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History of the parish

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

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After Queen Anne (1702-14) came to the throne, under the terms of the Acts of Settlement designed to ensure the Protestant succession, and the Tories took power after 22 years of Whig rule, a New Churches in London & Westminster Act of 1710/1711 was passed, establishing a Commission to build fifty new churches in populous districts. The agenda was as much political as pious, to control the working classes with imposing edifices towering over their homes and reminding them of the national religion - especially needed, it was believed, in the East End where immigration was taking hold and there were many dissenting conventicles. They were to be funded from a tax on coal - in theory, an infinite budget, but only twelve (including St George-in-the-East) were ever completed. All ran way over budget, and the scheme came to an end. There is much more about the architectural rationale, and Nicholas Hawksmoor the architect of six of these churches, on the CHURCH & CHURCHYARD page.

When the church opened in 1729, parts of 'Wapping-Stepney' were still semi-rural, with open fields, but the area was beginning to develop. HERE is Roque's map of 1746. Merchants who were building houses nearby, or came from further afield, attended church in their carriages, and access into the church was socially segregated. The local trades were ship-rigging and rope-making, of which names like Cable Street and Ropewalk Gardens are a reminder - Cable Street was once the length of the standard cable measure, 600 feet [180m]. From the middle of the century hovels appeared in the marshlands behind Pennington Street, which soon became wholly built over. By 1780 there were 300 houses; by 1800, an average of 500-600 baptisms (rising to over 1,000 two decades later, before daughter churches were built), and 400-600 burials a year. 

Early church records are mainly concerned with routine matters of parochial administration, with occasional power struggles among the laity. There were various offices of responsibility for local government to which men were elected - sometimes against their will, for business or religious reasons, in which case they paid a fine to be exempted. From the upper ranks of society were elected councilmen, aldermen, overseers for the poor, vestrymen and churchwardens; from the lower and middling ranks constables, sidesmen, collectors for the poor and scavengers (responsible for keeping the street clean). Edward Scott was elected Scavenger for the upper division of the parish in 1732, and Thomas Saunders of the lower division in 1748. The first organist, appointed in 1738, was John James, formerly of St Olave Southwark and possibly a trumpeter in the King's Musick. He was a star performer and noted extemporiser, whose voluntaries were taken up by other organists (one of them taken for Handel's work) - though he had his wilder side, enjoying bull-baiting and dog fights, and was addicted to spiritous liquors of the coarsest kind. He died in 1745.

On Sunday 1 October 1738 John Wesley preached at the morning and afternoon services at the church - see HERE for some details of the history of Methodism in the parish.

In 1781 the Middlesex Society 'for educating poor children in the Protestant Religion, and for Clothing them' was created, and in 1784 set up a charity school for 100 children in New Road [now Cannon Street Road]. One guinea annually, or a single payment of ten guineas, constituted a governor who was entitled to nominate a child. By his will of 1828, William Game further endowed the school. However, four years later the trustees were having to draw on capital; they held a fundraising dinner at the Mermaid Tavern, Hackney at which some of the children were paraded: their neat, clean and healthy appearance was very gratifying (British Magazine October 1832). See CHRIST CHURCH WATNEY STREET for the school's later history.

There were two early medical charities (unconnected with the church):


gunmakersAnother survival from this period is the Gunmakers' Company Proof House at 46-50 Commerical Road, rebuilt in 1757 after damage caused by explosions. (The Gunmakers are an ancient City livery company but were wisely banished from the City because of their hazardous work.) The East End has long and varied connections with firearms!

Click HERE for details of the Rectors and Lecturers of this period, and here for a 1795 account of the church, churchyard and other places of worship in the parish. A fascinating article by Diana Markarill appears in The Ephemerist, no.148 (Spring 2010), based on the churchwardens' acounts for the late 18th and early 19th centuries, for work on the bells and organ, the payment of women for pew-opening duties and washing and mending linen, and for various entertainments.Horwood's map of London (1792-99) is available here and provides excellent detail.

HERE is an account of the development of the Goodman's Fields area, and HERE of Rosemary Lane [Royal Mint Street]

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

newmintGower's Walk Free School was founded in 1808 - its story is told HERE. Laurie and Whittle's map of 1809 is HERE, and Crutchley's map thirty years later is HERE.

In 1809 the Royal Mint [pictured] moved from the Tower to buildings designed by Robert Smirke in East Smithfield (production was transferred to Wales in 1975). This was formerly the site of Mount Grace Abbey (sometimes known as Eastminster); after the dissolution of the monasteries, ships' biscuits were made here, and in 1654 (when the diarist Samuel Pepys was working for the Navy) it became the main London Victualling Office, with brewery and slaughterhouse and offices, occupying 5 acres. It was incorporated into the Admiralty Board in 1832.

1811 saw the notorious Ratcliff Highway murders, described HERE, including reaction to the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829.

 In 1820 the Unitarian minister William Johnson Fox married ('misguidedly', as it turned out) Eliza Florance at St George's and used his case in promoting a Dissenters' Marriage Bill to end the requirement for nonconformists to marry in Anglican churches. He was minister of South Place Chapel, Finsbury (originally, and again in later years, the Universalist 'South Place Ethical Society') from 1817-64, a journalist, campaigner and social reformer and MP for Oldham from 1847-63. 

