The Bishop of Stepney
Since
1895 the Diocese of London has had a suffragan, or area, Bishop of
Stepney, responsible for East London. From 1879-88 William Walsham How [pictured] was
suffragan Bishop of Bedford (prior to the creation of the diocese of St
Alban's), who performed a similar function - he is mentioned on
several of our history pages. He then became first Bishop of Wakefield.
He wrote the hymn For all the saints.
From 1898 to 1923 there was also a Bishop of Islington, who was also Rector of St Andrew Undershaft in the City - Charles Henry Turner, previously Rector of this parish; but no successor was ever appointed.
The roll-call is a distinguished one:
 George Forrest Browne (1895-97), later Bishop of Bristol - and also a pioneer explorer of the ice caves of France and Switzerland |  Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram (1897-1901), later Bishop of London for 38 years (biography by S.C. Carpenter 1949) |   Cosmo Gordon Lang (1901-09), later Archbishop of York and Canterbury | Henry Luke Paget
(1909-19), previously suffragan Bishop of Ipswich - but claimed to be
much happier in urban ministry; later Bishop of Chester. His brother
Francis was Bishop of Oxford 1901-11. J.C. Pringle, later Rector of St George-in-the-East, served his title under Paget. | Henry Mosley
(1919-28), whose previous ministry was in the local area - Bethnal
Green, Hackney, Stoke Newington. He was then Bishop of Southwell* until
his death in 1948. His daughter Dame Betty Ridley was a Church Commissioner and a leading advocate for women's ordination. * In a farewell letter to East London churches he wrote I will not attempt to tell you what a heartache it gives me to think of leaving East London after 37 years.....It was a hard decision to make. Last March, when you presented me with that beautiful motor-car, I looked forward to using it in East London for many a day to come. But that is not to be, and the car will now become a most treasured farewell gift from you all. |
| Charles Edward Curzon (1928-36), who previously served in Sheffield diocese, and was later Bishop of Exeter until 1949; he died in 1954. | Robert Hamilton Moberly
(1936-52), a scholar and protegé of his predecessor Paget, and a member
of a distinguished clerical family; later Dean of Salisbury until his
death in 1978 |  Joost de Blank (1952-57), raised in the Dutch Reformed Church; worked for the Student Christian Movement; as Archbishop of Cape Town from 1957-63 was known as the 'scourge of apartheid' |  Francis Evered Lunt (1957-68), previously Dean of Bristol; a supporter of Cicely Saunders' hospice movement; died 1982 - sometimes nicknamed 'Evered the Unready' |  Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston CR (1968-78), later Bishop of Mauritius, and Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean: a tireless campaigner against apartheid, and author of Naught for your Comfort |
 James (Jim) Lawton Thompson (1978-91), later of Bath and Wells, and a well-known broadcaster |  Richard John Carew Chartres (1992-95), currently Bishop of London |  John Tucker Mugabe Sentamu (1996-2002), later Bishop of Birmingham and currently Archbishop of York |  Stephen John Oliver (2003-), our current bishop |
More
important than their distinction,
though, has been their commitment to the communities of the East End,
with their very particular joys and sorrows. Although Bishop Curzon
moved out of the area to a house in Bedford Square WC1 (on the grounds
that this was 'more central and accessible'), most of his successors
believed it was vital to live in the East End, and 400 Commercial Road
(the former parsonage house of one of our district churches) was their
home for a time, before they moved further east.
In 1962 the Arts Council had mounted a major exhibition on Hawksmoor - a stage towards his 'rehabilitation' - and in 1977 Kerry Downes, author of both the standard and popular books on Hawksmoor (1959 and 1969) curated a large display at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. This was criticised by some for failing to set his masterpieces in the context of urban renewal in the East End - at that time both Christ Church Spitalfields and St Anne Limehouse were vulnerable. One critic wrote St George-in-the-East ....is well looked after and the modern interior seems open at all times during the day and loved. Its gaunt and magnificent exterior rises above the dereliction and desolation of The Highway and Cable Street - great wastes of vacant land and, now, brutal housing estates going up.
This promoted the following letter in The Times (20 April 1977) by Bishop Trevor and Sir John Betjeman:
In his excellent article on 'Hawksmoor's Neglected Churches' Paul Overy....goes on to plead for an examination of "the place that these great majestic hulks of stone should play in a revitalised human environment in East London". It is certainly an irony that three of these great monuments should stand in Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. This is an issue of national significance and it is becoming more urgent every day.... By a strange irony the Church of St George-in-the-East benefited most from the greatest disaster; from having been gutted in the 'blitz' in 1941, it received a large enough sum in war damage to provide for its restoration. It is a splendid parish church with a crypt large enough to make a first class community centre. But both Christ Church and St Anne's are a different case altogether. Because of their sheer magnificence of scale their renovation and restoration today demand financial resources quite beyond the capacity of the local Christian community. And, indeed, it is exceeding doubtful whether the expenditure of vast sums on buildings, however splendid, can possibly today be regarded as a priority by the Church of England as a whole. It seems to us that the time has come for a direct appeal to the nation to save these glorious churches for posterity. We believe that such an appeal in Jubilee Year would meet with a wide and generous response. It would demonstrate unequivocally that we regard the question of urban renewal as a matter of first importance to our country. It would give fresh impetus to aesthetic and cultural priorities in Dockland redevelopment. And - since w e are speaking of churches - it would demonstrate our concern as a nation for the preservation and the revitalisation of those values upon which our civilisation is built. |