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'The world is my parish'

John Wesley (1703-91) preached often in the East End throughout his long life and ministry. According to his diary, on Sunday 1 October 1738 he was at St George-in-the-East for both the morning and afternoon services, and adds that on the following days I endeavoured to explain the way of salvation to many who had misunderstood what had been preached concerning it. He records that he was with his brother Charles in the early morning singing and reading letters. They walked together and breakfasted at Mr Parker's in Wapping at 9am. At 10am he read prayers, preached and administered holy communion at St George's; dined at Mr H's [name left blank] before returning to St George's to read the prayers, preach and baptize. His schedule for the rest of the day was full: At 4.30 at Mrs Ironmonger's, many tarried, tea, conversed, prayer; 5.30 Mr Sims' singing &c; 7.15 Mrs Sims', singing, supper, prayer; 8.45 at home, singing &c; 11 prayer, conversation; 12. 'Home' probably refers to Mr Bray's in Little Britain, where he and Charles were staying.

This was shortly after his return from the United States, and several months before he submitted to be more vile (as he put it) and follow Whitefield's example of 'field preaching' in the open air - from which point he began to attract large crowds. 

In 1742 he preached at Ratcliffe Square [now Ratcliffe Cross Street], and on ten occasions at St Paul's Shadwell. The last was on 24 October 1790, at the age of 87, five months before his death; his Journal records St Paul's Shadwell was....crowded in the afternoon, while I enforced that important truth 'One thing is needful' and I hope that many even then resolved to choose the better part.

On 4 February 1739 George Whitefield preached at St George-in-the-East. He, like Wesley, was an Anglican minister, and in some ways a fellow-founder of Methodism, responsible for the 'Great Awakening' in the United States, but they had a fundamental theological disagreement - Wesley was Arminian and Whitefield Calvinist (and so allied to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion - see below). Here is the account from his diary (as edited by Luke Tyerman in the 19th century) of a momentous day, before he returned to the USA:

* There are alternative versions of what happened here, most of them involving more confrontation, and violence, that Whitefield acknowledges, and resulting in opposition to his preaching elsewhere.

St George's Wesleyan Methodist (Centenary) Chapel 

A society of worshippers in the East End was established in 1746. In 1812 they built a chapel, to the east of where St George's Town Hall now stands in Cable Street, and the burial ground around the same time. Following the 1852 Metropolitan Burial Act which created public cemeteries, burials ceased in 1854. In 1876 the Vestry bought the burial ground for £2,700 and incorporated it into St George's Gardens.

Until the mid 19th century it was a flourishing chapel, but entered decline as the neighbourhood changed. From time to time they had to ask for some financial help from other circuits, though they did manage to install, and pay for, hot water and toilets in 1876, when G. Curnock was the minister. In 1874 the new Metropolitan Lay Mission provided a worker, to undertake district visiting; he set up a Mission Band and in 1882-3 they visited 520 houses every Sunday. He held open air services and class meetings, and set up a mothers' meeting. When the grant was withdrawn in 1884, the congregation managed to pay him for a further year. 

In the 1888 Religious Census of London, which lists Thomas Dixon as the minister, attendances were listed as 281 in the morning and 399 in the evening.

In 1885 Conference established the London Wesleyan Methodist Mission, as a response to the spiritual destitution of London highlighted in George Mearn's The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (1883) and the need for new ways of working. One controversial provision was the waiving of the normal 'itinerancy' rule that ministers should move on every three years, to enable continuity in areas where lay leadership was weak. They chose the well-nigh forlorn hope [despite the above figures!] of St George's Wesleyan Chapel as their base, and the Revd Peter Thompson was stationed here, living at 242 Cable Street. (Charles Edward Robb, living with his family in Pell Street, was the housekeeper.) Although in the coming years there was pressure for radically new patterns of mission and ministry – such as Hugh Price Hughes' Forward Movement – for the most part existing structures were retained and strengthened. The range of activities - including a Boys Brigade branch (meeting in Wellclose Square), a Dorcas Society, a girls' sewing class, a maternity society, a training home for girls, reading rooms, and the distribution of soup, coffee and clothing, as well as renewed worship - was impressive, but not new in principle. Weekly rather than quarterly collections were introduced, a quarterly morning communion was introduced for those who could not attend in the evening, and temperance work continued. Thompson was instinctively a paternalist, but he was a member of the Anti-Sweating League, and preached during the 1895 elections on 'Am I my brother's keeper?' 