HERE is a description of the elaborate funeral procession in 1824 for the vicar of Tottenham, who was buried here in a family vault near the west door. It contrasts sharply with the very basic arrangements for most parishioners' funerals!

The early 19th century saw the rise of small local 'friendly societies' - originally pub-based drinking clubs that organised mutual welfare by 'passing the hat', they became more organised through formal subscriptions, and later were linked to the temperance movement, and were controlled by legislation (they were the precursors of credit unions). Two that met at the George Tavern in St George's Street in the 1830s were the Eastern Burial Society and the True and Happy Friends Benefit Society.

The height of the parish's prosperity was in the 1820's - the Revd Joseph Nightingale in London and Middlesex (1815) describing Cannon Street [as it then was] as a double line of good houses - after which massive poverty and deprivation took hold. Rapid social change was triggered by the expansion of shipping, with its associated trades. London Docks changed the face of Shadwell and Wapping. They were begun in 1802 (Lord Sidmouth, First Lord of the Treasury, laying the foundation stone on 26 June of that year), and almost immediately enlarged, at a cost of £3m. Vessels had to use the Docks if they were bring tobacco or rice not of East or West India growth, or wine or spirits; other cargoes could unload elsewhere. Specialist warehouses, and other trades, including the smelly SUGAR-REFINING that employed over 1,000 German workers, sprang up. The docks brought incomers from many other nations - Greeks, Malays, Dutch, Scandinavians, Portuguese, Spanish and French. Dock workers were poorly paid (5d. an hour) and poorly housed. Boarding houses, taverns and saloons brought crime. When Brian King became Rector in 1842, there were said to be 154 brothels in the parish. Railways also began to criss-cross the area.

Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced nationally from 1 July 1837, and many churches saw a major blip in baptisms in the preceding days, because parents wanted to avoid the new system, and had got the false impression that baptisms would in future cost 7s 6d, because the Registrar would need to be present. (At Manchester Collegiate Church, now the Cathedral, and in those days the sole parish for the city, there were a staggering 7,285 baptisms that year.) At St George-in-the-East there were 125 baptisms on 25 June, 149 on 28 June and 163 on 30 June (compared with 105 for all the preceding weeks) - see HERE for more details of how this was handled! (A 1s. or 1/6d. fee for baptism - or at least, for registration and the clerk's attendance - was common at the time despite being counter to church teaching that the sacraments should be available without charge; fees were made illegal by the Baptism Fees Abolition Act 1872.)

Although the main provision for seafarers' needs was centred in the Dock Street area - see the EPISCOPAL FLOATING CHURCH page - St George-in-the-East set up two institutions: a Sailors' Rest Asylum (described on the TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHAPEL page)  and, from 1829, a Sailors' Orphan Girls Episcopal School and Asylum at 29 Cannon Street Road. Here forty orphans were taught and clothed, twenty of them resident and wholly provided for. The instruction given is purely scriptural, the Bible being the basis of all; the children are trained in the principles of the Established Church, and, as far as possible, in such moral and domestic habits as are likely to fit them for respectable service. Ten shillings and sixpence annual, or five guineas donation, constitute a governor - with the right to nominate residents. This system may strike us as open to abuse, but it remained the norm for such institutions for much of the century, and arguably provided a form of local accountability.

Civil relief and administration

The 1831 census (and clerical directories for this period) gave the population as 38,505, and poor relief expenditure for 1833-35 was £17,706 or 9s  2s per ratepayer. In 1836, the parish was constituted as a Poor Law parish under the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, administered by 18 elected Guardians. They took over responsibility for the parish workhouse, built at least ten years earlier between Prusom Street and Princes Street [now Raine Street] in Wapping, and authorised £2,000 for its extension. By 1847 the population was 47,362 but expenditure was slightly down - £16,474.  Here and here are the two parts of an 1866 newspaper article describing the experience of a 'female casual' in the workhouse. [In 1925 St George-in-the-East joined Stepney Poor Law Union; five years later the London County Council took over the building and it became St George-in-the-East Hospital; it closed in 1956 and was demolished in 1963. Its records for 1930-56 are at the Royal London Hospital Archives & Museum.] The Guardians also operated a 'casual ward' for vagrants in Raymond Street, off Green Bank, in Wapping. In 1851 they built an industrial school for 150 boys, 120 girls and 80 infants in Green Lane, Plashet, for which the church provided a chaplain; it closed in 1927.

 In 1844 the Association for Promoting Cleanliness among the Poor  built baths and a laundry for the 'destitute poor' in Glasshouse Yard [now John Fisher Street], which was used by 27,662 bathers and 35,480 washers in its first year. Bathers and washers paid one penny, ironers a farthing. The Association also provided whitewash, and lent buckets and pails. Its success led to an Act of Parliament in 1846 'To encourage the Establishment of Baths and Wash-houses', funded from the rates. See HERE for the major part that William Quekett, Lecturer and Curate of the parish, played in this, arguing that it was both philanthropic and would in the long term bring savings to ratepayers. However, in 1850 the Vestry passed a resolution objecting to the establishment of further facilities in the parish.

tollgate1871Local government in London was chaotic, with various self-selected boards and committees responsible for poor relief, highways and sewerage. For instance, there were 136 Commissioners for Sewers for the Tower Hamlets, with an office in Alie Street. Pictured is the tollgate at the junction of Cannon Street Road and Commerical Road, around 1870.

