see also LICENSED WORKERS

RECTORS

Robert William Harris was Rector for six years (1897–1903). He was born in Stepney in 1864, and began his ministry in East London, where he served as Secretary of the East London Church Fund, with the Bishop of Stepney as President; it raised about £20,000 a year to support the work of local churches. His first appearance in the parish was as officiant at a wedding at St Matthew Pell Street in 1889, where he signed himself as 'Mission Preacher to the Bishop of Bedford'. He had private means. But, as with C.H. Turner, his wife Eleanor Gertrude Ward (a parson's daughter from Settle) and their children Monica and Robert found they could 'no longer live here' and, as other predecessors had done, he exchanged livings with F. St J. Corbett, and became Rector of Long Marton in Carlisle diocese, close to the Scottish border. He was also an organising secretary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and became Rural Dean of Appleby & Kirkby Stephen in 1910, served as a wartime chaplain, and became a Proctor (in the Church Assembly - the precursor of General Synod) in 1919 and an honorary Canon of Carlisle in 1922. He was an active member of the Cumberland and Westmorland Bee-Keepers' Association.

Frederick St John Corbett FRSL FRHistS (Rector 1903-19) was the son of an Irish senator, John Corbett, and a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. He served curacies in Leeds and at St Michael Chester Square in the West End, where he began his publishing career with Sermon Outlines (1891), The Preacher's Year - 58 outline sermons (1894) and Life from a Parson's Point of View (1893, described by The Times as a lively and humourous little volume of clerical stories by a West-end curate and by the Dean of Llandaff (presumably without the implications it would have today) I can sincerely call it interesting, clever and suggestive. Echoes of the Sanctuary (1892) was a collection of none-too-distinguished hymns: for example,
 

In 1896 he became Rector of Long Marton, near Appleby, and continued to publish: The Problem of Life (1986), contributions to Funeral Sermons & Addresses - An Aid to Pastors (1899), A Thousand Things to Say in Sermons (1901), and editing The Service of Perfect Freedom (1902), a collection of sermons preached by his father-in-law Edmund Askew, who was Vicar of Greystoke. He also produced a novel Two Men and a Girl (Gay & Bird 1902) on the ‘romantic entanglements of English aristocracy’.

As explained above, he exchanged livings with Harris and became Rector of St George-in-the-East in 1903. Here he produced his major scholarly work, A History of British Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (Gay & Bird 1904), as well as The Communicants' Little Book (1904), a poetical tribute to George Herbert (1906), an illustrated poem Led by a Little Child (106) which sold several thousand copies, A Thousand Thoughts for Practical Preachers (1910) amd material for the Church of England Guild of Sponsors, A Church of England Women's Society and sermons for harvest and flower festivals.

He was a good organiser, and in parish magazines of the time he brought the parish's history up to date. But  he faced many problems, detailed in this REPORT to the Bishop of Stepney. Although he had his own London house, in Hanover Square, he did not have his predecessors' private incomes. He died in office, having served as a Chaplain to the Forces, attached to the 3rd London Regiment.

Pictured (in Cumbria) are his wife Elsie Lucy Victoire Askew, and children Elsie Mabel St John, Edmund St John and Mary Eleanor St George.

Many local clergy had engaged, as supporters or critics, with the CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY (COS) - see particularly the comments about former curate Henry Iselin, a staunch advocate, at the end of THIS page - but the next Rector, John Christian Pringle (1919-25) had been its full-time Secretary from 1914-19, succeeding Charles Stewart Loch, who had held the post since 1875. Pringle had previously been a member of the Indian Civil Service in Sind, and taught English at the Higher Normal College in Hiroshima (1910-13), but resigned to train at Cuddesdon for ordination, serving his title with Henry Luke Paget in Poplar.

