A detailed history of St George's Church
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The story of St George's is a story of vision, faith and care.
In 1862 Archdeacon Sinclair, vicar of St Mary Abbots and one of the new breed of ecclesiastical administrators, applied to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Bishop of London to form a new ecclesiastical district. He was anxious to break up the large Kensington parish into more manageable units. The new church was to be sliced out of the Ward of St Mary Abbots and St John's Notting Hill. Early in 1863, the freehold of the site for a church was purchased from Robert Evans for £455, and the existing leasehold interest for £350. The space measured 130 by 90 feet.
The first St George's building was an iron church previously used by British troops in the Crimean War, 1853-56, similar to that erected in Kensington in 1855 for St Paul's, Vicarage Gate, a church that has since disappeared.
John Bennett of Westbourne park, a builder, agreed to give all the money required for the construction of a more permanent building to provide a church for his son George who was later the first incumbent. Patronage was originally vested in John Bennett but eventually transferred to the Bishop of London. The first stone was laid in February 1864 and the contractors were George Myers and Son of Lambeth, and the cost was £7,000.The church could accommodate 1,500 people.
To understand the unusual character of the building it is necessary to know something about the architect, Enoch Bassett Keeling. He was born in Sunderland in 1837 and died (of cirrhosis of the liver) on 30 October 1886 at his home 5 Paradise Row, Stoke Newington. He was a member of the Low Church Party and was involved either as a designer or as a builder in the construction of St Mark's Notting Hill and St Paul's Upper Norwood as well as St George's.
The church which Keeling designed on Campden Hill is one of the few examples of the short-lived style known as eclectic Gothic and defined in the Building News as "continental Gothic, freely treated". "Eclectic Gothic" was mainly created by the variegated colours of the stone and brickwork. The church is built externally of Bargate stone, with dressings and decorative details of Bath, Red Mansfield, and Kentish rag stone, and was finished internally with brick in yellow, red, black and grey. The stained glass in the east window (an ecclesiastical "East" behind the altar) was by Lavers and Barraud. The inside of the church was faced with stock yellow bricks. It also contained a large number of encaustic tiles made by burning in of wax paint. The building was dominated by nave arcades of coloured brick voussoirs, notched at thearise. The nave principals were of a saw-toothed design. The architectural historian Pepperell considered there was no church where the strong but elegant iron columns were better handled. He also liked the nave roof with its "saw-tooth cut and intersection ribs". Others praised the grace of the galleries and many thought the church had an adventurous style.
Whatever the contrasting opinions about the architectural style, the church flourished. It became a symbol of the active work of St George's within the community in the late Victorian years. Important in the life of the church and the area was St George's primary school at the top of Edge Street. Regular school communion services in the church took place on St George's Day and Ascension Day. The priest visited the school each week and often took the daily scripture lesson. (The school was effectively overtaken by Fox primary school in the 1960s.)
St George's was the local driving force of the Temperance Society which served Kensington, Notting Hill and Shepherd's Bush. On 11 October 1885, contingents from Fulham, Chelsea and Paddington assembled in Portobello Road, and marched with several bands to Notting Hill Gate Station up Peel Street to St George's where they all attended church parade at 4pm. Hymns were then sung "with a swing". A collection of £30 was raised for the Kensington Dispensary, which gave general medical help to a large number of people in the parish and for many was the only place they could receive medical treatment. This kind of rally was repeated regularly during the years up to the outbreak of the 1914-18 war and was organised by the United Kingdom Temperance Alliance.
The proximity of the squalor surrounding the gravel pits emphasised the need to tackle the drink problem. There were powerful influences coming from American revivalist preachers some of whom believed that universal abstention was the only permanent solution. Much of the support of the temperance movement came from the non-conformist churches and it is interesting that Anglican St George's was such a contributor to the low church momentum.
Music also flourished in the life of the church from the start. Elaborate settings for the choir juxtaposed with favourites from Hymns Ancient and Modern. The settings required a large choir and regular practices. The repertoire consisted of works by Stanford, Spohr, Goss, Barnby and Handel. St George's was hardly classy at this time but it sang the same music as its fashionable contemporary churches. The works could be long and expensive to perform, and the cost in a typical year, 1886, was £125.4.9. Perhaps the music was above the heads of some of the congregation; but St George's remained a full church to the outbreak of the 1914 War. Two of the early organists and choir masters, both with the LRAM Diploma, were G.F. Huntley who held the post for six years, and Luard-Selby who came from Salisbury Cathedral. Walford Davies became organist in 1890 when he was a Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music but after only three months he fell out with the church when he asked for more money "I think I played the Bach B minor at my last service." He later became Master of the King's Music.
