A HISTORY OF ST JOHN’S WOOD CHURCH

During the Middle Ages, St John’s Wood really was a wood, which took its name from the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem who owned the land. There was a small settlement on the bourne or river that flowed to the south, with a church dedicated to St Mary from about 1400. This became known at St Mary on the Bourne – later shortened to St Marylebone. London itself began to expand northwards from Westminster in the 17th century. The New Road built in 1757 – now known as Marylebone Road – marked its effective northern limit at the time. The area that now forms Regent’s Park was farmland until the Prince Regent employed his architect, John Nash, to build the grand terraces that still dominate the park. A proposal to build a royal palace in the middle of the park was abandoned in favour of building the present Buckingham Palace at the beginning of the 19th century.

The Vestry of St Marylebone Church first bought the plot of land, which now forms the burial ground behind St John’s Wood Church, in 1808, and they built the church itself in 1814 to serve the burial ground and the growing local population. The architect was Thomas Hardwick who also built the new church at St Marylebone shortly afterwards. Thomas Lord moved his cricket ground to St John’s Wood at the same time, and he offered his new Pavilion for the celebrations connected with the consecration of the completed church on Tuesday 24th May 1814. In 1886 the burial ground was closed and in 1889 St John’s Wood Chapel became part of the parish of Christchurch Cosway Street. In 1952 the Chapel became a parish church replacing St Stephen’s, Avenue Road, which had been damaged in the war.The church is a simple building in Regency style with a portico of four Ionic columns. The interior is very plainly decorated in white and gold which makes it reminiscent of churches in New England. The box pews are original. The chancel was extended in the middle of the nineteenth century when it was dominated by a stained glass window of St John the Baptist. Together with our Victorian stained glass in the nave, this was destroyed in the Second World War and was not replaced. Some restoration of the building took place in 1938 and the galleries were enclosed at this time to provide meeting rooms. During a further restoration in 1991 a new chancel pavement was laid in limestone and the present central altar replaced the old high altar at the east end of the church.

The organ may have originally been placed in the West Gallery of the church but has occupied its present position since the beginning of the twentieth century. It was completely rebuilt in 1957 and the electronic action replaced in 1989.

The church contains an interesting collection of early nineteenth century funerary monuments, a number of which record associations with the East India Company. The monument on the south side of the chancel by Chantry is particularly fine. The statue of St John the Baptist in the forecourt of the church is by Hans Feibusch and was erected to mark the completion of the building of the new hall in 1977.

A history of the Church by John Oliver and Peter Bradshaw was published in 1955

LOUISE BRODIE

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS have been conducted so far with Peter Todd; Ingeborg Unia, David Dunbar; Pauline Johnston; Jean Jaffa; Herbert Kennard; Winnie & Elizabeth Day; Rose Watt; Dennis & Inge Goodwin; Rose Watt; Martin Churchill; Monty Dare & Brenda Dixson; Roger Eden; Cliff Jordan; Yolanda Sonnabend, and Barbara Comerford.
These recordings document St John's Wood from before the Second World War through the personal memories of the interviewees. Discs have been made from the entire digital recordings, together with text summaries.

FURTHER INTERVIEWS from conversations with Phoebe May, Florence Windebank, Peggy Steel, Derek Oulton and Pamela Katz.

Taken together, these individual experiences will make a fascinating addition to our knowledge of the area.
For instance, changes to the shops in the St John's Wood High Street, replacing back to back houses with blocks of flats after the war; the loss of pubs in the neighbourhood; new communities coming in, and many more trends.


QUOTES:
Peter Todd 'As a postman, I always worked at Lodge Road which was one of the nicest offices, friendly people. You had to open the bags up, sort the mail out, stack it in the right sequence and then deliver before 9 am. At Christmas we worked 12 hours a day. We carried 35 lbs of letters and parcels. Dogs were a lot of trouble, and letter boxes near the ground. We had to rattle the letterboxes to say that we were there. Nowadays the postmen can't read!'
Barbara Comerford 'St John's Wood was always attractive, verdant and civilised, and still is. Many Americans have moved in to the area because of the American school. Nobody minded about them building this. The tennis club behind there disappeared. The St John's Wood Society took an interest in the traffic, parking and pedestrian crossings, and the trees, as well as all the planning issues. Many is the time that I walked up 17 floors (I don't like lifts) to a meeting with the council officers.'
David Dunbar 'When my father came to work at Lords, we were meant to live at 12 Grove End Road, which had been empty for some years, but the foundations were insecure. It was said to be haunted and the workmen refused to go into it when the time came for it to be demolished. As a boy, I would bet my friends that they couldn't, when blindfolded, start from the Tavern and walk across to the Grandstand. There is a disorienting slope which causes your sense of direction to go immediately.'
Cliff Jordan 'When I was small we used to play in the park in Violet Hill. Between the park and the last house in Abbey Gardens there was a mews where we made a camp for our gang. In derelict houses in Hamilton Terrace too. Once you could get in anywhere you made a camp. We used the garages of the flats in Hall Road as well. You could climb over the wall with ropes to the back of the flats. 20% were always empty.'
Herbert Kennard 'Sheep were driven down St John's Wood High Street. They could have come from the Caledonian Market or from up north. they went into the Park by the bridge at the bottom of Charlbert Street and they grazed near the lake. There was far, far more horse traffic then. When my mother was ill, my father requested straw to be put dwn in what was the called Lower William Street (now Greenbury Street) to lessen the noise of the horses and carts.'
Rose Watt 'In Townsend Cottages, our half of the street had gas, only four people paid for electricity. On the corner was an oil and gas chandler. Round the corner was Mrs Morgan, the dairy. when she was closed you could put your money in and a jug underneath for milk. We usually used condensed milk at home. They churned the butter in another dairy.'


