Stories & People – Paper 3
WHO
THEY WERE IN BUILDING
in
the Reformed Churches of
BUILT ENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALS
BUILDING-RELATED PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC
SERVICE
LOCAL CHURCH AND
COMMUNITY BUILDING PROJECTS
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE BUILDING PROJECTS
BUILDING-RELATED CENTRAL CHURCH
ACTIVITIES
BUILDING-RELATED OVERSEAS AND MISSION
PROJECTS
SPECIAL REALATIONSHIPS WITH BUILDINGS
Paper 4, Building
a Vocational Community, is a broadly-based ecumenical study of people in
building and church/ministry.
My aim in this further paper is to
extend the concept and sense of community by examining the Reformed Churches of
England and
The source for this work is:
Taylor, John
and Binfield,
Who they were in the Reformed Churches of
United Reformed Church History Society
ISBN 978
1900289 825
I am grateful to the United Reformed
Church History Society for permission to quote extensively from this source.
John Taylor and Clyde Binfield, with a
team of biographers, have compiled the stories of leading people in the Reformed
Churches in
Anyone
browsing in the book will become aware of the diversity it exposes. The fabric
of British life, distinctively patterned, is displayed. There are pioneering
missionaries, politicians, ecumenists, hymn writers, scientists, social
reformers, administrators, teachers and benefactors. There are industrialists,
architects and journalists as well as the expected academics, theologians and
preachers (Taylor
and Binfield p xi)
In this Paper I have drawn out from
their work some of the details of contributions made in the particular field of
building and built environment, categorising them under the following headings:
1.
Built environment
professionals
2.
Building-related
philanthropy and public service
3.
Local church and
community building projects
4.
Theological college
building projects
5.
Building-related central
church activities
6. Building-related overseas and mission projects
7.
Special relationships to
buildings
Some general observations follow the
detailed sections below.
BUILT
ENVIRONMENT PROFESSIONALS
Involvement in professional life over
and above day-to-day practice is evident in Mawson who was the first President
of the
Two further members of this group are
Oliver Lancelot who was a builder and Francis Salisbury whose early career was
as a stained glass artist.
Figgis,
Thomas Phillips (1858-1948) FRIBA Architect
Articled in
His work included:
Moorgate
Station, headquarters of the City and South London Railway The Coopers’
Company Schools, Bow
Woolwich
Polytechnic
Radium
Institute (behind All Souls’
Conversion of
Houses at
Bickley, Hampstead and Letchworth
Training
Colony for Men,
Home for Epileptics, Lingfield
Church-related projects included:
St Andrew’s
PCE, Ealing
St Ninian’s
PCE, Golder’s Green
St
Columba’s PCE,
Refurbishment
of
Goodspeed
House, Poplar
Goodwill
House, Poplar, flats for Presbyterian
Housing Scheme
Mission Hall,
St Mary Abbott’s, Kensington
(
Horder,
Percy Richard Morley (1870-1944) FRIBA Architect
Horder trained under Devey and Williams
and struck out on his own at an unusually early age and at unusually good
addresses:
Industrialists
- Jesse Boot; Arthur du Cros (Dunlop Rubber); Lord Bearsted (Shell) and
several Harmsworths
Congregational
churches -
Muswell Hil;, Fetter Lane, Leyton; Trinity, Hackney; Bowes Park; Bushey; Penge;
Brondesbury Park
Other church
projects - Silvester Horne Memorial
Institute, Church Stretton;
Horder’s brother Gerald (1877-1939)’
was an admired quantity surveyor, marking out that new profession’.
(
Mawson,
Thomas Hayton (1861-1933) HonRIBA Landscape Architect
TH Mawson was one of the most successful
landscape architects of his day, with an international reputation. [He]
attracted Andrew Carnegie, WH Lever (qv), Gordon Selfridge and the Greek Royal
Family but appealed less to Garden City
He joined his younger brothers in Mawson
Brothers, Windermere, concentrating from 1889 on his own practice and by 1902
had offices in
Oliver,
Lancelot (1853-1922) Evangelist
An Evangelist
in the Churches of Christ was a builder by trade (he and his brother John put up
the Bedlington Meeting House) based in
(Taylor
and Binfield p167)
Salisbury
, Francis (Frank) Owen (1874-1962)
Portraitist
His father was a plumber. As a lad he
became an apprentice at his brother’s stained glass workshop at St Alban’s.
