Dissenters records

[samhuzz]

Hello

I am trying to find St Neot (Cornwall) dissenters records. I have contacted St Neot online clerk to find the birth record for Joseph Pollard who was born in around 1833, but he can find no records for him. He has told me I will might need to check St Neot dissenter records, but he doesn't have access to these. I am not really sure what a dissenter is, is it a non-conformist? Does anyone have any ideas about where to look?

Regards

Sam

[oxon57]

I am not really sure what a dissenter is, is it a non-conformist?

In short, yes.
The problem is that "dissenter" can refer to any protestant nonconformist, not just one particular flavour.

Taking the optimistic line first...
From GenUKI, it seems there were two chapels in St Neot parish.
(1) The Bible Christian Chapel at Trenant. From the (now disappeared) Hugh Wallis batch lists, baptisms here are on the IGI from 1820 to 1837, so assuming you've already tried the IGI, you can probably rule that one out.
(2) The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, in the village itself. There is a "Cornwall Legacy" CD available from Parish Chest which, if you are lucky might contain your man. See this page on the Parish Chest site, and scroll down to "Liskeard Wesleyan Circuit (Vol 1)" - that is the one that is an obvious possibility, as that circuit included St Neot, but...
...it starts in 1834, so if you have "around 1833" you would have to hope that they didn't rush along to have him baptised straight away.

Taking the pessimistic view, if he doesn't show up in that, then it's anyone's guess - many nonconformists travelled miles to go to their favourite chapel, so although he may be born in St Neot, if there's a surviving record at all, it could be in the register of another chapel, in Liskeard, in Bodmin, in any of the villages near St Neot, or even miles away on the other side of Bodmin Moor!