When I first set my eyes on the statistics, the word 'adherent' did puzzle me. So I asked a local chapel secretary, by no means an un-intellegent person - 'I do not know that word. It is a Church term'

(Page 137) Estimates of Adherents - The number of full members of Nonconformist Churches, together with their children of all ages and the number of adult non-members who attend Nonconformist places of worship, together with their children of all ages, constitute in the aggregate what may be termed the sphere of religious influence of the Nonconformist Churches among the total population of Wales. The portion of the total population, which is thus attached more or less closely to a Nonconformist Church, may be called its 'adherents' in the 'all-inclusive' sense in which the term is used in the Calvinistic Methodist denominational statistics, and if from this 'all-inclusive' number are deducted, both the full members and also all children under a certain age, the number of 'adherents' in the particular sense adopted by the Commission in the Report, can be ascertained.