Christians at Ikau, Upper Congo. He was a gifted linguist, engineer and teacher. In 1919 he married Miss Florence Gertrude Clarke, a trained nursing sister, who joined him in Africa, but the death of their daughter and illness of their son forced them to return. In 1926 he became Pastor of Higham's Park Baptist Church, and in 1928 moved to Childs Hill Baptist Church where he remained until his retirement in March, 1953. He passed his final examinations for the Baptist ministry in March, 1934, and was enrolled in the Ministerial List of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland. During his ministry he was President of the Hampstead Free Church Council, President of the Western Group of the London Baptist Association and President of the North Western Group of the London Baptist Association. He was a chaplain at Golders Green Crematorium for over 25 years and Non-conformist representative in the Hendon Rotary Club for a similar period. He passed away on the 11th June, 1957, survived by his wife and son. — F.H.A. (Frederick H Alexander, Alexander's son)

Statistics

Childs Hill Baptist Church
Year
Number in church
1877, 1878
70, 72
1879-1882
104-105
1883, 1884
167, 183
1885-1895
Up and down between 190-196
1896
115
1897, 1898
140
1899, 1900
183, 199
1901
225
1902-1905
252-254
1906
265
1907, 1908
233, 236
1909
247
1910, 1911
248, 251
1912-1914
260-266
1915-1920
272-276
1921-1923
196
1924-1928
270-275
1929, 1930
153, 156
1931, 1932
167, 159
1933-1935
165-166
1936-1938
157-161
1939-1950
130-135
1951-1954
127-134
1955, 1956
94, 76
1957, 1958
83, 81
1959, 1960
75, 72
1961, 1962
66, 53
1963-1967
59-62
1968-1970
47
1972, 1973
43, 34
1974-1984
37-42
1985-2007
Goes down by 10 or 12
2007-2010
27-31
2011-2015
34-36
2016
36
2017-2023
28-29
By 2025 numbers were back up to around 36

Gestetner 360


This is a Gestetnet 360 duplicator. The church purchased one in 1972 and it was used for producing newsletters and other materials through until the eighties and the advent of modern computers and photocopiers.

Chapel Seventies

This picture is from some time in the seventies.

An old notice


This plastic notice was placed for many years over the entrance to the hall next to the church. It was placed there becasue at the end of the seventies the chapel had become derelict and meetings took place in the hall adjacent. It actually remained there throughout the eighties, nineties and beyond and was only taken down in 2015 when a new notice board was installed.