A Presbyterian meeting-house was erected in Little St. Helen's in 1672, under the Indulgence, which became a place of importance in the annals of Nonconformity. Within its walls the first public ordination of Nonconformist ministers took place, and the Coward Lecture preached there from 1721, till the demolition of the chapel. There was also a seven o'clock morning lecture, preached every Sunday in the summer months, to commemorate the accession of the House of Hanover. The first minister, he who took out the licence and collected the congregation, was the learned and pious Samuel Annesley, LL.D., the ejected of St. Giles's Cripplegate, formerly rector of Cliffe, Kent, and of St. Matthew's, Friday Street, London, lecturer at St. Paul's, and one of the preachers at Whitehall during the Protectorate. He was first cousin to Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey; was a popular preacher, and author of some published sermons and other works. He continued in the pastorate until his death in 1694. Anne, his daughter, a very superior woman in every respect, in piety, intelligence, and sound discretion, was married to the Rev. Samuel Wesley, vicar of Epworth, and bore him nineteen children, amongst whom were John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism. Benj. Robinson occupied the pulpit from 1701 to 1724, a Derbyshire man, of great reputation, and Merchant Lecturer at Salters' Hall. After him the church gradually dwindled down until 1790, when Mr. Brown preached there for two years, and removed with his congregation to Shoreditch; after whom Christian Frederick Trieber, with a Lutheran congregation, occupied it for two years, and on the expiration of the lease removed to Cheapside. Some other ministers of various denominations preached in the chapel for short periods until 1799, when it was taken down and houses built on the site. In Hand Alley, on the western side of Bishopsgate Without, stood a large Presbyterian meeting-house. On the site had been a plague pit, and when it was proposed to be built upon it, the bodies, some not entirely decomposed, 2,000 in number, were carted away and buried in another pit, over which is a passage to Rose Alley. The chapel was built soon after Bartholomew Day for Thomas Vincent, famous for his labours amongst the poor during the plague of 1665, who held the pastorate until his death in 1678. After the fire of 1666, his chapel was seized by the clergyman of a City parish, who performed service there until his church was rebuilt. After him came a succession of popular ministers, until the beginning of the 18th century, when the congregation, a wealthy body, removed with their minister, Dr. John Evans, author of "A Discourse on Temper," to a new chapel, which they built in 1727, in New Broad Street, when the old chapel was pulled down.