William Prout obtained his MD at Edinburgh University in 1811, and then began practice in London. He was a pioneer in physiological and organic chemistry, and lectured at his residence to a small but distinguished audience including Sir Astley Paston Cooper. (See MS.4016.) He was elected FRS in 1819, and FRCP in 1829.
The Bridgewater Treatises represented in this collection were the result of a bequest of £8,000 to the Royal Society by the Earl of Bridgewater, to finance the publication of a work or works "on the power, wisdom, and goodness, of God, as manifested in the creation". Eight were completed.
After being a student of Owen's College, Manchester, the author obtained his MD at Cambridge in 1892, having studied also in Germany and in France. In the same year he was appointed to the Chair of Pathology and Bacteriology at McGill University, Montreal. He was A.D.M.S. to the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in 1914-1918, and had been elected FRS in 1905.
Robert Storrs was born on 23 June 1801, only child of John Storrs, a baker and provision dealer of Doncaster, and his wife Elizabeth (née Robertshaw). Robert was apprenticed for several years to a local surgeon, John Moore and an apothecary, Benjamin Popplewell, before leaving in August 1822 to spend two years walking the wards of Guy's Hospital, London. Whilst there he presented four papers to the Guy's Hospital Physical Society. In London he met his future wife, Martha Townsend, whom he eventually married in March 1827. They had thirteen children, of whom twelve survived their father.
Storrs returned to Doncaster in June 1824 to set up as a sole practitioner in the town. In July 1830 he was appointed honorary surgeon to Doncaster Dispensary. He was heavily involved in treating victims of cholera in 1832. In 1835 he was elected a municipal councillor on a Reform ticket, and in 1837 was one of the founder members of the Doncaster Lyceum. The extent to which his practice had prospered can be gauged from the census return for his household in 1841, when it comprised in addition to family members, a governess, two surgeon apprentices, and one male and four female servants. Storrs later took a close interest in puerperal or childbed fever as a result of the notorious outbreak which struck Doncaster in 1841, and he subsequently published the results of his investigations in the Provincial Medical Journal. He died of typhus on 14 September 1847.
The author obtained his MD at Edinburgh in 1869, and was elected FRCP in 1875, and was Professor of Clinical Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1885. He was knighted in 1911 [Cf. B.M.J. 1922, i, pp. 617, 618.]
Andouille is described as 'Maître-Chirurgien juré et Démonstrateur Royal de St. Cosme'. The author is called 'celeberriums Chirurgus' by Haller (cf. Bibliotheca Chirurgica, Vol. II, p. 384): he was a 'Premier Chirurgien du Roy' in 1742.
Norman Henry Ashton was born in London on the 11th of September 1913. He became a junior laboratory assistant at a private laboratory in Brook Street, London in 1928 where he remained until 1931. He then moved to the Princess Beatrice Hospital, West Kensington, London where he was pathological laboratory assistant. While in this post he studied for the examinations of the College of Preceptors, which could be taken part-time, first at the Chelsea Polytechnic, then at Kings College, and later at Westminster Hospital Medical School. In 1939 he qualified in Medicine and Surgery and Registered as a Medical Practitioner (MRCS, LRCP). After 2 years at Westminster Hospital he moved to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in 1941 where he was pathologist until 1945.
In 1946, Ashton enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted in West Africa , before being transferred to Egypt in 1947. He was discharged from the Army in the same year and became Director of Pathology at the Institute of Ophthalmology in 1948. Here he established a laboratory of international repute, which contributed to research and provided a clinical service to Moorfields Eye Hospital and other hospitals around the world. He was responsible for the training of the first generation of ophthalmic pathologists in Britain. He remained at the Institute until his retirement in 1978. He was also Professor of Pathology at the University of London from 1957 to 1978.
In 1953, Ashton's investigations into Retrolental Fibroplasia (RLF), now known as Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), revealed that the exposure of premature babies to high levels of oxygen in order to relieve breathing difficulties, could cause an obliteration of growing retinal blood vessels followed by disorganised regrowth and scarring which led to blindness. As a consequence, oxygen delivery to babies was strictly controlled and the sight of many infants was saved. In 1960, he was the first in Europe to identify Toxocara Canis (the dog roundworm) as a cause of retinal disease in children, leading to a national campaign to rid the streets of dog faeces. In 1965, he founded Fight for Sight (one of the foremost charities supporting eye research in the UK) and was chairman of the charity from 1980 to 1991, when he became a patron. He had a key role in establishing the European Pathology Society, of which he was made life president. Ashton's other major research was in the areas of diabetic retinopathy (retinal disease caused by diabetes) and hypertensive retinopathy (retinal disease caused by high blood pressure).