A major innovation, however, was to hire secular premises as new-style mission halls, and in 1891 the Mission took over Wilton's Music Hall, whose story is told HERE. It was known as the 'Old Mahogany Mission'. For further details, see Margaret Jones, 'New Creation' in the East End Mission 1885-97, which can be downloaded here. She uses the record books, and the Mission's magazine The East End (started in 1894) as evidence.

A generation later, St George's was one of several East End missions to provide cinematographic entertainment, introduced by the Revd F.W. Chudleigh. There were few entertainments available to working-class youngsters, and motion pictures proved more popular than magic lanterns! See Luke Kernan, 'Diverting Time: London’s Cinemas and Their Audiences, 1906–1914' in The London Journal, vol.32 no.2 (July 2007). See here for details of Cable Picture Palace (1913-40), at 101-105 Cable Street.

Sister Doris, a Deaconess, came to work here in 1940, when the Revd Tom Collins was working at the Old Mahogany Bar (ironically for a Methodist, his name was that of a popular cocktail of the time!) and the Revd Edward Harland was in charge of St George's Chapel. Here are some memories of her arrival, and the following is an account of a later incident:

Most of the premises [pictured, on the left of the Town Hall] collapsed in the early 1960s, but the congregation continued to care for those in need locally, especially the homeless and dispossessed. In the 1970s, when the Revd Ronald Gibbins was the Superintendent of the East End Methodist Mission, they offered a kitchen and soup run, and medical care, and the premises were used for a film on homelessness. The Revd Eugene Moss, from Kentucky, was stationed here for a time.

The day centre building failed in 1989, and with it most sources of statutory funding and trust giving. One of their final projects, in 1992 (when Ian Hamilton was the minister) was the Cable Street Club for up to 16 latchkey kids. Eventually, the site was sold for private housing. Baptismal registers for 1812-37 and burial registers for 1828-54 are held at the Public Records Office, and baptismal registers for 1838-1910 at the London Metropolitan Archives.

Footnote: a Methodist quack
In the 1850s Richard Talbot, a schoolmaster, became a Wesleyan local preacher, but only preached one sermon, finding that the cure of bodies was more lucrative than the cure of souls. He set up as a 'Surgeon and Apothecary' in Watney Street, and later elsewhere, offering galvanism (electrical treatment that was seriously studied at the time, but also exploited by quacks, some of whom claimed it could bring the dead back to life) as a cure for toothache, rheumatism, tic douloureux, and other ailments - "Gone in a moment!" He was successfully prosecuted under the Medical Act for deception and for claiming false (German) qualifications, and fined £10.

[Primitive Methodists]

The second main split in Methodism produced Primitive Methodism, popularly known as the 'Ranters'. It brought together the followers of Hugh Bourne (who held day-long camp meetings) and William Clowes. Originally a radical, revivalist and mainly rural grouping, in time they became more 'respectable' and closer in style and politics to other branches of Methodism, with chapels alongside them in most parts of the country. They had no chapel in this parish, but their national Book Depot was moved to Sutton Street, off Commercial Road, and the 1861 model district census produced by G.H. McGill, vicar of nearby Christ Church Watney Street, lists a 'Ranters' Sunday School with 100 members, which may have met on or near these premises. Pictured is their mission on Whitechapel Road some years later.

Methodist New Connexion, Bethesda Chapel, Watney Street

The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion was (and is, for a few chapels remain, mostly in the south-east) a group of Calvinistic Methodist churches, under the personal direction of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon until her death in 1791. She liked to move ‘her’ ministers around on a regular basis! They trained at Trevecca in Wales, and then at Cheshunt. From 1773, they preached under the mulberry trees in Wapping, and in 1776 the Countess built Mulberry Gardens Chapel there, fitted up in a tasteful manner and opened using Anglican rites. Allegedly the hymn-singing was so hearty that Dr Mayo, in his nearby meeting-house, could not be heard when preaching. 

