St Mary's Church, Islington | |
---|---|
The Parish Church of St Mary, Islington | |
Location | Upper Street, Islington, London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Denomination | Church of England |
Churchmanship | Open Evangelical |
Website | stmaryislington |
History | |
Founded | 12th Century (estimate) |
Dedication | Mary the Virgin |
Associated people | Edward Vaughan, Meredith Hanmer, Robert Browne, John Webster, William Cave, Charles Wesley, Philip Quaque, George Gaskin, Daniel Wilson, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, William Barlow, Donald Coggan, Ralph Stanley Dean, Hugh Gough, Maurice Wood, David Sheppard, George Carey, Pete Broadbent, Graham Kings |
Architecture | |
Functional status | Active |
Heritage designation | Grade II listed [1] |
Architect(s) | Lancelot Dowbiggin, Reginald Blomfield, Seely & Paget |
Administration | |
Province | Canterbury |
Diocese | London |
Episcopal area | Stepney |
Archdeaconry | Hackney |
Deanery | Islington |
Parish | Islington, St Mary |
Clergy | |
Vicar(s) | The Revd James Hughesdon |
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the historic parish church of Islington, in the Church of England Diocese of London. The present parish is a compact area centered on Upper Street between Angel and Highbury Corner, bounded to the west by Liverpool Road, and to the east by Essex Road/Canonbury Road. The church is a Grade II listed building. [1]
The churchyard was enlarged in 1793. With the rapid growth of Islington, it became full and closed for burials in 1853. It was laid out as a public garden of one and a half acres in 1885. [2]
The first recorded church building was erected in the twelfth century and was replaced in the fifteenth century. [3]
John Farley is mentioned as vicar of "Iseldon", Middlesex, in 1446. [4]
Before his consecration as Bishop of St David's in 1509, Edward Vaughan served as vicar. [5] Robert Browne, who authored the founding principles of Congregationalism, served as lecturer at St Mary's until around 1578. [6]
John Webster the Jacobean dramatist, married his heavily pregnant 17-year-old second wife, Sara Peniall, at St Mary's in Lent 1606, by special licence. [7] William Cave became vicar in 1662, at the age of twenty-five, and held the office until 1689. He was subsequently buried at the church, having died in Isleworth in 1713.
On 24 July 1738, the Vicar of St Mary's, George Stonehouse, invited Charles Wesley to "take charge of his parish, under him, as his Curate." [8] He did not, however, possess any licence to do so from the Bishop of London. Wesley's journal lists many occasions on which he preached, and his regular praying at the church.
Wesley's preaching proved unpopular for some and within a year he and George Whitefield were expelled from the pulpit at St Mary's. On 27 April 1739 he noted, "At Islington vestry the Churchwardens forbad my preaching: demanded my local licence. I said nothing but that "I heard them." Scions was very abusive; bidding me shake off the dust of my feet, &c.; and said, "You have all the spirit of the devil," mentioning Mr. Whitefield, Stonehouse, and me by name." [8] From this point on Wesley joined his brother John and George Whitefield in field-preaching. Following a series of meetings with the Bishop of London, he decided to leave the city and to join his brother in Bristol during August 1739.
The church fell into "very ruinous condition" and the Islington Church Act 1750 was passed to enable it to be rebuilt. The new building was consecrated on 26 May 1754, designed by Lancelot Dowbiggin. [3]
In this period, the church leadership began to establish ties to African leaders. In 1759, Philip Quaque, son of the Fante king Birempong Cudjo, was baptised at St Mary's, after having attended the church with his brother for four years. He became the first black African to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England and returned to Ghana to minister as a missionary. [9] [10]
Richard Smith, a West India merchant, purchased the advowson for St Mary in 1771. [11] His eldest son, also Richard Smith(1739–1772), became Rector of Islington. [12]
The Revd Daniel Wilson (1778–1858), served as vicar from 1824 until 1832, when he became Bishop of Calcutta. [3] In 1831 he was one of the founders of the Lord's Day Observance Society. The Islington Clerical Conference, founded by Daniel Wilson, ran from 1827 to 1983 and was held at St Mary's. [13] Wilson's son, also Daniel, served as vicar of the church for fifty-four years, during which time many new parishes were created as the population of Islington soared. [14]
The young Samuel Ajayi Crowther was sent to Islington from Sierra Leone in 1826 to study at the church's school and attend services. He later was ordained as a minister by the Bishop of London, and served in West Africa, later becoming the first African Bishop in Nigeria. He also became a noted linguist, publishing a Yoruban grammar and a translation of the Book of Common Prayer in Yoruba. He returned to Islington several times and ordained his own son, Dandeson Crowther, in St Mary's Church in 1870. [15]
William Hagger Barlow became vicar on the death of Daniel Wilson the second. He built the Bishop Wilson Memorial Hall (subsequently renovated for use as St Mary's Neighbourhood Centre) and the vicarage, which is still in use. [14]
An extensive portico of Portland stone was built at the west door in 1904, to a design of Sir Reginald Blomfield. It includes a relief of the Nativity. [16]
Donald Coggan, later Archbishop of Canterbury, served as curate from 1934 to 1937. David Sheppard, later Bishop of Liverpool, played cricket for England while an assistant curate at Islington, 1955–7. [2]
On the third night of the London Blitz, at 10.20pm on 9 September 1940, a bomb destroyed the majority of the church, leaving only the tower and spire intact. [17]
The church was rebuilt following an appeal by the incumbent, The Revd Hugh Gough, and dedicated in 1956 when Maurice Wood was vicar. The partnership [18] of John Seely and Paul Paget produced an ambitious design that attempted to create a space suitable for a "renaissance of evangelical worship". [19]
The main worship space is vast, with a volume of over 5000 cubic metres, and features deep clear windows that allow an unusually high amount of more natural light. The east and west ends have murals by Brian Thomas. The original church's lectern, baptismal font and Royal Arms all survived the bombing. They are visible within the church. [20]
In 1962, George Carey became curate and, among other innovations, made connections with local council departments and founded a new Boys' Club. [21]
In 1967, with the support of Revd Johnson, brothers Dr Majeeb Chowdhry, Najeeb Chowdhry, Waheeb Chowdhry and their friend Emmanuel Din started the first Asian Christian Church in the UK, at St Mary's Church. Revd Daniel Gill became the first Pakistani minister to lead an Urdu service in the UK, although he was not an ordained minister in the Church of England. This British Pakistani church inspired the growth of similar 'Urdu Fellowships' across London and eventually the UK. As many Pakistani Christians have moved to less expensive areas of London, the Urdu fellowship ended in the 1990s.