There were many fires in the area, but firefighting was unco-ordinated: parishes had their own engines, as did insurance companies. See HERE for a note on the development of the London Fire Brigade.

royalmarriage1874The main authority was the Public Vestry, elected each Easter by ratepayers.  Sir Benjamin Hall's Metropolis Management Act of 1855 swept these away and created a Select Vestry (chaired by the incumbent) and Boards for each parish. In 1856 the High Court dealt with a dispute between the new Vestry and London Docks over the rate levied on the Docks for street paving. St George's Town Hall on CABLE STREET was originally the Vestry Hall, built in 1861 at a cost of £6,000. Pictured is a ticket for a dinner held there in 1874 to mark the Duke of Edinburgh's marriage. Some local streets still bear members' names: for example, of Frederick Dellow (Overseer) and William Stutfield JP (trustee), both of whom lived in St George Street.  [The 1899 London Government Act replaced Vestries with 28 Borough Councils, when the new Stepney Borough Council took over the building as a local Town Hall; it is now used for a variety of local projects.] 

It was the Vestry that elected churchwardens for the parish each year, and could be 'packed' to secure the appointment of wardens hostile to the church and Rector, as happened regularly in the coming years, particularly when BRYAN KING was Rector. [Even though Parochial Church Councils were created by the 'Enabling Act' of 1919, churchwardens are still technically appointed by residents of the parish rather than church members, though these days this is mainly a technicality.] 

Under the 1855 Act, Medical Officers of Health were appointed for each District.The Registrar General published weekly, monthly and annual Tables of births and deaths, classified by causes - see HERE for the 1858 categories. ('Bills of Mortality' had been published in London since the late 16th century.) For example, in the first quarter of 1858 in the St George-in-the-East District there were 55 deaths from measles, 12 from scarlatina, 45 from whooping cough, 2 from diarrhœa and 7 from typhus; 26 men and 39 women died in the parish workhouse. See here for the full figures. It was the only district where the rate of deaths from scarlet fever fell between 1851-60 and 1861-70. Between 1854-55 the quality of water provided by the various companies was monitored, and reported to the General Board of Health (Medical Council) - this was to become significant in checking the spread of cholera, which had previously been thought to be transmitted by air rather than water ( see Steven Johnson The Ghost Map (Penguin 2008) for an imaginative account of this issue). Two samples from the East London Company produced the following scary results:

water4, Dock Street.—Collected 14th December 1854, by Mr. Wildbore.
The quantity of sediment deposited from this water was rather considerable, and consisted principally of organic matter intermixed with numerous gritty particles; the number of living organic productions contained in it was large, and included several species and genera of infusoria, and the same of desmideæ and diatomaceæ. The infusoria embraced the ordinary genera, as monas, coleps, paramecium, oxytricha, and polyarthra, together with one or two annelidaæ. Amongst the desmideaæ noticed were fronds of desmidium hexaceros, and amongst the diatomaceæ frustules and threads of meloseira varians and fragellaria capucina, frustules of pleurosigma, cocconema, and different species of synedra. In addition to these productions there were the usual species of fungi, that with slender threads and the yellow branched stalks (the quantity of this last being considerable), pieces of vegetable tissue, and fragments of granular organic debris.

1, Back Church Lane, Whitechapel.—Collected 13th December 1854, by Mr. Wildbore.
The sediment deposited from this sample was rather considerable, and about equal to that from the previous water. The same productions were likewise met with, but in addition a few others were observed, including two or three rotiferæ, frustules of diatoma vulgare, synedra ulna, and cymbella cuspidata, together with threads of meloseira varians and fragillaria capucina, and a few of the brown festooned sporules. The quantity of dead and decaying organic matter which was infested with the slender fungus was considerable.

The population of the civil district of St George-in-the-East given in the 1861 census was 48,961, of whom 31,106 (65.58%) were born locally, 4004 (8.19%) in Ireland, and 2,361 (4.83%) in 'foreign parts'. One of the three parish rate collectors, appointed in 1866, was William Cooke, who also had been paid £7.10s a year to clean the church windows, and had been the sexton (and possibly also parish clerk) at the time of the RITUALISM RIOTS (see below). He lived at 17 Cannon Street. Sadly, in 1871 he was admitted to Colney Hatch Mental Asylum (later Friern Hospital), where he died a few years later. Perhaps as a result of an undiagnosed brain tumour, his character changed - he became violent, threatening a fellow-patient with a knife, and sang 'lewd songs' of his own composition. His son Walter Ambrose Cooke was  placed in Dr Barnardo's home in Radcliff Highway, and at the Infant Orphan Asylum in Wanstead, and went on to the Bluecoat School; he bacame a successful businessman who married an heiress to the Manor of Bepton (changing his surname to Fleming to gain an inheritance). A family member recalls him visiting his mother in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce to check that she really did need a new mattress before he handed over the money to buy it. (We are grateful to William Cooke's great-granddaughter Jenny Crawford for these details.)

