Brethren

Believers in Dublin from 1825 began breaking bread together outside every denominational system, holding that the Lord's table belongs to all His people and that ordained clergy is not a New Testament requirement; the movement spread to Plymouth (1831) and worldwide, shaped decisively by J. N. Darby and marked by the Powerscourt prophecy conferences from 1831.

The stream holding that association with evil defiles and that assembly discipline binds all assemblies as one body on earth; led in its first generation by J. N. Darby (d. 1882).

The stream holding that reception belongs to the local, autonomous assembly and that sound believers ought not be refused for their associations; marked by evangelism and a missionary movement large out of all proportion to its size.

An assembly-action dispute originating at Ryde and dividing the Ramsgate assembly separated W. Kelly and those with him from the London party in 1881 — an issue of church governance, not doctrine. Kelly (1821–1906) remained the editor of Darby's Collected Writings and a major expositor.

F. W. Grant's teaching on life in the Son for Old Testament saints was judged at Natural History Hall, Montreal; his home assembly and much of North America refused the excommunication, producing the movement's North American division.

Division centered at Reading around C. E. Stuart, beginning with a personal charge and followed by his teaching on Christian standing and, subsequently, that propitiation was made in heaven after Christ's death — judged fundamentally erroneous by W. Kelly and others, and defended or palliated by Stuart's supporters, among them Walter Scott.

W. J. Lowe and the great majority of Continental European assemblies, with Bexhill, judged F. E. Raven's teaching a system of error and separated in 1890.

The fellowship that continued with F. E. Raven in 1890 and, under James Taylor Sr. and his successors, developed a distinctive doctrine of ongoing ministry through recognized leaders and an increasingly strict separation; the 1970 Aberdeen incident under James Taylor Jr. produced a massive exodus. Today the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, membership 54,000+.

Assemblies persuaded by the Needed Truth magazine's ecclesiology — interdependent churches of God, a united elderhood, and reception on adherence to the apostles' teaching — separated from the Open Brethren in 1892–94, judging Open practice too loose; a connexional fellowship midway between Open and Exclusive patterns.

Glanton's reception of saints from the broken Alnwick meeting was treated by London as infringing the principle of local responsibility; assemblies worldwide were required to side, and those refusing London's course became the Glanton fellowship. An ecclesiastical division within the Raven fellowship, not a separation over Raven's doctrine — a fact each subsequent reunion negotiation had to address.

The Lowe-Continental fellowship divided in 1909 when most assemblies refused the Tunbridge Wells assembly's action regarding C. Strange; the TW fellowship continued separately, strongest in North America, holding that there can be but one expression of the one body. Part of the English TW fellowship rejoined the KLCs in 1940; the North American body remains a distinct worldwide fellowship (associated with Bible Truth Publishers).

The successive reunions of divided Exclusive fellowships between 1926 and 1974, conducted on the stated basis that the divided companies were all gathered to the Lord's name while in division — a basis contested within the tradition (the hosted literature carries both cases). The tree's clearest demonstration that the graph has mergers as well as splits.

A 1928 division in the merged Grant-Glanton company, involving the teaching of James Boyd and the Grant-Mory matter, produced the company led by A. E. Booth; it merged with the Reunited body in 1974.

The 1933 merger of the remaining Grant company with the Stuarts; merged into the KLC body in 1953.