His period as Rector seems not to have been a happy time for him. With no 'private means' he struggled financially, having to find over £800 for work on the Rectory (apart from papering and painting), paying off the accumulated dilapidations debt, and providing cover during his extended trip with the Mission of Help to India. Parish finances after the war were also desperate - see these DOCUMENTS on the sale of church plate in 1920. His wife was unwell - which eventually triggered his resignation. He resented the lack of a curate (the Bishop said the size of the congregation did not justify it), though the parish workers who were provided undertook much pastoral work while he was engaged in the committee activities on which he believed the future well-being of the church depended. His sermons and talks failed to connect with the congregation, perhaps not surprisingly since he chose topics such as 'periods of church history' - Sunday morning addresses for children, on which their autumn examination was based (and including the surprising claim that 1700 to the present day has been among the most active and encouraging periods of the Church); 'the influence of Roman, Greek and and Egyptian building on church architecture'; and in Lent 1924 'the tragic and truly Lenten story of the conquest, perversion and desolation of the fair lands of the Early Church by Islam'. He expressed sometimes startling political views in forthright terms. But he comes across as one who was more interesting and less 'churchy' than most parsons, committed to working ecumenically as well as with the Jewish community (particularly at Armistice-tide).  See this selection of his writings from the PARISH MAGAZINE, including his very sad farewell letter describing his time here as a failure. In fact in the coming years he was regularly welcomed back both as a preacher and, with his wife, as a guest at parish events, and was well-respected by many.

So he returned to full-time COS work, from 1925 to his death in 1938. The COS, with its various local groups, had long argued for targeting relief on the basis of careful casework. Pringle's magnum opus had been the submission, with Cyril Jackson, to the 1910 Poor Law Commission on the effects of employment or assistance on dockworkers since 1886. He remained deeply suspicious of any form of intervention that might erode self-reliance. He attended international conferences, wrote papers and reports on many subjects (one example is 'The Japanese Government and Sugar') and several books, including Social Work of the London Churches (1937). In British Social Services: The Nation’s Appeal to the Housewife and her Response (Longmans, Green & Co, 1933) - which he discussed with his former parish worker at St George's, Phyllis Hatton - he claimed (on what basis?) that ordinary women believed that social need should be met by self help or charity, with the state provision as a last resort: Everything else, the housewife said, we either paid for by ourselves or got when we needed it, from some charitable institution. 

The COS approach had always attracted controversy, and was rejected outright by the more radical clergy of the area. (Although Canon Samuel Barnett at St Jude Whitechapel (1872-93) had been a strong supporter, one of his curates showed his opposition by filling in a claim form in the name of Jesus Christ; and Barnett himself was later to lead a revolt against the 'old guard' and their resistance to state pensions). In later years, the emphasis on family casework came to be regarded as distinctly old-fashioned and patronising. (Fr JOHN GROSER in his time at Christ Church Watney Street, a few years after Pringle's time here, would have nothing to do with it.) More progressive attitudes were prevailing.

In the 1930s Pringle began to take an interest in the new, and as yet undiscredited, 'science' of eugenics, as did others - not all of them reactionaries, as the list here shows. He was a member of the Eugenics Society Council and became a Fellow in 1937, the year before he and his wife died.

The John Christian Pringle Memorial Fund, established in his memory and administered by the Family Welfare Association, supports students in family casework, particularly young social workers studying social problems and the philosophy of family casework. The Social Service Quarterly (37/38, 1963, p25) includes an article about his life by B.E. Astbury.

Charles John Beresford was Rector from 1925 until his death in 1937; he was unmarried, and lived with his sister. From 1898 he had been on the staff of the SPCK Training College for Lay Workers, the first institution of its kind nationally, opened in 1889 at 384-392 Commercial Road (a few doors away from Christ Church vicarage); he became Sub-warden in 1898 and Warden and Chaplain from 1904 until he came to St George-in-the-East, where he was already well-known as a regular preacher.

The college trained parish workers and Readers for licensed ministry in parishes. The preaching and teaching ministry of (Lay) Readers was revived in the Church of England in 1866, to meet the needs of both urban and rural parishes where clergy were hard-pressed. They conducted Morning and Evening Prayer, and preached - ridiculously, from the lectern rather than the pulpit, with a pause after the service - until the Second World War. Women were admitted as Readers during and after the First World War, though at first were known as 'Bishops' Messengers'. There are now over 10,000 Readers (also known as Licensed Lay Ministers, LLMs) in the Church of England.