Poverty was a major problem and the poor constituted the largest proportion of the parish. All the squalor and deprivation of less favoured parts of London, like the East End, could be seen and felt in the parish of St George's. Only parts of the parish were affluent. These richer elements were crucial providing the money and the people prepared to help the poor. Charles Dickens died in 1870 and many of the problems he highlighted in his books were to be found in this part of Kensington and were never ignored by the church.
In national terms, Disraeli pioneered slum clearance, and although he died in 1881 his legislative reforms ensured that future developments would have the possibility of improved sanitation, lighting and paving. The economic depression which began in 1870 and continued spasmodically for several years slowed down this amelioration but did not permanently arrest it. A soup kitchen was opened in the Mission Room in Edge Street off Church Street, and "thrice a week was distributed an appreciable supply of excellent soup", according to a contemporary report, reminiscent of Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto, which tells how "the soup threw a poetic fragrance over the coming winter".
Throughout the early years of St George's there was a system in which the streets of the parish were adopted by church members who regularly visited to ensure that the people were able to cope with their hardships. Holidays were arranged both for old and young alike, who went to the country and the seaside. A "little working men's club" was started in Peel Street, as the Parish magazine told. "Our parish contains a larger number of the working classes in proportion to the whole than St Mary Abbots."
During the 1890s the two side galleries on the ecclesiastical north and south of St George's were removed, and the lady chapel was turned into a vestry. In 1907 there was a further curtailing of Keeling's original vision by the painting over of some of the decorative brickwork. Congregations meanwhile up to 1914 were so numerous, that worshippers had to arrive at least a quarter of an hour before the service to be sure of a seat. All the social classes were there.
The more affluent went to Matins, the gentry in their "top hats". The poorer went to Evensong. Seat holders could not claim their places after the bell had stopped ringing, despite the vicar's stipend coming from pew rents, not an endowment, and the expectation that he should help finance the church. The money remaining would have been barely adequate for his needs. In 1894 the church income amounted to £424 of which the pew rents provided £341. By 1898 this income had shrunk to £287, from which the vicar had to contribute £282 for the church's upkeep, leaving only £5 for himself. Part of the reason for this financial decline was the change in the pattern of worship in St George's. Changes both financial and religious, give clues to a more general change in the nature of religious practices.
The Reverend John Robbins, who became the incumbent in 1900, was the first vicar of St George's to have the use of a vicarage - a fine house at 25 Campden Hill Square. It had been bought in 1895 for £705 by the Queen Anne's Bounty. Robbins does not appear actually to have lived there, nor did his successor. (It was bombed during the Second World War; and when St George's was merged with St Mary Abbots, the site was taken over by the Diocese.) Meanwhile, it fell to Robbins to preside over the half-centenary of the foundation and consecration in 1864. Although the nation had already been at war with Germany for three months, this was considered as an appropriate time for the improvement of the church under the direction of Guy Dawber, the architect, at a cost of £1,150. The Jubilee Service was held on 22 November 1914 when the Bishop of London preached to a packed congregation of over one thousand people.
Dr Robbin's stipend of £80 a year was later increased to £95. At the foundation of the church, the patronage was in the hands of John Bennett but it was handed to P.J.A. Ashton, then to Arundell MacKenzie, then G.W.Barnard, then to Dr Robbins and finally in 1907 to the Bishop of London, which meant that the funds could come from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
The war memorial behind the font records the names of those who fell during the 1914-1918 battle. Numbers attending church was to decline, but so also had the parish population: the census of 10,000 in 1900 had fallen to 6,325 by 1921. The vicar notes that the working class population had halved in the same period. The character of the parish was changing radically.
There was much afoot in Kensington society: fashions had radically changed. A new-found independence, not least for women, did not result in a return to church worship. The 386 Easter communicants of 1920 had contracted to 278 by 1929. During these lively but trying years, the parish priest was the Rev John Robbins. Beginning in 1900, his ministry was to continue to 1933, momentous years for the parish and for London, and the country alike.
It was, however, the long tenure of Dr Leonard Patterson which saw the most dramatic convulsions within St George's itself. He was inducted in 1934 and was in charge throughout the whole of the Second World War. The problems he had to face were caused not only by the national hostilities but also by the strong wish on the part of the Diocese to close the church altogether. Dr Patterson fought these suggestions and saved the church, but it killed him. He was responsible for the repair of the church, the restoration of the organ, the installation of gas heating and the taking down of the spire when it became unsafe. These gallant efforts broke his health. He had two operations, one of them to amputate his foot. When Dr Patterson died on 5 August 1952, the plans to close the church continued and went as far as the appointment of two sequestrators.