One of her ministers, appointed in 1778, was a Cornishman John Eyre, an able and well-respected preacher, who was ordained into the Anglican church the following year (not all that strange, since the Connexion did not regard itself as formally separated from the established church, and used its liturgy). He went on to serve in Chelsea and Homerton. However, he kept contact with former friends, and was a keen supporter of the London Missionary Society. Two others whom she did not appoint - despite local pressure - were William Simpson, despite his significant financial contributions to the chapel, and William Aldrige, who left the Connexion and became a Calvinistic Methodist, though remained on good terms with the Countess - he also subscribed to Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative.

Allens Brewery declined to renew the lease on this chapel when it expired (instead it was offered to Pell Street Meeting), and the congregation dispersed - some to the Countess' original chapel at Spa Fields, some to Sion Chapel, but most to Charlotte Street. When this latter building in turn was demolished to make way for the Docks, she built 'New Mulberry Garden Chapel' in Pell Street (with its main entrance in Prince's Square) in 1802. It was a simple building – a plain brick box, without even a bell-cote, and had high pews and a gallery. There was a vault below, and two further ones under the school and almshouses, which became very full and insanitary. 

As explained above, the Anglican liturgy was used in the chapel, whose minister from 1804-07 was the Rev Isaac Nicholson. He was born in Netherwasdale, Cumbria in 1761 and had been President of Lady Huntingdon's College at Cheshunt; he published a Collection of Hymns....for Mulberry Gardens Chapel in 1807. He was a noted preacher, and gave lectures every Tuesday evening. He was also an opponent of promiscuous and unscriptural communion, and instigated a system of moral examination by church leaders for admission to the sacrament. After his death in 1807 (aged 47) this and other aspects of his church governance were subject to legal challenge in the High Court of Chancery. While this was being resolved, some of the congregation transferred for a time to the Pell Street Independent Meeting, which in 1805 had taken over a former mariner's chapel twelve yards away.

(The Court of Chancery was also later involved in setting up a trust for unclaimed Nicholson family money. Some years later, one Peter Nicholson of Georgia in the USA, who lived as a miser, was discovered by a neighbour to have a large cache of dollars and slugs of Californian gold, which he guarded closely; when he died the money was never found.)

Nicholson's successor, whom he first met while convalescing from 'nervous debility' in Cumbria and brought back to London, was the Rev Robert Stodhart. He had trained at Cheshunt College, and remained minister of the chapel until 1842 (living in Islington); he died in 1846, aged 67. They continued to use the Anglican liturgy; by this time, however, church order was similar to that of the Congregationalists.

Doctrinally Stodhart was a hard-liner. The Monthly Repository of 1819 reports a spat over Wood Street Charity School, Spitalfields, and the resulting correspondence. At a managers' meeting, Stodhart proposed that the children of the school should no longer attend at the chapel, Worship Street [a General Baptist chapel in Finsbury Square which later became linked to the Unitarian Baptist cause], adding that the people assembling there denied the co-equal and co-essential Godhead of Jesus Christ, and with Unitarians would be damned to all eternity! Others supported him in less intemperate language, claiming they had monkeyed with the Assembly's Catechism (though as Neal observed in his History of the Puritans, this has by some been thought a little too long, and in some particulars too abstruse for the capacities of children!) But John Evans, the minister of Worship Street for thirty years, mounted a passionate defence; he admitted that because his chapel included paedo-baptists and adult baptists, they practised 'general communion', but he appealed for Christian charity, and Stodhart's motion was lost.

In 1830 Stodhart became one of the first committee members of 'The General Union of Trinitarian Protestant Dissenting Ministers, residing in and about the Cities of London and Westminster' which was formed of Independents, Baptist and Calvinistic Methodists in opposition to the longer-established 'General Body of Protestant Dissenting Ministers,' which met at Redcross Street Library. They claimed that their intention was not to question others' orthodoxy, but as gentlemen assembling at that place are under the necessity of uniting with Socinians and avowed Unitarians, with whom many Ministers cannot conscientiously unite, upon any grounds, or under any pretence whatever, the name assumed by this Society is merely designed to express that all its Members are exclusively Trinitarian in their principles, and that no person denying the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, or of the Essential Deity and all-sufficient atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, can ever be admitted as members of this body. The creation of this group was ridiculed in other quarters.

