Congregational Church of England and Wales

The Canning Town Congregational Church, Barking Road, originated in 1855 in services conducted at Plaistow Marsh by Thomas Perfect. Although lacking formal training, he served successfully as pastor until he retired in 1884. In 1860 a small chapel was built in Swanscombe Street. This was superseded in 1868 when a new building was erected in Barking Road, but remained in use as a mission hall. Another mission hall was maintained at North Woolwich from about 1879 to 1907. Under F. W. Newland (1884-1894) the Mansfield House university settlement became closely associated with the church, its boys' club being centred at the Swanscombe Street hall, which was rebuilt in 1891. F. W. Piper (1905-1909) devised a scheme to unite under his superintendency most of the Congregational churches in the area, as the South West Ham mission. Canning Town, Victoria Docks, and their missions came together in 1906, and were joined in 1909 by Greengate. The object of the mission was to ensure pastoral care for churches too poor to support separate ministers, but the traditions of independence were too strong: Greengate left the union in 1914 and Victoria Docks in 1917. Canning Town continued to call itself the South West Ham mission until 1923. All its buildings were badly damaged in the Second World War. Swanscombe Street, wrecked in 1940, was later demolished. The Barking Road church, twice bombed, was derelict from 1941. Its dwindling congregation continued to meet elsewhere in various borrowed premises, under the leadership of Mrs. M. Angel, widow of a former minister. Through her efforts a smaller church, opened in 1949, was erected on the foundations of the old one. She died in 1959 and the church closed almost immediately.

From: A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6 (1973), pp. 123-141.