Professor Ashton received countless honours and awards for his academic achievements, including the Doyne Medal in 1960. In 1971 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and was appointed CBE in 1976. Two years later, he was awarded the Gonin Gold Medal (the highest award for ophthalmology). In honour of his work for Fight for Sight and his research achievements, the new Institute of Ophthalmology building which opened in Bath Street, London in 1992 was named after him. In 1981 Ashton received the first Jules Stein Award with A Patz, he also received the International Pisart Vision Award in 1991, the Royal Society's Buchanan Medal in 1996, and the Helen Keller Prize in 1998. At various stages of his career and his retirement he was president of five societies of pathology and ophthalmology and was elected Master of the Society of Apothecaries in 1984. In all, he contributed to 274 scientific publications during his lifetime.
In addition to his professional accomplishments, Ashton was a highly acclaimed and witty public speaker as well as a keen performer of amateur dramatics and a gifted artist. He died in London on the 4th of January 2000.
Cicely Delphine Williams was born December 1893. She first attracted the attention of the medical world when she identified the protein deficiency disease kwashiorkor whilst working with the British Colonial Service in the Gold Coast in 1928-1935, and she continued to be active in the debate over protein nutrition throughout her life. She was equally important as a pioneer of maternal and child care in developing countries with a system based on local traditions and resources rather than on the use of expensive drugs and western systems of child care. As first Head of the Maternal and Child Health Section of the World Health Organisation in 1949-1951 she expounded this philosophy, as she did in subsequent teaching appointments in Beirut, America and London. Her primary area of interest was maternal and child health, encompassing nutrition, breast feeding, birth control, the training of personnel and the development of health services. She was an active member of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, speaking at their meetings. Williams died in 1992.
Leonard Colebrook's work was chiefly concerned with the control of the spread of infection in hospitals and the treatment of infected wounds. During the First World War he worked in Boulogne with Sir Almroth Wright, and advocated using the patient's inborn resistance to fight infection in wounds, using hypertonics rather than antiseptics which he argued were too harmful to the patient's tissues. In 1930 he was appointed to Queen Charlotte's Hospital where he developed the use of sulphonamides in the treatment of puerperal sepsis. In 1939, as bacteriologist to the Army in France, Colebrook introduced the dusting of wounds with sulphonamide powder, which greatly reduced the incidence of sepsis. In 1940 he joined an MRC team working on septicity of burns and scalds, and in 1943 went on to organise the burns unit at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, creating special dressing rooms with filtered air and near sterile conditions. After his marriage in 1946 he and his wife, Vera, embarked on a campaign leading to the passage of the Fireguards Act in 1952, and continued to campaign for non-flammable night clothing. In 1954 Colebrook's biography of Almroth Wright was published.
Born, 1890; educated at Rugby School; New College, Oxford; second-class degree in physiology and entered Guy's Hospital with a scholarship, 1912; dispatch rider, First World War, 1914; wounded, Sep 1914; returned to Guy's Hospital to complete his clinical studies, 1914; commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps and posted as medical officer to the Royal Flying Corps squadron at Farnborough, 1915; MRCP, 1916; returned to France to serve with 101 field ambulance and as medical officer of the 1st Middlesex regiment, 1916; resident medical officer at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London, 1919; assistant physician for nervous diseases at Guy's Hospital, 1920; Radcliffe travelling fellowship, USA, 1920; National Hospital, Queen Square, 1926; consultant in neurology to the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, 1926; civilian consultant in neurology to the RAF, 1934; consultant in neurology, Central Medical Establishment at Halton, 1939; returned to his hospital and private practice after the Second World War; Sims travelling professor, 1953; retired from hospital practice, 1955; retired from practice, 1963; died, 1978.