Beresford was a convinced advocate of this ministry, and in his time as Rector here several of his former students came to preach and assist in the parish. At the 1908 Pan-Anglican Congress (in conjunction with the Lambeth Conference of that year) he had spoken at a session on Lay Ministry, held at the King's Hall, Holborn Restaurant, on 18 June (chaired by the Bishop of Stepney); the report says

(Earlier in the day a former curate of the parish, A.E. Joscelyne, who had become Bishop-Coadjutor of Jamaica, had spoken about the involvement of lay people in his diocese as members of parochial councils.)

Beresford would surely have been pleased that, from 2010, part of Reader training for the Stepney area will be delivered in the crypt of St George-in-the-East, under the auspices of St Mellitus College.

He was also a keen and accomplished musician (a cellist, and conductor), and founded the Stepney Orpheus Choir in 1908. They rehearsed here during his time as Rector, and he set up various other choirs in the parish. He was a friend of Sir Walford Davies, an early musical broadcaster, who worked with him on the People's Palace event and who brought his choir from St George's Windsor here for the bicentenary of the parish - an unusual honour for a parish church. More details about the bicentenary, and the musical life of the parish, HERE.  Beresford served on national music committees, and in 1933 chaired the British Federation of Music Competition Festivals, and its conference on ‘The Future of Amateur Music-Making’, held at Broadcasting House (with 'lunch at Pagani's'). Sir John Reith & Sir Adrian Boult represented the BBC, and a number of leading music educators spoke. 

In that same year, he conducted a lengthy memorial service for the former assistant matron of St George's Hospital, Wapping. She had come as a staff nurse in 1894, retiring 32 years later, and was a keen churchgoer - one of many examples of committed service to East End nursing,

Robert Bruce Eadie succeeded him in 1937. Since serving as a First World War chaplain (and remaining an honorary chaplain to the forces)  he had worked in various London parishes. He left St George's in 1942 when emergency parish staffing measures were taken, and remained as Vicar of St Margaret Uxbridge until his death in 1953.

The period when St John Beverley Groser led the combined parish - during the Second World War and after, and in a radically different mode! - is described HERE.

Kenneth John (Jack) Mackay Boggis had been Groser's curate at Christ Church (1932-6), and now succeeded him as Rector (1947-58). It was Groser who inspired him to seek ordination - see this TRIBUTE - for which he struggled to train, at Knutsford (like Father Joe Williamson) and then (like Groser) at Mirfield. Jack had been a young communist, and then, while Sub-Dean [curate] of Bocking, became Secretary of Braintree Labour Party, as well as of its Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society, but resigned from the party to lead ex-communist Tom Driberg's campaign for election as an Independent MP for Maldon in 1942. Driberg in his 1977 autobigraphy Ruling Passions described him as my most active and useful supporter and  a personal friend. Like Groser, he was a member of Conrad Noel's Catholic Crusade until its demise in 1936, and of the Socialist Christian League, as well as of the Council of Clergy and Ministers for Common Ownership / Society of Socialist Clergy and Ministers. Click here for a an attempt to unravel the complex interplay between these and other Christian Socialist groupings, and see also the Socialist Christian Catechism which Boggis co-wrote in 1947 with the late Fr Gresham Kirkby [another link here], who had been his curate in Becontree and was vicar of St Paul Bow Common from 1951 to 1994.

It was therefore ironic (and deliberate on someone's part?) that Jack Boggis' successor as Rector had been a Conservative member of Westminster City Council, appointed in a 1945 by-election for Victoria Ward, while a curate at All Saints Pimlico, and re-elected later that year by 3,250 votes, 47.7% of the 30.5% of the 20,082 electors who voted, a swing of 25.7% to the party. Ten years later, Harold Ernest Farrington came here as Rector (1955-57). He left rather suddenly, during a jumble sale, and served a prison sentence for importuning under-age boys, but nevertheless later become a curate in Cranford, and then in Malvern Link. Such, regrettably, were the practices of the time, for which this parish becomes a footnote in the terrible contemporary saga of child sex abuse.