Do you have anything to add? Please contact me if you, or anyone you know, would like to speak about your memories of our area, or if you would like further information about the work already completed. brodie.louise@gmail.com

Bridget Clarke
ARTISTS:Fred Kormis 1897 – 1986

F.I. Kormis was born in Frankfurt in 1897 and in 1910 became an apprentice in a sculptor’s workshop. He served in the Austrian army in the First World War, becoming a prisoner of war in Siberia in 1915 and not being released until 1920, an experience which coloured his career. He returned to Frankfurt until 1932 when Hitler came to power and Kormis as a Jew was banned from working; he moved to Holland and had exhibitions in Amsterdam and the Hague, and then in 1934 came to England, and had his first exhibition in London. In 1940 his studio was bombed and the bulk of his work up to that time was lost. As a result of his experiences, much of his work is memorials to prisoners of war and to the Holocaust. For example, “Marchers,” a memorial sculpture of victims of war on their way to work at concentration camps, was given in 1975 to the Philosophy Department at King’s College London.

Memorial in Gladstone Park to prisoners of War and Concentration Camp victims – this had been allowed to deteriorate over the years and in 2003 was vandalised so that the figures were smashed. The whole area has been restored together with the figures, which were found in pieces in the undergrowth.













In 2006, Angel’s Wings (right) was donated to Queens Park.

He also produced medallions such as this one of Winston Churchill in 1941 which was commissioned by Hodder and Stoughton to illustrate the jacket of a book about Churchill – this is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.

Bronze portrait medallions in the British Museum include King Haakon of Norway, John Winant, General Sikorski, Lord Mountbatten, Anthony Eden, Lord Beaverbrook, Alexander Fleming, Menahem Begin, Louis Golding, J.B.Priestley, Henry Moore, Michael Tippet, Charlie Chaplin (right)

His 1936 medallion of King Edward V111 is in the National Portrait Gallery.

In many of his works the figures seem to be searching for something or someone and the arms are as expressive as the faces.

Bronze resin Primavera from show at Fieldborne Galleries in Queens Grove St John’s Wood in 1982, as was this maquette for The Lovers

St MARYLEBONE ALMSHOUSES
a history of the early years

The history of almshouses and the provision they have made for the elderly poor goes back to the Middle Ages. In the early nineteenth century, a number of enlightened and philanthropic people, who opposed the harsh new Poor Laws, were responsible for founding many new institutions to ease the lives of the ‘better class’ of the elderly poor.


St Marylebone Almshouses, in St John’s Wood Terrace, was an early example of the typical urban Victorian almshouse, although it was conceived before Queen Victoria came to the throne, in 1837; £500 was bequeathed to the poor of the parish of St Marylebone in the Will of Count Simon Woronzow (the naming of Woronzow Road acknowledges his benefaction) dated 1827 and proved in 1832. Count Woronzow, who came from an old aristocratic family in the Crimea, had been the Russian ambassador in London and spent some of his retirement in St John’s Wood; his daughter married the 11th Earl of Pembroke (of Wilton House) and their son was Sidney Herbert, who was prominent in politics and a friend and supporter of Florence Nightingale. Herbert tried to improve conditions in the Scutari hospitals during the Crimean war and he was an organiser of the volunteer movement. In 1836, the £500 was transferred to the Vestry of St Marylebone to carry into effect the proposed erection of the almshouses. This sum was augmented by donations and subscriptions of charitable individuals and the local landowner, Colonel Henry Samuel Eyre, leased a site to John Wardell and Hugh Biers, trustees, for a term of 99 years at a peppercorn rent. The architects, John Pink and John St Erlam, designed a gothic style building (which was replaced in 1965 in neo-Georgian style). Building was completed by mid 1837 and the first residents moved in during that year.