St Mary's role in British Evangelicalism waned, as the Islington Clerical Conference (of which the vicar had been ex-officio president) ended in 1983.
In 2003, vicar Graham Kings and others founded Fulcrum, which seeks to renew the evangelical tradition at the centre of the Church of England.
From the 1990s, as Islington became a more fashionable place to live and Upper Street developed a significant nightlife, St Mary's retained a concern to serve the widening range of people in the locality. The crypt beneath the church was radically transformed with an innovative regeneration programme.
Worship services take place at St Mary's most days of the week. On Sundays, the main act of worship is the 11am service. A Taize style service begins at 6pm on the third Sunday of every month. The Book of Common Prayer is used for a service of Holy Communion at 9am once per month.
A daily morning prayer meeting takes place at 9.30am on weekdays.
George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican minister and preacher who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement. Born in Gloucester, he matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1732. There, he joined the "Holy Club" and was introduced to John and Charles Wesley, with whom he would work closely in his later ministry. Unlike the Wesleys, he embraced Calvinism.
John Wesley was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day.
Charles Wesley was an English Anglican cleric and a principal leader of the Methodist movement. Wesley was a prolific hymnwriter who wrote over 6,500 hymns during his lifetime. His works include "And Can It Be", "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing", "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today", "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", the carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", and "Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending".
The First Great Awakening, sometimes Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival, was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
Daniel Wilson was an English Bishop of Calcutta.
John William Fletcher was a Swiss-born English divine and Methodist leader. Of French Huguenot stock, he was born in Nyon in Vaud, Switzerland. Fletcher emigrated to England in 1750 and there he became an Anglican vicar. He began to work with John Wesley, becoming a key interpreter of Wesleyan theology in the 18th century and one of Methodism's first great theologians. Fletcher was renowned in Britain for his piety and generosity; when asked if he had any needs, he responded, "...I want nothing but more grace."
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Thomas Haweis (c.1734–1820), was born in Redruth, Cornwall, on 1 January 1734, where he was baptised on 20 February 1734. As a Church of England cleric he was one of the leading figures of the 18th century evangelical revival and a key figure in the histories of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, the Free Church of England and the London Missionary Society.
Julian Tudor Henderson is a retired British Anglican bishop. From 2013 to 2022, he was the Bishop of Blackburn, the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Blackburn in the Church of England. From 2005 to 2013, he was the Archdeacon of Dorking in the Diocese of Guildford.
Paul Shackerley is an Anglican priest of the Church in Wales and is the current dean of Brecon.
Thomas Maxfield was an English Wesleyan Methodist preacher. He was one of the earliest local preachers and began preaching in 1739. After a time in the army, he was ordained as a minister. Maxfield separated from John Wesley's movement in 1763 and led his own church. The two were later reconciled on a personal level, but Maxfield never rejoined the Methodists.
Richard Conyers (1725–1786) was an English evangelical cleric, and the hymn-book compiler of a precursor to the Olney Hymns. He became well known as the parish priest of Helmsley in the North Yorkshire Moors, a cure of scattered villages.
Canon Percy Holbrook MA was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, the son of a silk mercer or draper. He was vicar of the Church of St Mark, Old Leeds Road, Huddersfield, and Holy Trinity Church, Trinity Square, Nottingham, and was Hon. Canon of Woodborough in Southwark Cathedral. During his working life he chaired and supported numerous church and charitable organisations. The Nottingham Post said of him that he "had original ideas and courage to express them," and that "he endeared himself to successive generations of parishioners and citizens ... He was an eloquent preacher, a wise and gentle counsellor, and an understanding friend."
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Christ Church is an Episcopal church at 28 Bull Street, Johnson Square, in Savannah, Georgia. Founded in 1733, it was the first church established in the Province of Georgia and one of the first parishes within the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, earning it the nickname "the Mother Church of Georgia". The present church building was constructed in 1838 and is located in the Savannah Historic District.
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