Drawing was part of his training [and he became] a celebrated portrait painter. (Taylor and Binfield p198)
BUILDING-RELATED
PHILANTHROPY AND PUBLIC SERVICE
I am commenting here on seven people.
Two early 20th century philanthropists, Lord Leverhulme, soap
manufacturer, and Sir Halley Stewart, brick-maker, built villages for their
workers consisting of housing and community buildings including churches.
Rowland Lishman’s work similarly embraces housing and community building.
Later in the century Sydney Caffyn and Daniel Jenkins were involved with the
Meeting House project at the
Lever,
William Hesketh, first Viscount Leverhulme (1851-1925), Businessman,
philanthropist
Lever’s showcase was Port Sunlight,
the Wirral works village, and its neighbouring Squires’ village, Thornton
Hough, each with its Congregational church. Like Titus Salt’s Saltaire nearly
40 years before, it expressed community for the sake of one man’s firm. Its
Garden City appearance, however, 20 years ahead of its time, expressed community
for community’s sake. Lever’s interest in the Garden City movement was
genuine. He held advanced views on the municipal ownership of land. At Sunlight
he developed ‘property sharing’ or ‘co-partnership’ with his work
people. Was this secular Congregationalism? It never quite succeeded but within
limits Sunlight became a model community....
Christ Church, Port Sunlight (1904),
undenominational but vested in Congregational trustees, and St George’s,
Thornton Hough (1907)....... are magnificent ‘parish churches’ of Lever’s
creation, the former Perpendicular and the latter Norman........ Lever and his
brother James (1854-1910) built
Stewart,
Sir Halley (1838-1937) Business man, philanthropist, politician
In 1900 Halley acquired a firm of
brick-makers, which in 1923 absorbed and took the name of the London Brick
Company. The business was based on Wootton Pillinge (later renamed Stewartby)
which became the largest single brick producing plant in the world.
Though adept at producing wealth, he
believed it should be used for others. He devised a co-partnership scheme for
the brick-makers and converted Stewartby to a garden village. (
Lishman,
Rowland (1876-1958) Industrialist, philanthropist
Lishman was a trustee of several bodies
with sizeable funds and their help and his own anonymous giving largely
accounted for a large YMCA, a house for the blind, church buildings, and a large
housing development at the east end of North Shields, overlooking the river and
out to sea. His Bible Class established a housing trust.
(Taylor and Binfield p137)
Caffyn,
Sydney Morris (Sir) Businessman, public servant
Caffyn’s service in
Jenkins,
Daniel Thomas (1914-2002) Theologian
As Chaplain and Reader in the
Kenrick,
Bruce (1920-2007) Minister, Housing campaigner
The Notting Hill years were his most
creative. His lasting legacy ...... is the two housing organisations he founded,
the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) and Shelter.
Kenrick was appalled at the housing problems he encountered in
Addison,
Christopher, first Viscount Stallingborough (1869-1951) Politician
He rose to be Minister of Munitions and
then Minister of Reconstruction. (Taylor and
Binfield p1)
LOCAL
It is interesting to note the variety of
church building projects with which various ministers were identified – church
and institute in
More broadly, Silvester Horne campaigned
on behalf of young people against rapacious landlords in
Smith,
Bertram (1863-1943) and Wrigley, Francis (1868-1945)
Joint
ministers of Salem, Leeds
In 1891 Smith and Wrigley brought to
Cooke,
Dr Leslie Edward (1908-1967) Minister
Gatley was growing, the church was
growing and the old chapel was replaced by new buildings on a new site.
(Taylor
and Binfield p41)
Rix,
Perhaps his greatest work at Ealing
Green was his children’s church. Feeling sorry for a twelve-year old boy
sitting, rather bored, in the church gallery, he determined that children should
have their own church to go to after joining in the initial worship with the
adult congregation. Eventually this led to a new and beautiful building attached
to the church. (Taylor and Binfield p191)
Horton,
Dr Robert Forman (1855-1934) Preacher
.... through friends in Hampstead he
became interested in the beginnings of a Congregational church in an iron
building in
Horton founded a sanitary committee out
of his men’s Social Reform League, which sought to get the law applied to
in-sanitary housing in the neighbourhood. (Taylor
and Binfield p107)
Griffith-Jones,
Dr Ebenezer (1860-1942) Minister and College Principal
An active and energetic pastor who was
engaged in building programmes at Llanelli and Stroud Green.......