Linked to the new public health provisions were slum clearance powers. Under the 'Torrens Acts' (the Artisans and Labourers' Dwellings Act 1868, amended 1879 and 1882 - resulting in the curious 'short' title 'Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act (1868) Amendment Act (1868) Amendment Act (1882)' owners could be forced to demolish individual dwellings - though the provisions for rehousing that would have given it 'teeth' failed to get through Parliament. Under the 'Cross Acts' (the Artisans and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1876, amended 1879 and 1882) whole areas could be compulsorily cleared. But the St George-in-the-East Vestry was among a number of local authorities that, for various reasons, made little or no use of these powers. However, see HERE for details of the Whitechapel Estate, a major '5% philanthropy' scheme just outside the civil parish (and now within the ecclesiastical parish), promoted by the Metropolitan Board of Works and the Peabody Trust, and HERE for the adjacent Katharine Buildings project in Cartwright Street, creating housing for those beyond the reach of other providers.

The legislation was consolidated as Parts I and II of the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act.

The age of buildings

Although the parish was geographically small (just 244 acres), by the mid-19th century it had become densely populated, and much energy went into building, or taking over from other denominations, additional churches - some of which became separate parishes. Each of them had its complement of halls, institutes, schoolrooms and other premises. Click on the links for details of each of them. This 1862 MAP shows the churches nearest to St George's.

Anglican churches or parishes founded by St George-in-the-East

Two further parishes were later incorporated into St George's parish (and the boundary with St Peter London Dock was adjusted in 1989, transferring the St Katharine's Dock area to St Peter's):

former Anglican parishes which are part of the present-day parish

In the 17th and 18th century dissenters, and churches serving foreign nationals, were rather more active locally than the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church. By the middle of the 19th century that had changed; in answer to the question posed in 1851 Are there may Dissenters in your parish? Bryan King observed (though how accurately?) There are not many DIssenters; in fact, the people are too poor to support either Dissenters or any teachers without extraneous aid. However, there had been a bewildering variety of such places of worship in the parish, chronicled here:

(former) churches of other denominations
  • DANISH CHURCH (1692-1824), Wellclose Square - which then housed a succession of nondenominational mariners missions
  • and then became St Saviour & St Cross Mission Chapel - see above
  • SWEDISH CHURCH (1729-1911), Swedenborg Gardens
  • GERMAN CHURCHES: St George's Lutheran Church (1763- ), Alie Street - now the home of the Historic Chapels Trust;  St Paul's Reformed Church (1696-1941), Hooper Street; German Wesleyan Church
  • various BAPTIST chapels
  • various INDEPENDENT / PRESBYTERIAN / CONGREGATIONALIST chapels
  • METHODIST chapels, including St George's Wesleyan Church whose burial ground is now part of St George's Gardens, and the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel (see above)
  • Roman Catholic Churches: English Martyrs (1876- ), Prescott Street  (The major local Roman Catholic Church, St Mary & St Michael, lies outside the parish. Lithuanian Catholics ran St Casimir's mission church on the corner of Christian Street and Cable Street from 1901 to 1912, when it moved to its present site at The Oval, Hackney Road.)
  • other NON-DENOMINATIONAL missions and projects

There are also pages about the history and growth of various areas of the parish:


 At the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851* (when Dr Worthington, incumbent of Trinity Church, Gray's Inn Road, offered to conduct services, if required, in the Greek, Latin, French or Italian tongues) a booklet of service times throughout London was published by Sampson Low. It lists the services for this parish as

George's, St., in the East, parish church. Between 9 and 10, Cannon street. Revs. B. King, rector; W. Quekett, lecturer. 11, morning ; 3½, afternoon. Lord's supper, first Sunday in month. 

Christ Church, Watney street, Commercial road, East. Revs. W. Quekett, incumbent; G. Mockler, curate. 11, morning; 3½, afternoon; 6½, evening. Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saints' days, 11, morning. Lord's supper, last Sunday in month — Seats to be had of Mr. C. J. Osborne, 18, Cannon street.

St. Mary's, Johnson street, Commercial road east. Rev. W. M'Call, incumbent. 11, morning ; 6½, evening. Thursdays, 7, evening. Lord's supper, first Sunday in month, after morning service; third ditto, 8¼, morning. There is also a service on the fourth Sunday in month, 3, afternoon. — Seats to be had after the Thursday service. 

St. Matthew's Episcopal Chapel, Pell street, St. George street, near Wellclose square. Rev. D. Moore, minister. 11, morning; 6½, evening. Lord's supper, second Sunday in month. — Seats may be had of Mr. Butler, 42, Wellclose square. 

Trinity Episcopal Chapel, Cannon street road. Rev. H. Robbins, incumbent. 11, morning; 6½, evening. Wednesdays, 7, evening. Lord's supper, third Sunday in month.— Seats to be had of the chapelwarden.

[* In 1857 William Quekett, who had served energetically in this parish but was by then the Vicar of Warrington, organised a grand railway excursion from there to London to see the sights, including the Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition, by then relocated to Sydenham - you can read about it HERE.] 

The first-ever nationwide census of religious attendance was conducted on Mothering Sunday 1851; HERE are the figures for the borough of Tower Hamlets, with some comments.