Daly was born on 14 April 1893 in Leamington Spa and educated at Rossall School, 1906-1911, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1911-1914, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, qualifying M.B., B.Ch., Cambridge, in 1918. In addition to completing his medical training, he also served with the Royal Navy Air Service during the First World War. Daly was Assistant in the Physiology Department, University College, London, 1919-1923, and Lecturer in Experimental Physiology, University of Wales, Cardiff, 1923-1927. He held Chairs in Physiology at the Universities of Birmingham, 1927-1933, and Edinburgh, 1933-1947, seconded 1943-1945, as Director of the Medical Research Council's Physiological Laboratory, Armoured Fighting Vehicle Training School, Lulworth, Dorset. He became the first Director of the Agricultural Research Council's Institute of Animal Physiology, Babraham, Cambridge, 1948-1958. He continued in active research in retirement as Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, 1958-1962, and with the financial support from the National Institutes of Health, USA, 1962-1965, at the University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford. Daly was a leading authority on pulmonary and bronchial systems. He died on 8 February 1974. He was elected FRS in 1943.
Born in London 14 Nov 1910. Educated at Westminster School. MA 1940, MB BCh 1942 Cambridge, MA 1949, DM 1955 Oxford, FRCP 1963, FRCPath 1963, DSc 1961 London, FRCPsych 1971, FRCS 1973, FLS. After studying medicine at Cambridge Daniel went on to become House Physician and House Surgeon Charing Cross Hospital and then Graduate Assistant in Pathology, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He was Honorary Consultant Pathologist at the Radcliffe, 1948-1956 where he taught in Sir Hugh Cairns' neurosurgery unit. He was also Senior Research Officer University of Oxford, 1949-1956. In 1956 he was appointed Professor of Neuropathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London 1956 where he remained until his retirement in 1977. He held various other posts during his career including Honorary Consultant in Neuropathology to the Army at Home, 1952-1977, Emeritus Physician Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals from 1976, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Applied Physiology and Surgical Science, RCSEng from 1976, and Emeritus Fellow, Leverhulme Trust 1978-1980.
Daniel was an active and long-term member or honorary member of many medical and scientific societies including the British Neuropathological Society (ex-president 1963-1964), Harveian Society (ex-president 1966), Royal Society of Medicine, The Osler Club, Physiological Society, Association of British Neurologists, Medical Society of London (ex-president 1987-1988 and honorary librarian 1985-1990). Amongst the awards Daniel received were the Prosect Medal of the RCSEdin, John Hunter Medal and triennial prize of the College and the Erasmus Wilson lectureship. Daniel died on 19 November 1998.
Sir (William) Richard Shaboe Doll qualified in medicine at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1937. After five years military service, he started research in the field of gastroenterology with Sir Francis Avery Jones at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1946. During the next twenty years, he contributed many papers on the aetiology and treatment of peptic ulcer.
In 1948, he joined the Medical Research Council's Statistical Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine under Sir Austin Bradford Hill, with the primary objective of investigating the cause(s) of a dramatic increase in the mortality of lung cancer. On Bradford Hill's retirement in 1961, he took over the directorship of the Unit and continued in this post until his appointment, in 1969, as Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. Ten years later, in 1979, he became the first Warden of Green College, Oxford, a new College established primarily to serve the special interests of clinical medicine at Oxford. Whilst at Oxford, he directed the Cancer Epidemiology Unit established by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He continued to work as an honorary member of Sir Richard Peto's research group at Oxford after his retirement in 1983.
Doll's principal research interests were the effects of smoking, ionising radiation, oral contraceptives, and the occupational hazards of cancer. In 1981, he published with Richard Peto a report on the Causes of Cancer at the request of the Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress. His pre-eminence in the field of epidemiology led to a steady stream of honours and lecture opportunities across the world. He received 15 honorary degrees from the universities at home and abroad, and a number of awards including the Royal Society's Royal Medal, the BMA Gold Medal, General Motors Mott Prize and the UN Award for Cancer Research. Sir Richard Doll was a Foreign Associate of the American Association of Arts and Science and received his OBE in 1956, FRS in 1966, was knighted in 1971, and became a Companion of Honour in 1996. In 2002 Doll was elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Doll died on 24th July 2005, aged 92.
In 1965 Dorothy Silberston convened the first meeting of the Relatives of Mentally Ill Patients in Cambridge. Up until 1972 she was secretary of this organisation whose members aims were to learn more about mental illness, support each other and to campaign for health service improvements. Her involvement originated from personal experiences, her daughter Catherine having been diagnosed and hospitalized with schizophrenia in 1961. Dorothy was one of the 400 people who contacted John Pringle after reading his article, 'A Case of Schizophrenia', in The Times, May 1970. She went on to become one of the founder members of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. During the 1970s she contributed to the NSF publication Living with Schizophrenia by the Relatives and helped draft NSF comments on the DHSS Review of the Mental Health Act 1959 and their memorandum to the Royal Commission on the NHS (1977).