It fell to the next Rector, Fr Alex Solomon (1958-78), to inspire and co-ordinate the remodelling of St George's, ending the period of St George-in-the-Ruins with the consecration of the new church in 1964. Alexander Mackertich Solomon graduated from Serampore College in 1932, coming to England to train for ordination at St Augustine's College Canterbury. After a title in Camberwell, he returned to Calcutta diocese, first to a parish and then as school chaplain in Kurseong (1945-53), where he had the privilege (afforded to few) or writing a school song:

Nora Facey, who had grown up in Newfoundland where her Canadian father was the principal of Queen's Theological College in St John's but had returned to England in the 1930s, met Alex when he was at Camberwell, and as soon as the war was over she made her way, alone, to Calcutta and was married to him immediately on her arrival! 

'Solly' in his Austin 7 was, let us say, an uncertain driver who occasionally went the wrong way round roundabouts. (A local family, allegedly more in fun than for racist motives, once marked his car 'Caution: Indian Driver'.) In his time, St Paul Dock Street with St Mark Whitechapel was attached to the parish, and he became Curate-in-charge from 1968-71 before becoming Rector of the united parish in 1971. Since then it has been known as 'St George-in-the-East with St Paul'. This is not entirely fair to the other former churches in the parish: Christ Church, St Matthew, St John and St Mark, whose names have 'disappeared'. 

His vision of the remodelled church community meant that he and Nora lived - though without official sanction - in the church, with rooms on two floors at the south-west corner, rather than in the Rectory. As a result, the Rectory, like the flats created in the church,  were tenanted over the years by a succession of people who worked at St George's or for the wider church, including several well-known religious journalists and authors. Alex Solomon was an accomplished pianist, and acquired two grand pianos - a Broadwood for the church and a Blüthner for the crypt hall (now restored and also in the church); in his time, the crypt hall was extensively used for music-making. The Solomons retired to Worthing in 1978, where he continued to exercise a ministry in his local church. After his death, Nora lived on, with her niece, until her death in February 2010, aged 95. 

When Alex Solomon left, there was uncertainty about the staffing of St George's. In the event, Julian Scharf took on the responsibility. Ulrich Eduard Erich Julian Scharf had been a curate at St John Hackney and then part-time chaplain to Trevor Huddleston, Bishop of Stepney: Piers McGrandle Trevor Huddleston: Turbulent Priest (Continuum 2004) describes their daily routine. He became Priest-in-charge of St Paul Shadwell in 1975, and four years later also Rector of St George's (1979-86). In 1983, he organised in the crypt a major and powerful exhibition 'Auschwitz and the East End', for which Tower Hamlets Arts Project produced a booklet with brief essays from some well-known figures:

Gillean Weston Craig [pictured] was Priest-in-charge of the parish from 1988, and Rector from 1989-2002. He arranged the RESTORATION of the Rectory, with English Heritage funding (as explained above, he and his predecessors were accommodated in the church), re-invigorated links with St Paul's School and introduced various social and musical features into the life of the church. He is now Vicar of St Mary Abbot's Kensington – with David Cameron as a member of the congregation. He is the Librarian of Sion College (although it is now a society rather than a library!) and tv critic of the Church Times.

There followed an uncertain five years, in which various plans came and went. Canon Dr John Cullen [pictured] , who was also the Bishop of London's personal assistant, was priest-in-charge for part of this period, and did much to organise the affairs of the parish, as well as exercising a valued pastoral ministry. He is a New Zealander, who had been a ministry development officer in Winchester diocese with wide experience of clergy reviews; he is now the vicar of St John, Palmer's Green. 

The crypt was re-developed, to house the North Thames Ministerial Training Scheme (with the diocese as licensees) and Green Gables Montessori Nursery. Plans for this were steered by a confident congregation, and funded from the sale to the diocese of Church House, Wellclose Square. 