In 1859 there were 467 marriages in the registration district of St George-in-the-East: 281 in the Church of England, 172 Roman Catholic, 7 in other Christian churches and 7 under the auspices of the Superintendent Registrar. 

Ritualism Riots, 1859-60

The one thing many people know about St George-in-the-East is that there were riots in church over matters of ritual and ceremonial. It is an extraordinary tale, which has been extensively written about; you can find a summary HERE. We are currently marking the 150th anniversary of the riots with a programme of events.

Parish Life after 1860

After the riots, things calmed down. Ironically, since those days worship at St George's has been of a 'central' character, alongside our high and low church neighbours!  The pattern of Sunday worship in 1875 was as follows (see also Dickens' Directory of London for 1879). Weekday Matins at 11am was a pattern in other parishes at this period - and often well-attended. Note the inclusion of 'surplice in pulpit', in the light of the Ritualism Riots......
Services Sunday HC 8.00, 1st S and greater festivals, 11.45, M 11.00, E with churchings 3.00, E with baptism 4.15, E 7.00;
Daily, M 11.00; Festivals M 11.00, HC am. Choir, partly paid. Music, Anglican. Surplice in pulpit. Seats 1200, all free. Offertory, at each service.

Schools

A major change came with the 1870 Education Act, which created local School Boards (elected by ratepayers: significantly, women were eligible, and a number were elected in London). They were empowered to build elementary schools (5-12 years) 'on the rates' - a member of St George's Vestry protested in 1876 at the level of expenditure. Parents still paid fees - unless they were very poor. Religious education was on a 'non-denominational' basis (the result of the then-controversial 'Cowper-Temple clause'). Boards could also provide subsidies to church schools.
lowerchapmanstreetboardschoolIn the next quarter-century, several schools were built in the parish (some for over 1,000 children) to cater for the huge child population; some had rooftop playgrounds. Some of the clergy supported this programme; others did not, because it reduced their influence (see HERE for the comments of H.C. Dimsdale on the building of Betts Street Board School). In 1904 the London County Council's education department took over the functions of the School Boards, adding responsibility for secondary schooling. It had a proud record, until its abolition in 1965.

childfoundChurch and community

181thehighwayexteriorWithin the parish, work continued with the parish workhouse and infirmary, and the poor law schools. By 1870, for the first time, the district was classed as one of the five poorest in London. But the St George-in-the-East Poor Law Guardians - like their counterparts in Stepney and Whitechapel - virtually ceased making 'out-relief' payments (as opposed to 'in-relief' - the workhouses). This was partly because of the growing influence of the CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY which pressed for more targeted assistance.

 In 1883 St George's Mission House at 136 St George's Street [later renumbered 181 The Highway] was built at the cost of £5000 [pictured left - interior HERE] - a susbstantial building on three floors with acommodation above. You can still see the headstone of the rear door in the wall by the church. There was also a small parish room built on the rear of the Rectory.

In 1891, at the time when ST MATTHEW PELL STREET closed, Tait Street Mission Room was built at a cost of £1050, of which £918 had been raised by the time of its OPENING by Princess Helene Frederica Augusta, Duchess of Albany. (Tait Street, just beyond the railway to the east of Cannon Street Road, was named after Archibald Campbell Tait, Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury, who had visited the area during cholera epidemics - though had done little to help the parish through the Ritualism Riots.)

At the opening ceremony of Tait Street Mission Room the Rector said
The room ... may be regarded as a daughter mission room to the larger one [on The Highway] ..... In the organisation of the parish it will take the place of an Arch of the Blackwall Railway where for the last two years a successful mission work has been carried on. This arch is now required for the purposes of the Railway and it has been necessary to find other quarters for the mission. The Walburgh Street Arch is not given up without regret, for there are many who have cause to remember with much thankfulness its happy success; but it must be confessed that a Railway Arch with its constant noise of trains rumbling overhead and with its cold draughtiness is not a convenient place either for services or for meetings, and there is every reason to hope that the good work will be continued with even an increased success in the Tait Street Mission Room ....

As in many parishes, formal missions were organised (though Harry Jones, Rector 1873-82, had reservations). In the major London-wide mission of 1884-5, the missioners appointed for St George-in-the-East were the Revd W.M. Sinclair, Vicar of St Stephen Westminster; for Christ Church, The Revd S.L. Lach-Szyrma of St Peter Newlyn, Penzance (member of a clerical family with Polish roots); and for St John the Evangelist-in-the-East, The Rev E. Bickersteth, Rector of Framlingham, and the Hon and Rev R. E. Adderley, Curate of All Hallows Barking (both from famous clerical families, and experienced mission speakers). HERE is a card for a mission at St George's in 1893.

In 1888 the British Weekly conducted a London-wide census of attendance at places of worship; unlike that of 1851, it did not include Sunday School scholars. HERE are the figures for the churches within the civil district of St George-in-the-East (wider than the parish). It records attendances at the parish church of 292 in the morning and 425 in the evening.