Between 1982 and 1997 she was member and later chair of the NSF Medico-legal Committee and Honorary Parliamentary Officer and did significant work on the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill introduced in 1981 by Lord Mottistone. Between 1982 and 1995 she held positions as an elected NSF Council member, co-opted Council member and Vice Chairman. From 1996 to 2001 Dorothy Silberston was Honorary Vice-President of the NSF. She resigned from the Fellowship after it changed its name to Rethink.
Dorothy Silberston was very active in local politics and the community. In 1960-1961 she helped establish the Cambridge Association for the Advancement of State Education and from 1969-1973 she served as a Cambridge County Councillor (Labour). She was awared the MBE for her work in connection with the NSF.
From 1973-1980 Dorothy Silberston held the post of Keeper of Nuffield Place, former home of William Morris, Lord Nuffield. In her latter years she continued her involvement with the house (designed by Oswald Partridge Milne in 1914), its history, and survival as a place of historical interest open to the public. She died in 2006.
The National Schizophrenia Fellowship, a registered charity, was founded by journalist John Pringle in 1972 with the aim of acting as the national organisation for all matters concerning people with experience of schizophrenia and related conditions, their families, carers and dependants. Its origins dated back to the public response to an open letter by Pringle to the Times in May 1970 in which he described his own experience of dealing with schizophrenia in a family member. The letter, as well as describing the huge difficulties faced by carers, highlighted problems caused by the closure of large hospitals and lack of adequate community services.
The NSF National Office was based at Kingston upon Thames. It was supplemented by regional offices and Regional Committees, Project Commiteees and a network over 150 local groups. The Groups were run by volunteer co-ordinators, mostly relatives caring for an individual suffering from schizophrenia. Local groups met regularly and organised a range of activities to inform local people, provide support, influence local professionals and liaise with other agencies. The NSF was financed by charitable grants and donations, fund-raising, Local and Health Authority contracts, legacies and members' subscriptions, with about 5% of total income received directly from central government.
By the early 1990s the NSF had over 6000 members, ran over 150 regional projects in the housing, employment and day care fields all over the country. An Advice and Advocacy Service was also provided, answering thousands of queries each year on all apsects of the care and treatment of severe mental illness as well as welfare benefits, carers' problems, accommodation, holidays and other related issues.
The NSF campaigned vigorously for the rate of mental hospital closures to be slowed to allow for the proper development of community facilities for mentally ill people, and for more trained social workers and community psychiatric nurses as well as small domestic style units for those unable to cope outside hospital.
National conferences were held regularly as part of a national and regional programme of training to raise awareness of mental illness. Courses were run for social workers, psychiatrists, GPs, police, and the probation service. The NSF changed its name to Rethink in July 2002. At this point the organisation altered its focus to encompass all severe mental illnesses. Rethink currently have a membership of over 8300. The Head office is in Finsbury Square, London.
Edgar Ashworth Underwood (1899-1980) was a medical man specialising in public health before making a second career in medical history. Born, 1899; Schooling in Glasgow/Dumfries Academy; Served with Cameron Highlanders in France, 1917-1919; University of Glasgow MA, MB,Ch B,BSc, 1924; Physician at Western Infirmary, Glasgow, 1924; Diploma in Public Health (DPH), 1926; Assistant M O H in Glasgow and County of Lanark, 1926; Deputy M O H County of Rotherham, 1929; Medical Superintendant of Oakwood Sanitarium, Rotherham, 1929-1931; Deputy M O H, City of Leeds, 1932-1934; Lecturer in Public Health, University of Leeds; M O H, Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, 1934-1937; M O H, Chief School Medical Officer, County Borough of West Ham, 1937-1945; MD, 1936; Fellow of Royal Society of Medicine, 1933; Honorary Secretary of Royal Society of Medicine, 1942-1948; President of Royal Society of Medicine, 1948-1950; Director, Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Library, 1946-1964; President of the History Section, RSM, 1948-1950; retired, 1964; died, 1980.
