Baptists.—­Prior to 1737, the “Particular Baptists” do not appear to have had any place of worship of their own in this town, what few of them there were travelling backwards and forwards every Sunday to Bromsgrove.  The first home they acquired here was a little room in a small yard at the back of 38, High Street (now covered by the Market Hall), which was opened Aug. 24, 1737.  In March of the following year a friend left the Particulars a sum of money towards erecting a meeting-house of their own, and this being added to a few subscriptions from the Coventry Particulars, led to the purchase of a little bit of the Cherry Orchard, for which L13 was paid.  Hereon a small chapel was put up, with some cottages in front, the rent of which helped to pay chapel expenses, and these cottages formed part of Cannon Street; the land at the back being reserved for a graveyard.  The opening of the new chapel gave occasion for attack; and the minister of the New Meeting, Mr. Bowen, an advocate of religious freedom, charged the Baptists (particular though they were) with reviving old Calvinistic doctrines and spreading Antinomianism and other errors in Birmingham; with the guileless innocence peculiar to polemical scribes, past and present.  Mr. Dissenting minister Bowen tried to do his friends in the Bull Ring a good turn by issuing his papers as from “A Consistent Churchman.”  In 1763 the chapel was enlarged, and at the same time a little more land was added to the graveyard.  In 1780 a further enlargement became necessary, which sufficed until 1805, when the original buildings, including the cottages next the street, were taken down to make way for the chapel so long known by the present inhabitants.  During the period of demolition and re-erection the Cannon Street congregation were accommodated at Carr’s Lane, Mr. T. Morgan and Mr. John Angell James each occupying the pulpit alternately.  The new chapel was opened July 16, 1806, and provided seats for 900, a large pew in the gallery above the clock being allotted to the “string band,” which was not replaced by an organ until 1859.  In August, 1876, the Corporation purchased the site of the chapel, the graveyard, and the adjoining houses, in all about 1,000 square yards in extent, for the sum of L26,500, the last Sunday service being held on October 5, 1879.  The remains of departed ministers and past members of the congregation interred in the burial-yard and under the chapel were carefully removed, mostly to Witton Cemetery.  The exact number of interments that had taken place in Cannon Street has never been stated, but they were considerably over 200; in one vault alone more than forty lead coffins being found.  The site is now covered by the Central Arcade.  Almost as old as Cannon Street Chapel was the one in Freeman Street, taken down in 1856, and the next in date was “Old Salem,” built in 1791, but demolished when the Great Western Railway was made.  In 1785 a few members left Cannon Street to form a church in Needless Alley,