There are various contemporary accounts of parish life: In addition, HERE are details of the clergy for 1860-1900. But who are THESE folk on the steps of the church? And who went to the Turkish baths at 75 Cannon Street Road (1865-69)? This seems to have been an unlucky site: the previous tenant, fruiterer James Hurley, was declared bankrupt in 1865, as was a later tenant, Gover & Co, leather sellers, in 1881.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

sleight2sleight1We entered the new century with three churches - St George-in-the-East, Christ Church Watney Street and St John-in-the-East Golding Street. All were kept busy, with a full range of parish clubs, societies and organisations, and buildings to match, including St George's Mission House, and Tait Street Mission Room. 

An interview with R.W. Harris (Rector 1897-1903) in the Charles Booth archive [B222, pages 150-179] details many of these parish organisations, and reports on the 'invalid kitchen', and the initiative of 'St George-in-the-East Window Garden Society' - a recognition that a windox box rather than a garden was the closest many came to nature. In 1906 the winner of the annual competition was the ten-year old Harry Sleight, who lived at 1 Redmead Lane, Wapping all his life until he was moved out by Docklands redevelopment in the late 1970s. He was presented with an inscribed silver pocket watch, which he treasured all his life, as does his family - it is still in good working order [with thanks to his grandson Geoffrey for these pictures].

In 1903 Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, visited the parish for a sale of work and garden exhibition.

queenalexandra2 queenalexandra3 queenalexandra4 queenalexandra1


cannonstreetroad1cannonstreetroad2In the time of F. St J. Corbett (Rector 1903-19) Tait Street Mission remained active, with a men's meeting on Sundays at 4pm and a children's service at 8.30pm, as well as weekday activities. There was a 'lady worker', Miss Emily FitzHardinge Berkeley, living at the Rectory - more details HERE.

Here is a description of life in various parts of the parish in 1911, and here are pictures of Cannon Street Road - then heavily Irish - about the same time. 

Services at this period were as follows:
Holy Communion every Sunday 8am & 12 noon, Greater Festivals also at 7am, Thursday 8.30am, Saints' Days 10am
Matins Sunday & Monday 11am, other days 10am
Evensong Sunday 6.30pm, Weekdays 8pm (with sermon on Wednesdays)
Holy Baptism Sunday 3.45pm & Wednesday 7.30pm    Churching of Women before or after any service
Sunday School 10am & 3pm

However, despite a full round of activities the parish was seriously struggling: numerically (as the area became more Jewish in population), financially, and pastorally. See the Rector's extremely revealing confidential REPORT of 1914 to the Bishop of Stepney (plus the published accounts for 1915), which candidly sets out the difficulties. According to Mr Corbett, the Bishop claimed not to be aware of the extent of the lay team, or of the problems they faced. And, as was still common, the Rector had to pay the curate from his own stipend; unlike his predecessor, he did not have a 'private' income.

chaplainThe First World War and its aftermath

Then came the Great War. Clergy left to serve as chaplains on the front [pictured is one from our parish - we're not sure who!] There they discovered (though those who had served in the East End surely knew already) how tenuous were the links of soldiers with the Christian faith: the church needed to change. (See Alan Wilkinson The Church of England and the First World War SCM 1996). Our churches struggled: particularly in the last two years of the war, numbers of baptisms and weddings fell sharply. In the post-war years various national initiatives to 're-connect' were made - for example, the National Mission of Repentance and Hope, first launched in 1916, with William Temple as its secretary. It was also the time of massive expansion of council housing, to provide 'homes fit for heroes' in new outer suburbs; the population became more mobile. And it was a time when the way the Church of England conducted its business changed, with the introduction of what we now call synodical government: see HERE for more details.

When J.C. Pringle was appointed Rector in 1919, although the range of clubs and activities (particularly for girls) continued, with new ones for children and adults added in the next few years, congregational numbers remained low - see HERE for more details. The bishop was not prepared to license a curate to the parish; instead, a succession of women workers was appointed. Repairs to the church, including the installation of electric lighting (partly funded by the sale by faculty of some historic CHURCH PLATE), delayed the installation of a war memorial until 1924 - see HERE for details of the memorial, and the subsequent keeping of Armisticetide. There is more about Pringle's ministry HERE, and his connections with the CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY);  and HERE are some of his forthright, and often startling, opinions from the parish magazine.

Pringle's successor in 1925 was C.J. Beresford, who as Warden of the SPCK College in Commerical Road was already well-known in the parish: had frequently provided 'cover' here during Pringle's absences, both for the main Sunday services and for baptisms. He had a wide circle of former students who assisted in the parish. Unlike Pringle, he was allowed a curate, as well as a parish worker. He was also a musician - the founder of the Stepney Orpheus Choir: see HERE for details of the musical life of the parish, and arrangements for the bicentenary in 1929. There is more on Beresford's life and ministry HERE. 

