Methodist Church of Great Britain x United Methodist Church x Wesleyan Methodist Church x Primitive Methodist Church

Methodist Church of Great Britain x United Methodist Church x Wesleyan Methodist Church x Primitive Methodist Church

Barking Road Wesleyan Methodist Church originated in 1857, when Thomas Jacob, a Wesleyan from Cambridge, started services in Sabberton Street. Services, Sunday school, and a day-school were later held in Hallsville Road. In 1862 a school-chapel, seating 250, was built on the north side of Barking Road, east of Canning Town railway station. Owing mainly to the efforts of the superintendent minister, J. S. Workman, a larger building was opened in 1868, heading a new Canning Town circuit, with a membership of 150. The society had previously belonged first to the Spitalfields, then to the Bow circuit. The old chapel continued in use as a day and Sunday school. The new one, with all its records, was destroyed by a fire of 1887 and rebuilt in the same year. Barking Road was transferred to the Seamen's Mission in 1907, when the Cory Institute was erected, costing £6,000, of which £2,000 was given by John Cory of Cardiff. Unemployment and movement of population after the closing of the Thames Ironworks weakened the church about this time, but it revived and flourished until the 1930s. It was destroyed by bombing in September 1940, and a temporary building was erected on the site in 1948. In 1957 it joined the London Mission (West Ham), with a membership of 50. The temporary building was sold and in 1960 the congregation amalgamated with Custom House Primitive Methodist Church and Shirley Street United Methodist Church in a new church at Fife Road, Canning Town. War damage compensation from Barking Road helped to build a new church at Harold Wood, Hornchurch, in 1962. In 1963 there was a petrol station on the Barking Road site.

From: 'West Ham: Roman Catholicism, Nonconformity and Judaism', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6 (1973), pp. 123-141.