Professor Ernest Basil Verney (1894-1967), MD, FRCP, FRS, was a physiologist and pharmacologist. An outline of his life and career follows: Born 1894; Exhibition to Downing College, Cambridge, 1913; First class honours part 1 natural science tripos, 1916; Shuter scholar, St Bartholomew's Hospital, anatomy and physiology, 1916-1918; Served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1918-1919; MB, BChir (Cantab) MRCP (London), 1920; Assistant to E.H. Starling in the Institute of Physiology, University College London, 1921; Married Ruth Eden Conway, 1923; Assistant to Professor T R Elliott in University College Hospital Medical School, 1924; Chair of Pharmacology at University College London, 1926; Acquitted of charge of using stolen dog in research, 1926; Breakdown in health, 1930; Sheild Reader in Pharmacology in Cambridge, Fellow of Darwin College, 1934; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1936; First Sheild Professor of Pharmacology, Cambridge, 1946; Honorary DSc, University of Melbourne, 1956; Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne Baly medal of the Royal College of Physicians Honorary member of the Physiological Society, 1957; Retired; Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, Cambridge, 1961; Personal chair at University of Melbourne, work on adrenal secretions, 1961-1964; Died 1967.
Sir Edward Eric 'Bill' Pochin K.B.E. (1909-1990) was a scientist of international stature: a physician, endocrinologist, radiobiologist , and an acclaimed authority on radiological protection. In his clinical career he was involved with the care of patients, teaching and research, and subsequently with development of protection techniques and the setting of standards and their application.
Eileen Palmer, Olive Johnson, and Edith How-Martyn worked closely together in the British birth control movement during a period from the 1920s to the 1950s. How-Martyn had been active in this cause since before the First World War. They were all involved with the Birth Control International Information Centre and Birth Control Worldwide organisations during the 1930s, and Palmer accompanied How-Martyn on one of her several tours of India to promote birth control. How-Martyn undertook a number of other foreign tours, before emigrating to Australia with her husband around 1940. There is an entry for How-Martyn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and some obituaries and other biographical material in A.8.
Grantly Dick Read is primarily famous for his work as a propagandist for 'natural childbirth'. This is the belief that in all but a small minority of cases labour is a normal physiological event, which in the case of properly instructed women can be carried out with a minimum of obstetric intervention. It includes the methods by which women can be trained to conduct labour as a conscious participant rather than a drugged patient. Dick Read's teachings were a matter of some controversy among the medical profession, as he was not a qualified obstetrician and even after his teachings had become widespread and his methods employed, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists refused to admit him to membership. However he gained considerable support from among women themselves.
Hans Grüneberg was born in Germany and studied medicine in Bonn and biology in Berlin. At the invitation of J B S Haldane, he moved to London in 1933, where R A Fisher and M J D White were also working on genetics. Grüneberg established the subject of development genetics, along with C H Waddington. He studied the pathological processes in mutant mice, and formulated a 'pedigree of causes' of genes, which was an important model for human disease. In 1943 he published Genetics of the Mouse (extensively revised in 1952), a work which influenced many experimental laboratories.
Wilson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1895. He was educated at King's College, London and Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, London where he undertook his first research at the suggestion of W.W.C. Topley. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, rejoining Topley at Charing Cross in 1920 as Demonstrator in Bacteriology. He moved with Topley, first to Manchester University as Lecturer in 1923, and then to the newly established London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as Reader in Bacteriology in 1927. In 1930 he was appointed to the Chair of Bacteriology Applied to Hygiene, a post he held until 1947.
Wilson's researches, initially with Topley, encompassed the Salmonella group of bacteria, brucellosis and tuberculosis, milk hygiene and the control of diphtheria. Topley and Wilson established courses for the Diploma of Bacteriology at both Manchester and the LSHTM, and their celebrated text book Principles of bacteriology and immunity (first published in 1929) had its origins in these courses. After Topley's death in 1944, Wilson continued to revise the publication with A. A. Miles, reaching a seventh edition in 1984. With the approach of the Second World War, Wilson was involved in the planning of the Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) and became its Director in 1941. He continued as Director of the peacetime PHLS until his retirement in 1963, when he returned to LSHTM as Honorary Lecturer in Microbiology. Wilson died in 1987. He was elected FRS in 1978 (Buchanan Medal 1967). He was knighted in 1962.
Born, 1899; worked as medical orderly in the accident hospital at Konigshütte, 1917-1918; Studied medicine in Breslau, Würzburg and Freiburg; MD Freiburg, and began working with neurologist Professor Otfrid Foerster in Breslau, 1924; went to Hamburg to run a neurosurgical service in a municipal psychiatric hospital, 1928; returned to Breslau as Foerster's first assistant, 1929; Privatdozent, 1930; became neurologist and neurosurgeon to the Jewish hospital in Breslau, 1933; medical director of the Jewish hospital in Breslau, 1937; Witnessed the Kristalnacht, and was able to save a number of individuals by admitting them to the hospital, 1938; he and his family granted visas to go to England; invited to Oxford; started work in the Nuffield department of neurosurgery in the Radcliffe Infirmary under Hugh Cairns, 1939; invited to start a centre for paraplegics in the Emergency Medical Service Hospital at Stoke Mandeville, 1943; Centre opened and became an internationally renowned institution which revolutionised the treatment and management of paraplegia, 1944; Inception of sports programme at Stoke Mandeville, 1947; died, 1980.