In 2007, Canon Michael Ainsworth became Rector. 

CURATES

Roland Genet Stafford (1900-04) [pictured]  - in 1903 he contributed to the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (p.91) an account of the Passover observances dictated in Arabic by the Samaritan High Priest, including a rough diagram. He served in the Cape and Orange River Colonies in South Africa for a few years before returning to various London parishes, including St Andrew Kentish Town (Vicar 1920-46). In 1916 he wrote a book with the odd title

Charles Thomas Lawrence (1900-01) served his eighth curacy here, in six different dioceses, before finding an incumbency in Offord Cluny, Ely diocese.

Claude Hinscliffe (1902-3) held no less than 14 appointments in his ministry; R.W. Harris, his Rector here, was sorry to see him go because of staffing contraints. He was the moving force behind the creation of the NATURE STUDY MUSEUM in St George's Gardens, and became the first Secretary of the School Nature Study Union (1903-94).  In 1909 he and his wife founded the CHURCH LEAGUE FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE. He worked as a curate in various parts of England, with a spell during and after the First World War in Europe (including Bucharest), before finally becoming an incumbent in Somerest in 1944 until his death.

Bertram Liddell Hope (1903-06) - after several other posts, and 5 years' service as a wartime chaplain, he became Rector of Falmouth from 1924-36 and was made an honorary canon of Truro Cathedral. He corresponded over Washington Irving, whose mother came from Falmouth.

William George Smylie (1907-09), part of an extended clerical family from Trinity College Dublin; saw active service in France, and later served in Oxfordshire and Kent.

(Henry John Freiensener was an ordinand from the parish - his family were bakers, chandlers and pub owners in East London throughout the 19th century; he trained at King's College London and led a few services here during the Rector's absence in India in 1923, but his curacies were in Worcester diocese, where he became a vicar in Malvern in 1935, and was briefly bishop's chaplain. He sent a donation to the restoration fund in 1931.)

George Thomas Ball-Knight (1925-27) - continuing the Manx connection! He trained at Bishop Wilson College and was ordained on the island, but served all his five curacies 'across' (on the mainland) before becoming vicar of Bowling, in Bradford diocese in 1931. He left this parish reluctantly for a curacy in Pontefract since (as the Rector wrote in the May 1927 magazine) it has been impressed upon him that he must take his children out of London, if they are to be well.

Basil Loney served briefly here in 1928 - although he would have liked to stay, he had already accepted another post before he came! He had been a Missions to Seamen Chaplain, and then served as chaplain in four London hospitals.

Robert Blythell Davies (1927-28) was ordained priest at St George's in a re-arranged, and poorly-attended, service by the Bishop of Willesden in July 1928, after a serious illness. Thirty years earlier he had worked here as one of the Rector's students at the SPCK College. He died suddenly in his sleep the following October - having visited the Scouts that evening and complained of what was probably a heart attack, and was buried in a grave bought by the parish at the City of London Cemetery [plot 96456], in the absence of his relatives, a stone, costing £13 4s. 7d. was erected reading 'St George-in-the-East Parish Church. Robert Blythell Davies, Priest. Died October 31st 1928.' Donations were sent for relieving the distress in the Mining Areas of South Wales (magazine, December 1928).

H.R. Roberts (1929-30), living in the Rectory - the Rector wrote all will be grateful to Mr Roberts for his faithful and kindly work among us, and will wish him well in the new work to which he hopes to go in South Wales. Pending the appointment of a successor, one of the Rector's former students, W.E. Thomas, worked as a Reader in the parish.

Cecil Harrington McKie (1930-32) also lived in the Rectory. He was Australian, coming to England after four posts in Golbourn and Brisbane, but resigned after two years: He has not been very well lately, and his doctor has insisted that he must get out of London and seek for quiet work somewhere in the South.... he will be specially missed by the sick and by the lads of his Bible Class. Let us pray that he may find work which will enable him to renew his health. After a brief spell in Totnes (and a return here to provide a month's cover in 1933), and some months in the chaplaincy at Oslo, he returned to Australia, but without parochial appointment.

