Pictorial Agency.
BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY HOUSE
This church measures 75 feet in length, 59 in breadth, and 38 feet in height, and contains two side aisles divided from the nave by square pillars, encased in wood to the height of the top of the galleries. The ceiling is exceptionally fine, with beautifully moulded wreaths. The exterior is of red brick with stone dressings. The tower, which is square and of four stories, rises at the south-west; the two lower ones contain windows, the third a clock, and the highest has square-headed openings with louvres. A cornice and balustrade complete the tower, which is about 86 feet in height.
Chantries were founded here by: John Parraunt, armiger, for himself and Clemencia his late wife, and for John Loc, alias Foxton, citizen and fishmonger, and Margaret, his wife (licence was granted December 3, 1409; the endowment fetched £12 : 3 : 4 in 1518 when Thomas Mores was priest, “aged 54, meanly learned”); Humphrey Talbot, whose endowment fetched £7 : 6 : 8 in 1548.
There are three pyramidal monuments of white marble to three successive rectors—the Rev. William Romaine, a celebrated preacher; the Rev. William Goode, rector in 1795; and the Rev. Isaac Saunders, who held the living for nearly twenty years.
Some of the donors of charities were: John Lee, of a house and wharf, leased for £30 per annum; Mrs. Paradine, £3 per annum; Mrs. Cleve, thirteen penny loaves to be dealt out every Sunday.
There was a free school founded by a private person for the benefit of the children of poor tailors, where forty boys and thirty girls were taught and clothed. Also three almshouses maintained by the rent of an adjoining house, built partly by charity of the Lady Elizabeth, Viscountess Chomondeley, and partly at the expense of the inhabitants, in 1679.
Among the most notable of the rectors were: Philip Baker (d. 1601), Vice-Chancellor Cambridge University; William Savage (d. 1736), Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; William Romaine (1714-1795), Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London; William Goode (1762-1816), President of Sion College; John Harding (1805-74), Bishop of Bombay.
A little passage, right-of-way to the public, goes round the north and east sides of the church, and at the corner where this joins St. Andrew’s Hill stands the old Rectory House. This is a charming old building, dating from soon after the Fire. There is, curiously enough, no oak in the woodwork, excepting only in the cross-pieces of the window-frames. The fireplace in the study is of interest, fashioned of marble and tiles set in polished wood; and on the overmantel there is a little slab bearing the words, all in capital letters:
Laus Deo per Jesum Christum. Church Missionary Society, Instituted April 12, 1799, in this room; the committee meetings of the Society were held from June 17, 1799, to January 3, 1812: and here on January 2, 1804, its first missionaries were appointed to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.