Saint Luke's Church is situated on Ramsden Road. It was constructed in 1883 in a Romanesque style. An ecclesiastical district was assigned in 1901.
From: 'Parishes: Battersea with Penge', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 8-17.
The Grade 1 Listed church building of Saint Mary, Battersea dates from 1777. The successful preservation of an almost complete series of registers from Saint Mary's since 1559 reflects the long and ongoing history of this 'ancient' London parish. The manor of Battersea was under the ownership of Westminster Abbey from the eleventh century until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. The manor church therefore enjoyed an unbroken succession of vicars during that period, as it has to the present day. The development of Battersea as a residential area during the eighteenth century was the impetus behind the building of the current church, to designs by Joseph Dixon. As the population of the area rose it became necessary to found several more churches, and the parish was divided into smaller districts. This began in 1853 with the church of Saint George, Nine Elms. J.M.W. Turner, William Curtis, Benedict Arnold and William Blake have all had associations with Saint Mary's, the latter being married there, to Catherine Butcher, in 1782.
Caius Mission Church and Settlement was a joint initiative between Saint Mary's and Caius College founded on the principles of 'social settlements'. This late nineteenth century movement, in which many of the old universities were involved, sought to bring about social reform through the educational and cultural enrichment of poorer urban area. Caius College Mission continues to operate as a community education initiative.
The church of Saint Anne, Bermondsey, was constructed in 1869. In 1994 the parish was united with Saint Augustine, Bermondsey (P71/AUG).
The parish was united with Saint Olave in 1918. The Church was damaged in the Second World War; from September 1940 marriages were solemnized in the Vestry Hall. The last marriage register was closed in October 1956 when the parishes of Saint John Horselydown and Saint Olave were united with Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey.
In 1821, the land which forms part of the churchyard was bought and a generous grant from the Commissioners of the Fund was secured. The Chairman of the Committee was William Nottidge, a wool-stapler; with him were two brothers, William George and Richard King Watts, tanners; John Harcourt, Thomas Keeton and Martin Carter, all builders, Robert Rich, who commanded the Bermondsey Volunteers and Dr William Harrison, one of the two Chaplains of Sat Saviour's, Southwark.
With a liberal grant from the parishioners and a gift from the commissioners, the contract for the building of the church, costing £21,412.19.5, was signed. The first stone was laid on 21st February 1827. The church was consecrated by Dr Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, on May 7th 1829. Initially the church encountered some financial difficulty, however by 1840 the last loan had been repaid and the church was free of debt.
The parish of Saint James was formed in 1840, from part of the parish of Saint Mary Magdalene. The creation of new parish in the Bermondsey area was necessitated by a great increase in population. The advowson of the parish was held by the rector of Bermondsey.
The parish of Saint Luke was established in 1885 out of parts of the parishes of Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint James. The advowson was held by the bishop of the diocese.
Saint Mary's is the ancient parish church of Rotherhithe. It is first mentioned in records in 1291. The advowson passed through various hands before being purchased by the Masters of Clare College, Cambridge. The medieval church building was reconstructed in 1714.
This parish was originally part of Southwark, but in 1900 when the metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey was formed the parish became part of Bermondsey. The parish was united with St John Horselydown in 1918 and the church was closed in 1921.
The church of Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe, was constructed between 1837 and 1838. An ecclesiastical district was assigned in 1842, while the advowson was held by the rector of Rotherhithe. The church was destroyed by enemy action during World War Two, and was rebuilt in a modern style in 1957.
The church of Saint Bartholomew was constructed in 1841 and consectrated in 1844. The building was built in an Early English style, designed by William Railton. A district was assigned in 1844, taken from part of the parish of Saint Matthew. The patron was the Corporation of London. The church ran various associations and missionary activities, including preaching from a pulpit attached to the exterior of the church. The church was damaged during the Second World War and services were held in the hall until the church could be reopened in 1955. In 1978 the parish was merged with Saint John's (P72/JN) and Saint Simon Zelotes (P72/SIM), and the church was closed and converted into flats.