(Taylor and Binfield p88)
Baker,
Hatty (dates unavailable) Minister
Dissatisfied with churches in Horsted
Keynes, she with Sussex Congregational Union negotiated the foundation of a new
Congregational Church
(Taylor
and Binfield p6)
Harris,
William Melville (1862-1939) Educationist
Little is known about his early life and
not much about his pastorate in the
(Taylor
and Binfield p96)
Hamilton,
Herbert Alfred (1897-1977) preacher, educationist
A visionary, in his first pastorate at
Bolton Hamilton reflected on the fact that on one side of a busy road stood an
elegant late Victorian Gothic church where a membership of 250 worshipped on
Sunday mornings, and on the other side of the road stood a red-brick Sunday
School where nearly 700 scholars gathered in the afternoon. The gulf represented
by that road led him, as Youth Secretary to the Congregational Union of England
and
Gray,
Dr Arthur Herbert (1868-1956) Preacher
Gray’s retirement in 1932 opened one
of the busiest and most important chapters of his life. After a spell working at
Kingsley Hall, he engaged in raising money for Presbyterian Housing (Limited)
which was building flats and reconditioning buildings for casual labourers and
their families in Poplar.
(Taylor
and Binfield p80)
Dimbleby,
Dr Geoffrey William (1917-2000) Environmental archaeologist, ecologist
Dimbleby was church secretary at
....Trinity St Albans. He chaired the Executive Committee of the St Albans
Council of Churches and helped to set up the Churches Housing Association and
the St Albans World Poverty Action Group. (Taylor
and Binfield p53)
Horne,
Charles Silvester (1865-1914) Preacher, Home Missioner
As Superintendent of Whitefield’s
Meyer,
Frederick Brotherton (1847-1929) Evangelical Preacher
Under Meyer’s leadership in the
1880’s, Melbourne Hall in
THEOLOGICAL
COLLEGE BUILDING PROJECTS
We can draw out from Taylor and
Binfield’s work references to involvement in endowments, fund-raising and
development of Mansfield,
Fairbairn,
Dr Andrew Martin (1838-1912) Theologian and College Principal
........ was the right man to establish
and lead the college, now renamed Mansfield. He arrived in 1886, was immediately
thrust into a vigorous fund-raising programme and the new college building was
opened in 1889. (Taylor and Binfield p63)
Marsh,
John (1904-94) College Principal
In 1955
(Taylor
and Binfield p148)
Lewis,
Agnes Smith (1843-1924) and Gibson, Margaret Dobson (1845-1920), Travellers,
Biblical scholars, philanthropists
[The twin sisters] were also great
benefactors of the Presbyterian Church of England. Margaret played a key
political role in the debates of the PCE which led to the removal of the
Morgan,
Dr George Campbell (1863-1945) Evangelist
He became minister of Westminster Chapel
in 1904, raising money to renovate the building. As President of Cheshunt
College (1911-14) he raised money for new buildings.
(Taylor and Binfield p159)
Simpson,
Patrick Carnegie (1865-1947) Church leader, ecumenist
During his long period at
Manning,
Bernard Lord (1892-1941) Layman, historian
He did not lack business sense. The
extensive range of buildings which Morley Horder (qv) designed for Jesus [
BUILDING-RELATED
CENTRAL CHURCH ACTIVITIES
While it may be argued that the first
duty of central church organisations is to support the local, nevertheless
central offices are needed. In the notes below, we see Samuel Antliff developing
insurance services for the local, and William Aitkin and Frederick Riceman
making business and property expertise available in respect of central offices.
In the ecumenical dimension, Norman
Pooler advises on legal and property matters in the formation of the URC and
Philip Morgan takes local ecumenical church building experience with him to the
General Secretary’s office at the then British Council of Churches.