The tables were turned on Stodhart in an 1846 protest, in William Scott's Christian Remembrancer  that the 'London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews', under the patronage of both Archbishops and 19 diocesen bishops, had given life membership to Stodhart, who we believe labours under what we used to consider a canonical disability to 'life-membership' in a religious institution which assumes to be of the Church of England: or, pro tanto, the Church of England itself. The writer went on to object to donations from schismatics and secessionists - and even Lutherans!

The chapel was an 'auxiliary society' of the London Missionary Society, founded in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and nonconformists - and which became the main missionary agency of the Congregationalists. See here for a biography of Ann Wells (1779-1856), one of Stodhart's keenest disciples.

When the Independent chapel in Pell Street closed around 1833, Stodhart bought the premises at auction to prevent it falling into inappropriate hands.

The Connexion abandoned Mulberry Gardens Chapel in the 1840s (the last recorded baptisms were in 1837), but there was one more minister: when Stodhart resigned in 1842, Joseph Cartwright took his place. He was an Independent who had been offered a Church of England title but declined; had served in Orpington and Devonport; and had supplied at New Mulberry Gardens Chapel for several weeks before receiving their call. The Monthly Repository's portrait gives a glimpse of which doctrines mattered, and the language in which they were expressed:

Mr C is one who boldly declares the whole of a free-grace Gospel, by exhibiting the glory of its doctrines, the necessity of its experience, and the certainty of its practical effects. The scope of his ministry may be condensed as follows:- The everlasting love of Jehovah the Father; the blessedness enjoyed by the church secured in the purposes of grace, founded in the decretive will of God alone. The love of Jehovah Jesus, as developed in the great work of redemption, undertaking our cause, assuming our nature, bringinh the church up to himself in an everlasting oneness, and sustaining all his covenant offices and characters, for her well-being in grace, and her exaltation from grovelling corruption, to songs of praise, crowns of salvation, and thrones of eternal glory. The love of Jehovah the Spirit in his covenant work of regeneration, quickening dead souls by his sanctifying influence, subduing the depravity of out first Adam's nature, carrying on the work of grace to consummation in glory, and finally making us meet for our Maker's kingdom.

His ministry here was short-lived. The chapel stood empty for a time, before the parish church acquired it and it became St Matthew Pell Street. Thomas Tenison Cuffe was among those who ministered here in the late 1850s, having seceded from the Church of England in 1850 to join the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion before returning a few years later.

In 2004 Sotheby's sold a picture by Anthony Stewart (1773-1846) of 'A Child, said to be the Baroness Emilia Kayne von Gorgan Schillitz, wearing a low-cut white dress with frilled trim, her right arm raised, holding her coral necklace, parkland background', in a gilt-mounted papier-mâché frame. In the reverse of this miniature was a card from Mulberry Gardens Chapel (why is not clear) with the words 'A. Stewart, Portrait & Miniature Painter, 17 Prince's Square, St. George's East' and his trade label.

Although the East End made a huge impression on William Booth, he did not return here for more than a decade. In 1857, he was appointed by the New Connexion to a ministry in Brighouse, in the Halifax circuit (having married Catherine in 1855), and following his ordination in 1858 was appointed to Gateshead. But he found this too restricting, and fell out with the church authorities, so resigned and became an independent evangelist, returning to London in 1865.

Many of the sites associated with his new organisation - which began as the The Christian Mission, but in 1878 became The Salvation Army (with Catherine his wife and Bramwell his son in key roles) - lie just outside this parish, as this excellent Whitechapel Walk shows. For instance, Professor Orton's Dancing Academy at 23 New Road [right] - now divided into flats - bears a blue plaque commemorating the Mission's first Sunday meetings after their tent in a disused Quaker burial ground [now Vallance Road Gardens] had blown down. But 102 Christian Street is in the parish, and it was here that the Army's rescue work may be said to have begun, when in 1881 Elizabeth Cottrill took into her already-overcrowded home a young girl living in a brothel.

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