The vacancy left by Patterson was gallantly filled by the Rev Menteath Jackson, formerly vicar of St John's Notting Hill but now over eighty. On 14 December 1952 he took his first two morning services and died after lunch sleeping in his armchair. The vicar of St Abbot's, the formidable Prebendary Eley, later to become Bishop of Gibraltar, at once despatched Charles Wright, one of his curates, to conduct Christmas Services at St George's. The pastoral situation was dramatic, and no doubt traumatic too. The auguries for the survival of St George's were not good.
At this time the Bishop of Kensington, the Rt Rev Cyril Eastaugh, who was to become the Bishop of Peterborough, had moved with his wife Laura into 19 Campden Hill Square and this remained the Bishop of Kensington's residence until 2001. It had replaced 25 Campden Hill Square which as we have noted had been bombed during the war. The close proximity of the Bishop proved to be a decisive factor. With his wife, the Bishop took a personal interest in the future of the church. The young curate seconded from St Mary Abbots was keen, likeable and fully committed to the small but devoted congregation. All involved soon realised that saving the church from closure was after all possible. But it was the support of the Bishop of Kensington that was crucial, Congregations increased under the guidance of the Rev Charles Wright, and Prebendary Eley soon responded by forming a church committee and obtaining a grant from the Diocese. As a result, the church interior was repainted, the wiring renewed, and the south transept chapel constructed as a memorial to Dr Patterson. A breath of life was returning to the church.
Comparable changes were happening on other aspects of parish life. The Rev Christopher Butler succeeded Charles Wright in 1953 and stayed for four years as the priest especially designated for St George's. At that time there was a thriving choir. A group of young men were recruited from a nearby home for blind people for whom hymn books in braille were specially ordered, much to the surprise of the St Mary Abbots Church Vestry when they were delivered. The church youth club had a successful football team for whom the coach was George Walls. As soon as he started to help, the team started to win every match in the West London League. The under-15 team was equally successful in spite of losing their star player who was summoned on 53 charges of breaking and entering.
During the dry spell in 1953 the ground at the east end of the church shifted. A large crack appeared across the apse. This might also have been partly caused by war damage which had badly affected the outside vestry. The apse was now deemed unsafe. The following year it was removed together with the four glass windows behind the altar, depicting the evangelists. During 1954 it was replaced with the present east wall of immaculate featureless stone-fronted by a plain cross suspended from the roof by all-but invisible wires and latterly lit from high above by lights on each side which flank the central arm with its own shadow. This "wordless" echo of God's sacrifice of Himself has proved compellingly inducive to prayerful devotion for subsequent generations of worshippers.
Surely the most successful re-modelling of the fabric in the story of St George's Church has taken place during the ministry of the Reverend Michael Fuller which began in 1994. The aim was to create a significant "community space" out of the narthex of the church while retaining most of the seating capacity by extending the west-end gallery above; and to make the ground level church worshipping area more compact and intimate. This has been all but achieved by the erection of a glass screen dividing narthex and chancel, the provision of modern facilities for the community space, and rentable rooms for Parish activities either side of the main gallery.
Meanwhile St George's has sought to return to many of the features of the original Victorian building: revealing anew the multicoloured brickwork of the arches and the tripled iron pillars which support the structure, and restoring the Lady Chapel. A new altar of Welsh slate on brick has been created, the pulpit removed, and the font moved to the South aisle. The body of the worshipping area retains the original pews and Keeling's balustrade fronting the gallery is preserved. Moveable chairs in each aisle provide for a steadily expanding congregation. The glazed draught-proof doors into the chancel preserve the sanctity of the main worshipping area while drawing the eyes of those in the "community space" to the sacred purpose of the building.
The notably effective marriage of old and new was achieved at a total cost of £350,000 of which an impressive £170,000 was raised by the congregation and the balance by the realisation of property assets belonging to the church. The rededication of the church and community space was held on St George's Day, 23 April 1998, at which the celebrant was the Bishop of Kensington, the Rt Rev Michael Colclough. The restoration of the organ was soon to follow. The new congeniality of the building and the reputation of its ministry and its music had made St George's one of London's most favoured churches for marriages, baptisms and memorial services by the opening years of the 21st Century.
This article is taken from material prepared by Professor John Lello