Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

By a return granted by order of the House of Commons, twenty-first of March, 1848, of all monies borrowed from the trustees of Queen Anne’s Bounty, and not re-paid, I find that on the eleventh of October, 1830, St. Mary’s Paddington curacy, borrowed £1,820. That £1,243 13s. 4d., had been repaid, as principal, and £693 3s. 0d., as interest. This sum, and upwards, I presume, was spent on this acre of freehold ground. A comfortable looking residence, not six stories high, was built; and for many years used as “the parsonage-house.” It is no longer, however, the parsonage; having been sold with the land belonging to it, soon after St. Mary’s ceased to be the parish church. This bargain was secured, as I am informed, by the district surveyor for £3,525; I have also heard there was some difficulty about effecting this sale; and that it was at last managed through the agency of the church-commissioners, who out of the purchase-money paid upwards of £80 towards the expenses of the sale. The greater portion of the balance being applied, according to the benevolent wish of the present minister of the parish, in the purchase of two parsonage-houses; one for the new parish church, No. 13, Sussex-gardens, on the north side of St. James’s; the other for the old church—No. 1, St. Mary’s-terrace, the first of a row of eleven houses, built on a strip of the former parsonage pleasure-grounds.

Bayswater Chapel.

Down to 1818, Saint Mary’s was the only place of worship, in connection with the State-Religion, for the whole of the parish of Paddington.

So destitute of religious instruction and places of worship were the suburbs of London, and many other populous places at this time, that the State itself could no longer remain blind to the need. “A gracious recommendation” came from the throne to the Parliament, and the people; and the fifty-eighth Geo. III., cap. 45—“An Act for building and promoting the building of additional churches in populous parishes”—became a law on the thirtieth May, 1818. We are told by Mr. Faulkner, in his History of Kensington, that Mr. Edward Orme, of Bayswater, was the first private individual who built a chapel, after His Majesty had pointed out this want of church accommodation; Bayswater chapel, in St. Petersburg place, being built at his expense.

This chapel is, as Mr. Faulkner observes, a plain building; but “possesses some advantages over many modern built places of worship.”

The stained glass window of which Mr. Faulkner speaks, has been removed from this church; and the present pulpit would not, I imagine, be considered of the fourteenth century, to which period Mr. Faulkner attributed the one existing, when the History of Kensington was written.

This chapel, which is “capable of holding twelve hundred persons, was opened on the fifteenth of November, 1818, by the Rev. Dr. Busfield,” the first appointed minister. And from that day to the present, it has not cost the parish of Paddington one shilling for its support: a fact so impressive, that no comment or commendation is required. Badly enough must those who wished to see a state-religion preserved, have thought this chapel needed; for, from the returns made in compliance with directions given to the commissioners appointed by the above-named Act, we find that, at this time, in the parishes of Kensington and Paddington, “there are no less than twelve thousand persons more, than could be accommodated in the several places of worship.”

Connaught Chapel—now St. John’s.

For a single proprietor of the soil to have built one chapel which would hold a tenth part of this unaccommodated population, was something; but this could not satisfy the conscience of the good curate of Paddington, who saw the population of his parish every day increasing.

From 1811, to 1821, the average rate of increase was two hundred souls, per annum; from 1821, to 1831, eight hundred; and although, early in March, 1826, Dr. Crane applied to the Church Commissioners for assistance, it was not till July, 1839, that the plan for Connaught Chapel was finally approved by them. There was no bishop, no lessees, who could see their curate’s distress, and who would come forward with the remedy. The want of the necessary funds to carry out the design; and the death of Mr. Cockerill, the bishop’s surveyor, and the architect originally employed; seem to have been the other chief causes of the delay. For immediately after the first application to the commissioners, we find that they “think a chapel capable of holding fifteen hundred persons, with seven hundred free sittings should be built;” and they offer, from the funds entrusted to them by Parliament, £5,500 to accomplish this object. Communication and correspondence take place respecting this offer; and, within a week, the proposed grant is increased to £6,000, with the assurance that one third of the number the chapel will hold will suffice for the number of free sittings.