From: 'Bethnal Green: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 217-226.
Saint Jude's Church was constructed between 1842 and 1846. It was designed by Henry Clutton in a Romanesque style, and seated 1,110. A district was assigned in 1844, taken from the parish of Saint Matthew. By 1858 the church supported a young men's association, provident society and library. Between 1892 and 1896 money was raised to found an institute and soup kitchen. Mission services and open air services were also held. By 1914 the church was supporting brigades, temperance classes, clubs, a penny bank and holidays for mothers and children. The church was damaged by enemy action in 1940 and demolished. The parish was merged with Saint James the Great (P72/JSG) in 1951.
From: 'Bethnal Green: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 217-226.
The church of Saint Matthias was constructed between 1846 and 1848, designed by T.H. Wyatt and D. Brandon in a Romanesque style. In 1844 a district was assigned from part of the parish of Saint Matthew. In the 1850s the church was active in missionary work, holding classes and lectures and supporting a provident society and library. The parish was united with Saint Matthew (P72/MTW) in 1954 and the church was demolished.
From: 'Bethnal Green: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 217-226.
The church of Saint Paul was built in 1863-64, designed by W. Wigginton and seating 900. A district was assigned in 1865, taken from parts of the parishes of Saint Matthias and Saint Thomas. The church was damaged by enemy action during the Second World War and had to be destroyed, while the parish was united with Saint Matthew's (P72/MTW).
From: 'Bethnal Green: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 217-226.
The parish of Saint Simon Zelotes was formed in 1844, taken from parts of the parishes of Saint John and Saint James the Less. The church was constructed between 1840 and 1847, designed by B. Ferrey in a Gothic style. It seated 933. The church was damaged by bombing in 1943 and 1944 and was later demolished. The parish was united with Saint Anthony, Stepney, in 1936; and in 1971 united with Saint John, Bethnal Green (P72/JN).
From: 'Bethnal Green: List of Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 217-226.
Until 1894 Dulwich Village was an outlying hamlet of the parish of Saint Giles, Camberwell. However, the chapel of Dulwich College, built in 1616 by Edward Alleyn as a Chapel of Ease to Saint Giles, had long since taken over responsibility for ministering to the village even though in name and law Saint Giles was the parish church.
But the college itself had, well before 1894, become unable to accommodate the growing size of the congregation. In 1891, therefore, under the direction of the Bishop of Rochester, within whose diocese Dulwich then lay, the Revd Howard Nixon was appointed Assistant Curate at Saint Giles and as such to be Curate-in-Charge of Dulwich Mission District, with a view to establishing it as a parish in its own right.
Following his appointment the Revd Nixon very soon called a meeting of the inhabitants, to be held on 13 May 1891, and at this it was decided to build a temporary iron church on a site offered by the Estates Governors and to appoint a Building Committee for the building of a permanent one. The first service at the temporary church took place on 5 September 1891. The service was attended by an Archdeacon as representative of the Bishop of Rochester. Henceforward Dulwich Village was ordered on a quasi-parochial basis, with the appointment of church officials and the holding of vestry meetings. The Revd Nixon came to be styled the Vicar-Designate. On 1 January, 1892 the church took over from the college chapel responsibility for various religious and benevolent activities carried on in the hamlet, known as the Dulwich Local Charities and including the Infants' School.
The permanent church was built on another site given by the Estates Governors, and consecrated on Saint Barnabas' Day, 11 June 1894. On 23 August 1894 the church was officially assigned a District Chapelry, but it clearly functioned as a fully developed parish. This status was officially acquired, and the Incumbent, the Revd Nixon, became officially a Vicar, in 1915 when the Revd F F Kelly vacated the benefice of St Giles, Camberwell, which he had held since 1880.
As various memorials attest, the parish of Saint Barnabas is a monument to the work of the Revd (from 1923 Canon) Nixon. His commitment, and that which he inspired in his parishioners, enabled the Church, an Institute, a Vicarage, and a Parish Hall to be built, largely from public donations. The villagers also contributed personal assistance, for example a woodwork group contributed furnishings to the church and a Ladies Needlework Guild made items to be sold to raise funds.
Camden Church was originally formed as Camden Chapel in 1796 by eighteen trustees of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, a religious group who had seceded from the parish church of Saint Giles. They each provided £100 to meet the cost of the chapel, which became a district church in 1844. It was badly damaged by bombing in October 1940 and August 1944 and was evetually demolished in 1956.