Some further extracts from the parish magazine 1923-34 can be found here:
The pattern of services in the 1920s and 30s remained 'central' in tradition, with various small changes made over the period: 
Holy Communion every Sunday 8am, & 12 noon on all [later third only] Sundays; choral at 11.30am following shortened Mattins on the first Sunday; Tuesdays and Holy Days 7am, Thursdays 8am
Holy Baptism Sunday 4pm & Wednesday 7.30pm      Churching of Women before or after any service  
Matins Sunday 11am, most weekdays 8am                   Evensong Sunday 6.30pm, Wednesday 8pm [with address], most other weekdays 6pm
Sunday School 3pm [with the introduction of a Children's Service on the fourth Sunday]


wardens1937ladywintertonThe Turnour family, of Shillinglee Park near Godalming in Surrey, were major landowners in the parish, owning several hundred houses, including the Chapman Street estate, which produced rents of £15,000 a year before the War. Jane, Richard and Anthony Streets are named after children of the family. Edward Turnour (Viscount Winterton from 1907-62) was a Conservative minister, member of 'The Other Club' and staunch supporter of Winston Churchill. Pictured left is Lady Winterton on an inter-war visit to Tiltman Street. (She was too ill to attend the dedication of the War Memorial in 1924 - see the report HERE.)

Pictured right are Miss E K Palmer and Mr J Day, churchwardens for 1937. Miss Palmer had been Superintendent of the Sunday School for several years, and a key figure in the parish. Female wardens were not yet common in the Church of England - but we were becoming a progressive parish!

shadwellfamilySydney Maddocks wrote wistfully in 1933 
Over the parish in our days hangs an atmosphere of depression that things should be as they are, which is broken only for some rare moments, such as when the mean streets have a certain wistfulness in the softening grey haze of a late autumnal afternoon. Then the lofty tower of St. George’s Church, which has seen two centuries of life’s vicissitudes, hushes red in the kindly glow of the sun in the west, telling worker and the workless of the departure of another day.  (Co-Partnership Herald, vol.2, no.24)

Politics became more volatile throughout the period, with widespread unemployment in the 1920s leading to the General Strike [pictured left is a struggling local family in this period], and the rise of both communism and fascism, resulting in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 - see HERE for more details.

The Second World War - Blitz and Rebuilding

When the Second World War began, clergy were again in short supply, and six local parishes were grouped together; St John's was closed. On 16 April 1941 Christ Church and its vicarage were destroyed by a landmine, and St George's was gutted the next month. All remaining clergy, led by Fr Groser from Christ Church (whose story is told HERE), moved to the Rectory, where services were also held until they moved into the Mission House the following year. NORA NEAL also joined the team as a licensed lay worker during the war years. From 1942 the crypt was used (by faculty!) as an air-raid shelter. In December 1943 a prefab within the shell of the church, 'St George-in-the-Ruins' became the parish's home for the next seventeen years. HERE is an aerial view from 1960 of the bomb damage.

stgeorgeintheruins ruins1 ruins4 ruins2

cannonstreetroad1955In 1945 an Anglican Franciscan presence was established at 84 Cable Street; you can read more HERE about their work, and how this became the starting-point of Fr Ken Leech's commitment to the East End. This 1955 view looks south down Cannon Street Road from the railway bridge.

joyce1963In 1960 the congregation moved out of the prefab for the new church to be constructed. 686 coffins were moved out of the crypt and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery. The detailed story of the whole process is told HERE by the then-Rector, Alex Solomon (a good surname for a church builder!) The Rectory was located in the church, on two floors, and the parsonage house became 'The Old Rectory', let out to various tenants. (It has now been RESTORED to its original use.) HERE are some pictures of parish events of the period in the new crypt hall, and in and around the church.

Around this time the Brotherhood of Prayer and Action established a house in Cable Street and participated in parish life. This was a small lay community of working men, single and married, founded in 1960 and centred on St George's House Wolverhampton with branches elsewhere. They offered a 'ministry of concern', sharing their homes with those in need of hospitality. When on church business, they wore a cassock with a green girdle, and at other times their 'Chi-Rho' brotherhood emblem. One of their members designed and made the metal corona at the west end of the church.

This 1963 sketch, by Paul Joyce, shows the remains of buildings (including the Mission Hall) along The Highway during the period of reconstruction.

The parish of 'St George-in-the-East with Christ Church and St John' had come full circle, with all its daughter churches gone, either demolished or continuing as separate parishes. But in 1990 we became 'St George-in-the-East with St Paul' when ST PAUL DOCK STREET (which had previously incorporated ST MARK WHITECHAPEL) was added to the parish.

Details of most of the clergy who served the parish during the 20th century and beyond are HERE.
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

A changing parish

nightsky
'The King's Highway' - various schemes of the 80's, 90's and 00's
There are three separate Anglican parishes in close proximity along or close The Highway - ourselves, St Paul Shadwell and St Mary Cable Street - as well as St Peter London Docks a few hundred yards away in Wapping. 