William Arthur Winfield (1932-36), later chaplain at Tilbury Docks, vicar of the new church of St Nicholas in the centre of Basildon and rural dean [pictured]

Stanley Thomas Andrews (1937-39), later Missions to Seamen Chaplain at Lourenço Marques [now Maputo], where a previous curate of Christ Church had also served, then incumbent of several churches in Natal, and retired to Cornwall

Charles Ross (1939-41), who came after nine various posts in Scotland, three in London and two in Europe, ending his ministry in hospital chaplaincy. During his time here, he lived in the top floor of the Rectory.

*** In the early part of the century, curates had continued to live either at 220 Cable Street or (if single) in the Rectory; once the church flats were created, some lived in these ***

Dr Arthur Geoffrey Lough (1942-44) - initially appointed to Christ Church, Watney Street - had been chaplain to the Bishop of Bombay in the early years of the war. After his time here, he served in two Kingstons -  Surrey and Jamaica - and then in Exeter diocese, as incumbent and rural dean (also teaching history and civics at a girls school in Newton Abbot). His doctoral thesis, The Influence of John Mason Neale, was published by SPCK in 1962, and he produced other works on Neale and Pusey.

William Denys Giddey (1943-48) was Fr Groser's curate, and ran the parish during Groser's sabbatical in Germany prior to his move to St Katharine's; he spent most of his later ministry as a hospital chaplain, at Guy's and in Eastbourne (where he wrote a brief history of All Saints' Hospital, and became an honorary Canon of Chichester Cathedral); he died in 2006. A thurible stand was given in memory of his wife Mary.

Hugh Pelham Shead (1949-50) was an SPG missionary in Concordia, from 1936 the Rector of Weston Longville (of Parson Woodforde fame), and after his short stay here returned to East Anglia - Stow Bedon and Breckles in rural Norfolk, where he welcomed visitors from St George's.

John Gisborne Charteris Eldrid (1953-56), trained at King's College London, served his title here (living on the top floor of the Rectory), and two further curacies in East Grinstead and St Stephen Walbrook, the home of The Samaritans,  of which he became London consultant, then national Director and Consultant-Director, writing and speaking extensively. He contributed to The Samaritans (1978), and his book Caring for the Suicidal (Constable 1988), based on his long experience, is widely used. He was awarded an MBE for his work, and retired in 1990. but continues to officiate in Portsmouth diocese.

David Rogers Ogilvie Grant (1953-54) also came here from King's to serve his title and lived in the Rectory, and was much-liked, but left after a only a year because of certain unfounded allegations. He went on to serve two further curacies in London and one in Carlisle diocese before becoming Vicar of Ireleth in that diocese.

William David Jones (1955-59), trained and ordained in Wales, went on to make his career teaching theology in colleges of education – Culham, Doncaster and Durham (where he became vice-principal of SS Hild and Bede College). From 1989-93 he was Director of Mission for the Church in Wales, and a Metropolitical Canon of St David's; he retired to Gloucestershire.

Christopher Jonathan Bird (1963-6) [pictured] was a popular curate, and led many activities for young people. He moved on to a parish in Wimbledon, and died prematurely.

Phillip Leslie Bishop (1970-71) [pictured] came here briefly after a curacy near Wolverhapton, then to Middlesborough, then nine years with Ted Wickham's pioneering Sheffield Industrial Mission, and then to parishes in Great Ayton and Guisborough. To raise funds, he rode a horse up Roseberry Topping; he retired to Stockton in 2008.

Don Stokes (1980s) was a postman before ordination. He later became chaplain to various West End stores, and then moved to live with his family in Australia.

William Philip Daniel Pearce (1984-86) is a graduate of Stanford University in the USA, but trained at Cuddesdon, and after American posts was a member of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield from 1960-84, after which he spent two years as a non-stipendiary curate at St George's. living in Church House, Wellclose Square, before returning to work in the USA until his retirement in 2002.

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