Antliff,
Samuel Robert (1881-1927) Founder of Congregational Insurance Company
It was at the first session of the
Congregational Union’s May Meetings 1891, held at Memorial Hall, Farringdon
Street, that Antliff persuaded the denomination to support his scheme for ‘a
Company to insure Congregational Trust Properties against loss by fire, and to
devote the profits to Congregational purposes ’(Taylor
and Binfield p5)
Aitkin,
William Maxwell, first Baron Beaverbrook (1879-1964) Newspaper proprietor,
benefactor
When he heard of the bombing of Church
House, the offices of the Presbyterian Church of England, and the loss of life,
he gave £25 000 for the relief of the injured and the bereaved, any residue to
be used for the reconstruction (Taylor and
Binfield p3)
Riceman,
Frederick Henry Alfred (1904-1995) Retailer and property trustee
It was due to the enterprise of Fred
Riceman that Memorial Hall in
Pooler,
Norman Pooler was at Hewitt, Woollacott
and Chown where he was Senior Partner for ten years and legal adviser to the PCE.
As a full member of the Joint Committee [for the URC] he concluded that the only
way forward was if the two churches, consenting to die, formed a new Church and
an Act of Parliament simultaneously closed existing structures and altered
property trusts. (Taylor and Binfield p177)
Morgan,
Dr Philip (1930-2005) Ecumenist
As General Secretary for the Churches of
Christ he worked from
BUILDING-RELATED
OVERSEAS AND MISSION PROJECTS
Taylor and Binfield’s succinct,
straight forward reference to missionary Alan Macleod’s practical skills says
in a nutshell what is said in greater detail and in an almost international set
of geographical locations in the other entries below. While some of the building
projects were small, others, particularly the hospital and college developments,
were relatively large and complex. Perhaps the most poignant story is that of
Aubrey Lewis’ involvement with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the laying of the
post-apartheid re- foundation stone at the Tiger Kloof Institution.
Macleod,
Alan Gordon (1911-1984) Missionary, college Principal
Macleod could have earned a living in
all manner of practical skills and affirmed that carpentry and plumbing were
important aids to mission, as indeed to running a college. (Taylor
and Binfield p143)
Sadd,
Alfred (1909-1942) Missionary martyr
The Gilberts were a lonely outpost in
the Pacific when Sadd went there and he found himself doing everything, not only
teaching and translating, but building work and radio maintenance ... ‘There
seemed to be nothing Alf’s fingers could not do’, was a friend’s comment.
Moreover, he was a born leader and organiser.
(Taylor and Binfield p197)
Gray,
Ernest (1902-1996) Missionary
[In
Brown,
Dr Herbert Alfred (1905-1988) Missionary
The LMS sent him to Papua and he arrived
at Moru early in 1939. There he began his life’s work extending and organising
mission in the district .... and he rebuilt the hospital and school. (Taylor and Binfield p19)
Hart,
Dr Samuel Lavington (1858-1951) Missionary, educationist in
It was as founder and Principal of the
Coe
(Ko), Shoki (1914-88) Ecumenist
From a Taiwanese Presbyterian
background, Coe ultimately served the international ecumenical movement. While
working in his own country as Principal of Tainan Theological College, a chapel,
research centre, library and music/lecture hall were added to its buildings.
(Taylor and Binfield p39)
James,
Thomas William Douglas (1886-1945) Missionary
James began service in
Hamilton,
Edward (1920-) Missionary, surgeon
Edward Paterson began his work at
(Taylor
and Binfield p170)
Lewis,
Aubrey David (1917-2002) Missionary, educationist
Only rarely does a person see life’s
hardest struggles resolved after what looks like failure. Such was the privilege
of Aubrey Lewis on ! October 1995, when, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, he laid
the rededication stone at Tiger Kloof Institution in
Brown,
Herbert Alfred (1905-88) Missionary, Papua
Brown rebuilt the mission hospital and
school at Moru. (Taylor and Binfield p19)
Shrubsole,
Alison Cheveley (1925-2002) College Principal
Alison Shrubsole’s vision,
determination and courage became apparent when she went to
Sibree,
Dr James (1836-1929) Missionary,
Sibree trained as a surveyor and, at the
age of 23, was Assistant Surveyor to the Hull Board of Health. His bent was on
architecture and in 1863 he was commissioned by the LMS to go to
Clark,
Percy (1879-1957) and Leonora (1880-1963) Missionaries,
The
SPECIAL
REALATIONSHIPS WITH BUILDINGS
This is a small but telling category. It reveals that buildings are meaningful and symbolic and not merely means of earning a living or meeting a need.