Camden Church School was established around 1840 from the Sunday school run by Camden Church. Following the demolition of the church building, responsibility for the school was undertaken by the parish of St Luke, Peckham.
The parish of Saint John the Evangelist was established in 1865, and the church was constructed at the same date in a medieval style.
The church of Saint Mary Magdalene was constructed in 1840 in a medieval style. A parish was assigned to the church in 1842.
The parish of Saint Mark was established in 1880. The church building was begun in 1879, with a chancel aisle added in 1883-1884 by Norman Shaw. The church was not completed until 1932. The parish of Saint Mark, Cobourg Road was united with the parish of Saint Philip, Avondale Square in 1965 and Saint Philip's Church became the parish church of the united parish. Saint Mark's is now used as a store.
The church was built in 1876, consisting of a half-octagonal chancel with north organ chamber and south vestry, together with a nave, transept and aisle. The church was constructed of Kentish ragstone and designed in a medieval style. It was rebuilt in 1962. The parish was united with St. Mark, Cobourg Road (P73/MRK2) in 1965.
Saint Saviour's church and vicarage was built and founded by Francis Peek (1836-1899) in memory of his parents William and Mary Peek. Building work on the church began in 1880 and the church was consecrated on February 22nd, 1881. The parish was extended in 1931 to include Dog Kennel Hill and part of Campion Hill. The original vicarage was badly damaged during the Second World War and later sold, with a house on Oglander street being purchased instead.
The original trustees of the church were members of the Peek family, later the trustees were the Southwark and Rochester Diocesan Trust. In 1959, at the suggestion of the remaining patrons (Rev Canon Roxby and Mr Daukes) the partonage was invested in the Southwark Diocesan Board of Patronage.
In 1978-1879 the building was extensively remodelled and converted into a community centre with a central worship area shared by the Anglicans and the Hanover United Reformed Church, which joined together in 1981 to create the Copleston Centre Church, a local ecumenical partnership. Plans for the re-modelling where designed by the architects Weekes and Hughes, with the re-modelling being done by Thomas Ford and Partners.
Saint Silas in Ivydale Road was built to meet the needs of the residents on the Waverley Estate. The congregation originally met in a shop in Ivydale Road. When this became too small for the growing congregation Waverley Park Mission hall was built in Inverton Road on 5 October 1895. The church of Saint Silas was consecrated on 17 October 1903. On 1 March 1990 Saint Silas was made a united benefice with Saint Anthony, Nunhead Lane (P73/ANT).
Saint John's Church was situated on Tadema Road. Open air services had been held in the area from 1873. The permanent church was opened in 1876 to serve the new development of World's End in west Chelsea. The church sponsored a wide range of charitable and social activities and worked with the Salvation Army. The church was bombed in 1940 and services moved to a mission church, Saint John's Community Church, on Blantyre Street. In 1973 the parish was united with Saint Andrew's, Park Walk.
Information from 'Religious history: Church extension', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12: Chelsea (2004), pp. 250-258.
The church of Holy Trinity in Sloane Street was constructed between 1828 and 1830 as a chapel of ease to Saint Luke's, then parish church of Chelsea. The area of Upper Chelsea was assigned to Holy Trinity as a separate parish in 1832. The parish merged with that of Saint Jude's Church in 1892. In 1888 the church was demolished as it was too small and was rebuilt by 1907 to seat 1,800. It was designed by J.D. Seddings and included decoration by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. The church is considered to be an excellent example of the Arts and Crafts movement; there was outcry in the 1970s when it was threatened with destruction and Sir John Betjeman contributed a poem to the campaign to save it. In 1997 the living was suspended as the church was so poorly attended.
Source of information: 'Religious history: Church extension', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12: Chelsea (2004), pp. 250-258.
The church of Saint Catherine opened during 1894. In 1913 it was damaged by a fire, allegedly started by suffragists. There was bomb damage during the Second World War and the church was partly re-roofed. In 1972 the western end of the church was incorporated into a new community centre.
Christ Church, Church Street, Deptford, was consecrated in 1871 but was closed in 1936 when the parish merged with St Nicholas. It was subsequently demolished and there is now housing on the site.
All Saints Mission Chapel was established by All Saints Church, Caledonian Road (see P83/ALL1). It was situated at 90 White Lion Street. For a time the Mission shared administration with Saint Silas' Church, Penton Street. It was notorious for Anglo-Catholicism.