The object of the institution was ‘to afford an asylum and means of support to aged and decayed parishioners of St Marylebone, and their widows, who are of good character and industrious reputation, who have paid 10 years rates (later revised to 7 years) in the parish …. and, who, by unexpected reverses, or the failure of their accustomed means of support, have fallen from a state of respectability into indigence, but have not had recourse to Parochial Relief’ – the concept of ‘the deserving poor’ forever lies behind Victorian philanthropy. The income was to be derived from annual subscriptions and donations and from Stock purchased from the proceeds of any property bequeathed to the trust. Clergy were encouraged by the promise of honorary membership and Life votes to preach sermons to raise funds. Trustees (one group for the building and another for the endowment fund) were appointed, who with a Treasurer, an Hon. Secretary and a Board of Management (made up of Annual and Life Members elected at Annual General Meetings) had complete charge of all aspects of administration. They had the power to expel any inmate who wilfully violated the rules or gave a false statement of their circumstances prior to admission. The superintendent or matron could be chosen from among the inmates or otherwise.

Further admission criteria included being over the age of 60, although wives were eligible at 55; until 1853, however, they were obliged to leave on the death of the husband if they had not yet reached 60. An insight into Count Woronzow’s and Colonel Eyre’s real concern and compassion for the plight of the poor is displayed by certain terms of the bequest whereby, on behalf of both gentlemen, two inmates each, who had been in receipt of parochial relief, could be nominated.

At the end of its first year there were 71 inmates in the almshouses (57 men, 7 of whom lived there with their wives). During the year one seventy-six year old had died and one resident was sent to the parochial infirmary because of his ‘extreme debility and helplessness’. The number of inmates, whose average age was around seventy, remained much the same over the first ten years but, as to be expected, the number of deaths per year increased as those of long-standing grew older; in 1845, seven people died but many inmates were then in their eighties The Annual Reports paint a picture of modest but continued growth of income and capital from various sources, which enabled increased benefits to be given to residents from time to time. The original allowance, in 1840, of one ton of coal annually and two 2lb loaves of bread, had become one and a half tons of coal, four 2lb loaves and twelve bundles of firewood. In 1842, an amount of money was given at Christmas, for the first time: 7 shillings and 6 pence to married couples and 5 shillings to single inmates; by 1845, annuities of £4.10.0 and £3.0.0.were being paid in monthly instalments.

Victorian morality continued to dominate attitudes towards charity both in relation to giving and receiving. ‘ It is worthy of remark as strong evidence of the former standing and respectability of the inmates that out of 56 (not counting wives) the majority have been householders and ratepayers for very considerable periods’, reported the secretary in 1845. The fact that 12 inmates had paid rates for between 7 - 14 years, 15 for 14 - 21 years and 29 for 21- 29 years emphasizes that none of the new urban poor, immigrants from the countryside as a result of the Industrial Revolution, were helped by this type of middle-class charity. In 1847, the rate-paying qualification was raised to 14years. Donors did not escape moral judgement either: they were encouraged to increase the number of subscribers from among their friends and neighbours. The £450 p.a. income needed to be doubled ‘before the benevolent views of the founders of the institution and expectations of its present supporters can be realised’ says the Annual Report of 1843, ending with a quote from The Bible, ‘the righteous considereth the cause of the poor’. The Revd. Wharton of St John’s raised £40 from his congregation one year and £54 the next with his rousing sermons: ‘There is no cause so easy to plead as that of charity, because it is a positive and undeniable virtue, an indispensable duty, and with such moral auxiliaries existing and felt in almost every mind, each individual member of the institution possesses the power, if willing to exercise it, of enlarging its resources and promoting its pecuniary interests….’

By the end of its first decade, through the efforts of subscribers, fund-raising events, such as the public dinner given for 300 people at The Eyre Arms Tavern (opposite, dated 1832), appeals from the pulpit, bequests and corporate donations (e.g. from the West Middlesex Water Works and the Western Gas Company), St Marylebone Almshouses had an annual income of £800, a cash balance of £639.6.2 and an Endowment fund of Stock Consuls worth £7, 800. It was a remarkable achievement. Expenditure as well as income was increasing in new ways: the Superintendent, (formerly called the warden) an inmate called Robert Andrew Watkins, aged 68 and for 23 years a ratepayer, was paid £13 pa; external re-decoration had been undertaken regularly since 1845, fire escape ladders were purchased, a stucco inscription had been placed on the front of the building and a considerable amount of money was spent each year on tablets, in the boardroom, recording donors’ names.


Diana Eyre
23rd January 2008

Annette Gonzalez

Maria Jordan

George Rigal

Elizabeth Virgo