The viability, staffing and future use of these churches was extensively considered in the 1980s, at which time we had no resident priest, but shared Julian Scharf with St Paul Shadwell (from 1979-86). In addition, the parish of St Paul Dock Street had been joined to St George-in-the-East in 1971 (in the event, worship continued there until 1990). The Stepney Area Pastoral Committee commissioned a report from the Council for the Care of Churches [now Church Buildings Council], as required under the Pastoral Measure when re-organisation is in prospect, on the historical, architectural and aesthetic significance of St George's (PM 1298 - this and many other documents from this period are held at the Church of England Record Centre in Bermondsey).  Unsurprisingly, this concluded that St George's is a building of international significance, adding that the 1960s interventions were a worthy example of the 'solutions' of that period.

distortedroofsceneA major consultation was held, and a working party set up, with a mixture of national experts and members of the parish, and chaired by Peter Burman, the Secretary of the Council for the Care of Churches - a sign of the importance of the building. Shifting worship to one of the other churches was considered - St Paul Shadwell (also a listed building, but then in poor condition), St Paul Dock Street (undistinguished, and also in poor condition) and St Mary Cable Street (with the idea that this church, of lesser architectural significance, might be rebuilt); they even mooted building a new multi-purpose church in the area of Wellclose Square. But the view prevailed that worship should continue at St George's, alongside the development of some major alternative use, for which various proposals were made and discussed, including
 But in the midst of all these discussions a resident priest (Gillean Craig) was once again appointed in 1988, and parish life continued and developed. To his and others' frustration all these proposals (including detailed plans of 1989 by Peter Renwick for a music and drama base for the Guildhall Ensemble) came to nothing.

When Gillean Craig left St George's in 2002 - and St Paul Shadwell was also vacant - a further period of questioning followed, about future staffing in relation to the deanery as a whole, and about best use of the various parish buildings, some of them very large: our church, crypt, Rectory and Church House, Wellclose Square; St Paul's Church, crypt (which at that time housed a nursery school - since relocated here), Institute and Rectory; and St Mary's church and hall. The Bishop of London (who had previously been Bishop of Stepney, so knew the area well) made it clear that he was opposed to church closure - retreat is simply not an option - and stressed that each congregation should continue, maintaining their distinctive traditions. They are very diverse: for instance, St Mary's does not accept the ministry of women priests, and uses the Roman rite: we positively affirm women priests, and are unashamedly Anglican in our liturgy - yet we work well together....

drawing06The area, said Bishop Richard, has a distinguished history of Christian service to the 'old' East End, and remains in touch with the dwindling but precious remnant of that old world; but the new facts are the rise of Islam and the embourgisement of the Thames littoral.  The Highway - connecting the City with Docklands, and encompassing the new immigrant communities as well as the new wealth - symbolises this.  The area thus provides an ideal context for ministerial education - clergy, Readers and others - through the North Thames Ministerial Training Course, in which London and Chelmsford dioceses are partners, and which needed a new home. The bishop's vision was for a 'Christian University of the Highway', encompassing our three parishes and also the Royal Foundation of St Katharine as a possible base for residential accommodation and teaching. The course is validated by Middlesex University, though he hoped it might link with the 'archetypal' church foundation of King's College London and its many facilities.

A King's Highway working group was set up, and detailed feasibility studies done of all the available buildings. From this emerged proposals for creating a 'Mission Action Zone' (MAZ), bringing together these three parishes - plus St Peter London Dock and St Dunstan Stepney which are also part of the local 'cluster' of churches - and the Royal Foundation of St Katharine. A great deal of energy was put into these discussions.

In the event, and frustratingly for some, the MAZ also came to nothing. Instead, Holy Trinity Brompton was invited to plant a new congregation at St Paul Shadwell (made up of HTB members from across East London). Offices for NTMTC were created by the diocese in the eastern end of the crypt at St George's. The nursery school moved from the crypt at St Paul's to the western end of the crypt at St George's, and the conversion work was funded by the sale of Church House, Wellclose Square to the diocese. (This remains boarded and undeveloped, following the eviction of a community artists' squat.) NTMTC also now uses its space, plus the church and part of the nursery school, for its Tuesday evening teaching sessions - beginning with a shared meal in the crypt and worship in church.  But this pattern may change with the creation of the College of St Mellitus, bringing other training providers onto the scene [see below for more about St Mellitus].

Ironically, 41 years previously Fr Ken Leech, at that stage an ordinand who had worked in the area for four years, proposed a scheme of collaborative working in 'West Stepney' similar to the one envisaged for the MAZ, which you can read HERE.

panorama

Church and Rectory
edithAs explained above, the crypt now houses the North Thames Ministerial Training Course and Green Gables Montessori Nursery. We are looking hard at how we should best use the rest of our rather complicated building to further the mission of the church and serve our community, responding to the ever-changing scene. Withion the next few months we hope to have two good rooms, each with access to kitchen and toilet facilities, available for a variety of uses.

When Gillean Graig was Rector, he restored the Rectory, with English Heritage funding. Victorian additions were removed and it became once more the finest classical parsonage house in London. In the basement flat now lives Edith Wyeth (pictured), who has lived around the church all her life (she was baptized here in 1924) and with her husband was churchwarden when the new church was consecrated. In recognition of her lifelong service to the parish, the Bishop of London made her a member of the Order of St Mellitus in 2007. St Mellitus (d.624) was the first Bishop of London, and third Archbishop of Canterbury. Canon Michael Saward, a member of our congregation, has written a HYMN about him, originally sung at St Paul's Cathedral where he was on the staff. Edith stood down as warden in 2009 after over 50 years of service, but remains closely involved in all aspects of parish life. She maintains contact with an astonishing number of people from the past, but is also full of hopes and dreams for the future!

So a good text for us to take with us into God's future for the parish is Matthew 13.52 (REB):
Jesus said, When a teacher of the law has become a learner in the kingdom of Heaven,
he is like a householder who can produce from his store things new and old.


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