Thorogood,
Bernard George (1927-) Missionary, church administrator
The only person recorded in
(Taylor
and Binfield p228)
Stopford,
John Sebastian Bach (1888-1961) Anatomist, University Vice Chancellor
An elder of his church and a science and
medical professional, Stopford’s speciality was anatomy. He became Vice
Chancellor of Manchester University, where he is commemorated by the
This paper has been rooted in the
researches of Taylor and Binfield into people of the Reformed Churches of
England and
The present work has shown that 52
(26%), of the 200 had an involvement with buildings or the built environment
sufficiently significant to have been noted by the biographers.
In one way, that is no more than a
verification of the obvious, that building activity of various kinds naturally
figures prominently when we talk about the people of the church and their
activities, whether as individuals or corporately.
More important is the nature of the
overlap between a church-oriented view of, and involvement in, the world on one
hand and, on the other, the basic human activity of building. This has been
shown through the various groups into which the 52 have fallen. This situation
can be summarised as follows:
1.
5 were Church Members or similar who earned their
normal secular living in the built environment professions or various parts of
the building industry.
2.
7, again Church Members or similar, who as
business people, philanthropists and people giving public service, were involved
with building projects
3.
13 were either Church Members or Ministers who as
part of their corporate church life were concerned with building projects for
their local community, their church or both.
4.
7 had an involvement with the building or further
development of the churches’ own theological colleges.
5.
5 had a building-related involvement with the
central operations of the churches in terms of either their support function in
relation to local churches or the central operations themselves
6. 13 are recorded as having specific involvement with building activity, for either worship or community life, in a wide range of overseas mission fields.
7.
2 have special relationships with buildings as
observers or having a building named after them.
It must be emphasised that the above data is qualitative and impressionistic and that the numbers cannot be regarded as meaningful statistics.
My personal gut feeling, and it can be
no more than that, is that this study has provided a reasonably representative,
and probably quite comprehensive, insight into groups
2-5 above. This rings true. It is what the United Reformed Church feels like
to me. I am glad to be reassured that in the 20th century all this
good work was going on. While some of the people mentioned are from among ‘the
little people’ mainly there is a sense of the prominent and purposeful playing
their parts well.
I have a quite different feeling or
hunch concerning group 1, based on my
own experience in the secular worlds of building and built environment. I know
there are many people of the churches there, earning their livings, doing their
jobs. The problem is that paper trails are hard to find between their
professional and business lives and their church and faith lives. One can
reflect on the possible causes of this:
·
they themselves do not make strong connections,
preferring to keep their Sunday and Monday lives separate
·
connections do exist but they are inner, spiritual
and hidden
·
many building organisations and projects are large
and impersonal, with roles and tasks being of greater significance than the
people performing them; apart from lead designers, it is often a world of the
nameless
·
biographers and obituary writers don’t ask
questions to tease out faith-profession connections
Nevertheless there is scope for more focussed research on this aspect.
I want also to single out group 6 for special comment. Whatever our post-colonial views may
now be on the work done by 19th and early 20th century
missions, these people combined great courage and spiritual energy with the
practical determination either to build things with their own hands or to work
closely with others who did. This is not to say that life in the UK for some in
groups 1-5 was not incredibly hard but simply to emphasise that going to places
that are distant, little known and quite different from one’s own culture
seems to me to cast a special, and for us perhaps discomforting, light on what
we mean by work, service, vocation and other such concepts.
Group
7 portrays a different angle. It is rather like the Sabbath of the Genesis
story. Thorogood looks, draws and thinks, while Stopford is simply remembered.
It is perhaps not too fanciful to be
glad at the way seven categories have emerged not entirely unlike the seven days
of the Genesis creation myth. Building is about creation and creativity. For the
52 people identified here nothing was mythical; it was all very factual and
real. Small facts, particularly when taken together, help authenticate large and
deep myths.