St Paul's Church, Shadwell, is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

church, located in Shadwell, in the East End of London, England. The church is traditionally nicknamed the ''Church of Sea Captains''.

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, Mas ...

. 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 for being too non-conformist. During the

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

it was one of five sites in the parish of

Stepney Stepney is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. Stepney 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 was applied to ...

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 wer ...

s. It was rebuilt in 1669 as the Parish Church of Shadwell, and by the Shadwell Church Act 1670 ( 22 Cha. 2. c. ''14''), St Paul's Shadwell became a separate parish from St Dunstan's, Stepney, where it had previously been a hamlet. The church was named after

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

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

Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...

in 1338.

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

was a preacher at St Paul's. Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

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

Arthur Phillip Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...

, the first

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

. Cook's eldest son was baptised at St Paul's Church in 1763. Also baptised there were William Henry Perkin, the chemist who discovered the first

aniline Aniline (From , meaning ' indigo shrub', and ''-ine'' indicating a derived substance) is an organic compound with the formula . Consisting of a phenyl group () attached to an amino group (), aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an in ...

dye, and Jane Randolph, mother of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

. The 1669 church was built in brick, and measured by . The church was demolished in 1817 and the present building, a Waterloo church designed by John Walters, was erected in 1821. A ring of eight bells, cast at the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells ...

in 1819, was installed. 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 ...

, in order to expand Shadwell Basin. After the churchyard closed to burials, it was laid out as a garden by Fanny Wilkinson on behalf of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association in 1886. The design included a partially flagged area in front for recreation. Some London planes survive from the original design. The rectory garden has an ancient Black Mulberry tree, which has been associated with Protestant

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

migrants from France, who greatly stimulated the East End weaving trade. In 1950, the building became a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

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 The bishop of London is the Ordinary (church officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723. The diocese covers of 17 boroughs o ...

. The Rev Ric Thorpe was licensed as the new

Priest-in-Charge A priest in charge or priest-in-charge (previously also curate-in-charge) in the Church of England is a priest in charge of a parish who is not its incumbent; they will normally work on a short-term contract and have less freedom to act within the ...

on 20 January 2005 with The Rev Jez Barnes assisting him as the associate pastor. Thorpe was appointed Rector in 2010, and left in 2015 to become the Bishop of Islington. St Paul's stands in the

charismatic Charisma () is a personal quality of magnetic charm, persuasion, or appeal. In the fields of sociology and political science, psychology, and management, the term ''charismatic'' describes a type of leadership. In Christian theology, the term ...

and evangelical Anglican

traditions A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common exa ...

Appearance in literature

The church is a pivotal location in James Lovegrove's Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows.

References

External links

Official website
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 {{coord, 51, 30, 34, N, 0, 3, 9, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title