• Britain
    2000 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • A First in Europe

      Even when property could be obtained, construction of a new Kingdom Hall often took years. Yet, in the ten-year period ending in 1982, the number of congregations in Britain had increased from 943 to 1,147. Something needed to be done so that the building work could keep pace with the growth.

      In September 1983 a group of brothers from the United States and Canada who were experienced in construction work arrived in Northampton, 63 miles [101 km] north of London. They had been dealing with the need for rapid construction and came to share the practical solutions that had been developed. They worked alongside the local brothers to help them build a new Kingdom Hall economically and quickly. “A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses have recently achieved in four days what the normal contractor would take six months to do,” reported Building Design magazine the following month, “and they’ve done it at a quarter of the cost.” Jehovah blessed the construction of this quickly built Kingdom Hall, the first of its kind in Europe.

      The next year, over 1,000 volunteers helped to build a Kingdom Hall in the Welsh town of Dolgellau. This time the project was completed in two days instead of four. The 33 local Witnesses were assisted by others from Wales, England, and the United States. Brothers from France and the Netherlands were also on hand to see how it was done, and on their return home, they began to teach others how to follow similar methods.

      The assistance by brothers from abroad benefited Jehovah’s Witnesses in Britain, and they in turn offered to help others. Two congregations in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, did this in an unusual way. In 1986 the congregations were busy preparing to construct a new Kingdom Hall to replace the wooden building they had been using. When they heard that the Cobh Congregation, in Ireland, was holding meetings in a converted garage with 45 to 50 people present, they decided to help. They offered their old building with all its contents, including chairs and sound equipment, to the Witnesses in Cobh. When they found that the window frames needed replacing, local brothers donated enough to cover the cost. Nearby congregations contributed money for new roof trusses. On top of all of this, the Norfolk brothers paid all the shipping costs.

      “The dismantling of the hall proved to be a formidable task,” recalls Peter Rose, a presiding overseer in King’s Lynn. “Each piece had to be removed without damage, individually numbered, and then reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle.” In May 1986, when they finished the dismantling, they packed all the pieces in a container and shipped them across the Irish Sea to Cobh. The brothers in Cobh planned to erect their new hall on the weekend of June 7 and 8—the very same time that the brothers in King’s Lynn were to build their new Kingdom Hall. Both Kingdom Halls were completed that weekend.