chapeler

plural chapelers · alternative chapeller

1. A member of a religious sect in the 18th and 19th centuries that questioned the legitimacy of the priesthood.

   He said he would get his own back on the ‘chapelers,’ and die.

   1985, Fury Never Leaves Us: A Miscellany of Caradoc Evans, Poetry Wales Press, page 58

   3 more examples

   There was but little discord between church and chapel, except at treat-times, and on kindred occasions of exceptional excitement; and every Sunday evening church dames, duly equipped with Rippon’s Selection, an unopened pocket-handkerchief, and a sprig of boy’s love, might be seen marching, like any chapelers, to Zoar.

   1876, Edward Whitaker, “Tempus est Ludendi”, in Parley Magna. A Novel., volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], page 57

   “Do not be annoyed,” writes the editor of The Homilist to his son, “by the idle gossip and stupid prejudice of chapelers.[…]”

   1902, David Morgan Thomas, Urijah Rees Thomas: His Life and Work, page 108

   “Parson Budd be a tremendous Church-of-Englander, so I heard squire say. He ’ve got his knife into all chapelers an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.”

   1903, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, page 40, column 2

2. A maker of caps.

   A marked feature of the old trades of London was the minute subdivisions which took place among them: thus there were hatters, cappers, chapelers (makers of caps) and hurers.

   1909, Henry Benjamin Wheatley, The Story of London, page 301