St Paul's Church, Shadwell, is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

church, located between

The Highway A highway is a long road giving a relatively fast connection between two places. Highway may also refer to: Roads in England * The Highway (London) (previously Ratcliff Highway), a road in the East End of London * The Highway, a road in Br ...

and

Shadwell Basin Shadwell Basin is a housing and leisure complex built around a disused dock in Wapping, London. The old dock was formerly part of the London Docks, a group of docks built by the London Dock Company at Shadwell and Wapping as part of the wider d ...

, on the edge of

Wapping Wapping () is a district in East London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Wapping's position, on the north bank of the River Thames, has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through its riverside public houses and steps, ...

, in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

, England. The church has had varying fortunes over many centuries, and is now very active, having been supported recently by

Holy Trinity Brompton Church Holy Trinity Brompton with St Paul's, Onslow Square and St Augustine's, South Kensington, often referred to simply as HTB, is an Anglican church in London, England. The church consists of six sites: HTB Brompton Road, HTB Onslow Square (formerl ...

History

The old parish church, traditionally known as the Church of Sea Captains, was built in 1656, and was principally financed by

Thomas Neale Thomas Neale (1641–1699) was an English project-manager and politician who was also the first person to hold a position equivalent to postmaster-general of the North American colonies. Neale was a Member of Parliament for thirty years, Maste ...

. It is believed that 75 sea captains are buried at the Church. Matthew Mead was minister of the chapel from 1658 until 1662, when he was replaced after the

Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

for being too non-conformist. During the

Great Plague of London The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that origi ...

it was one of five sites in the parish of

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

used as

plague pit A plague pit is the informal term used to refer to mass graves in which victims of the Black Death were buried. The term is most often used to describe pits located in Great Britain, but can be applied to any place where bubonic plague victims were ...

s. It was rebuilt in 1669 as the Parish Church of

Shadwell Shadwell is a district of East London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets , east of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the Thames between Wapping (to the west) and Ratcliff (to the east). This riverside location has mea ...

, and in an Act of 1670 by

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

William Sancroft William Sancroft (30 January 161724 November 1693) was the 79th Archbishop of Canterbury, and was one of the Seven Bishops imprisoned in 1688 for seditious libel against King James II, over his opposition to the king's Declaration of Indul ...

, St Paul's Shadwell became a separate parish from

St Dunstan's, Stepney St Dunstan's, Stepney, is an Anglican Church which stands on a site that has been used for Christian worship for over a thousand years. It is located in Stepney High Street, in Stepney, London Borough of Tower Hamlets. History In about AD 952, D ...

, where it had previously been a hamlet. The church was named after

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

, and became the first parish created from St Dunstan's, Stepney since

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

in 1338.

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

was a preacher at St Paul's. Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

worshipped there, as did Jacob Phillip, the father of Captain

Arthur Phillip Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 unti ...

, the first

Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...

. Cook's eldest son was baptised at St Paul's Church in 1763. Also baptised there were

William Henry Perkin Sir William Henry Perkin (12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907) was a British chemist and entrepreneur best known for his serendipitous discovery of the first commercial synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline. Though he failed in trying ...

, the chemist who discovered the first

aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine In organic chemistry, an aromatic amine is an organic compound consisting of an aroma ...

dye, and Jane Randolph, mother of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

. The 1669 church was built in brick, and measured by . The church was demolished in 1817 and the present building, a

Waterloo church A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in the United Kingdom built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The 1818 Act supplied ...

designed by John Walters, was erected in 1821. It is the only building built by John Walters that still survives. In the 1840s, half of the churchyard land was bought by the London Dock Company in a

compulsory purchase order A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for p ...

, in order to expand

. After the churchyard closed to burials, it was laid out as a garden by

Fanny Wilkinson Fanny Wilkinson (1855–1951) was a British landscape designer. She was the first professional female landscape designer in Britain, and responsible for the design and the layout of more than 75 public gardens across London in the late 19th centu ...

on behalf of the

Metropolitan Public Gardens Association The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (also known as the MPGA) is a charity in London for the purposes of the preservation of public parks and gardens, established in 1882. It facilitated the creation of new public open spaces, including f ...

in 1886. The design included a partially flagged area in front for recreation. Some

London plane tree London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

s survive from the original design. In 1950, the building became a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Present

In January 2005, a team from the congregation of Holy Trinity Brompton moved to Shadwell to minister with the existing members of St. Paul's in serving the local area. This follows a number of similar church plants from Holy Trinity Brompton to declining churches around London with the support of the

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

. The Rev

Ric Thorpe Richard Charles "Ric" Thorpe (born 3 February 1965) is a British Church of England bishop and an expert in church planting. Since September 2015, he has been the Bishop of Islington, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of London, and the "bishop fo ...

was licensed as the new Priest-in-Charge on 20 January 2005 with The Rev Jez Barnes assisting him as the associate pastor. Thorpe was appointed

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

in 2010, and left in 2015 to become the

Bishop of Islington The Bishop of Islington is an episcopal title used by a suffragan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of London, in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title takes its name after Islington, an inner-city district of London, and the fir ...

. St Paul's stands in the charismatic and

evangelical Anglican Evangelical Anglicanism or evangelical Episcopalianism is a tradition or church party within Anglicanism that shares affinity with broader evangelicalism. Evangelical Anglicans share with other evangelicals the attributes of "conversionism, a ...

traditions A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Pauls Church, Shadwell

Rebuilt churches in the United Kingdom Churches completed in 1820 19th-century Church of England church buildings London, Saint Pauls Church, Shadwell Grade II* listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Grade II* listed churches in London Diocese of London Holy Trinity Brompton plants Shadwell