The church of St George-in-the-East was
designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The foundations were laid in 1714, the building
roofed in 1717 and the church was dedicated on 19th July 1729. The new parish
was created out of the Parish of Stepney and named St George-in-the-East to
distinguish it from other parishes named after St George.
The church's website (visit link)
tells us:
"After Queen Anne came to the throne
(1702-14), under the terms of the Acts of Settlement designed to ensure the
Protestant succession, and the Tories took power after 22 years of Whig rule, a
New Churches in London & Westminster Act of 1710/1711 was passed, establishing a
Commission to build fifty new churches in populous districts. [See here for
details of a Walk to mark the 300th anniversary of the Act.] The agenda was as
much political as pious, to control the working classes with imposing edifices
towering over their homes and reminding them of the national religion -
especially needed, it was believed, in the East End where immigration was taking
hold and there were many dissenting conventicles. (This is why episcopal mitres
feature in the decoration of the apse.) They were to be funded from a tax on
coal - in theory, an infinite budget, but only twelve (including St
George-in-the-East) were ever completed. All ran way over budget, and the scheme
came to an end. There is much more about the architectural rationale, and
Nicholas Hawksmoor the architect of six of these churches, on the Church &
Churchyard page.
When the church opened in 1729, parts of 'Wapping-Stepney' were still
semi-rural, with open fields, but the area was beginning to develop. Right is
Roque's map of 1746. Merchants who were building houses nearby, or came from
further afield, attended church in their carriages, and access into the church
was socially segregated. The local trades were ship-rigging and rope-making, of
which names like Cable Street and Ropewalk Gardens are a reminder - Cable Street
was once the length of the standard cable measure, 600 feet [180m]. From the
middle of the century hovels appeared in the marshlands behind Pennington
Street, which soon became wholly built over. By 1780 there were 300 houses; by
1800, an average of 500-600 baptisms (rising to over 1,000 two decades later,
before daughter churches were built), and 400-600 burials a year.
As with some other new East London parishes of this period, St
George-in-the-East, though within the diocese of London, was exempt from the
jurisdiction of any archdeacon, and this anomaly remained into the 19th century.
The Vestry [see below] combined ecclesiastical and local government
responsibilities, and was 'general' (as opposed to 'select', as elsewhere), open
to all who paid 2s. or more per month to the poor. Robert Seymour's 1835 Survey
of the Cities of London & Westminster - a part-published update of the work of
the Elizabethan chronicler John Stow - gives details of the officers it
appointed: 2 Churchwardens and 4 Overseers ('parish officers') and - from the
lower and middling ranks of society - 1 Constable, 13 Headboroughs, 4 Scavengers
(responsible for keeping the streets clean), and 2 Surveyors of the Highway
('peace officers'). Men were sometimes elected as councilmen and aldermen
against their will, for business or religious reasons, in which case they paid a
fine to be exempted. The parish was divided into two divisions, the upper and
lower town (Seymour lists the streets in each). Edward Scott was elected
Scavenger for the upper division of the parish in 1732, and Thomas Saunders of
the lower division in 1748. The first parish clerk was Samuel Bright, formerly a
barber and periwig-maker: the Vestry determined that this should be a full-time
post. His successor was Thomas Harmer Lacon. Both of them frequently signed as
witnesses in the marriage registers. (Seymour also noted that 'Prayers are held
on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Holidays [sic] about 11 o'clock, no Organ [but see
below], one Bell'.)
The original organ, of 3 manuals with 25 speaking stops, was installed in 1733
by Robert Bridge of Clerkenwell. The first organist, appointed in 1738, was John
James, formerly of St Olave Southwark and possibly a trumpeter in the King's
Musick. He was a star performer with a reputation for improvisation - it's said
that Handel, Geminiani, Roseingrave, Greene, Pepusch and Boyce all heard him
play. His voluntaries were taken up by other organists (one of them was taken
for Handel's work) - they were said to be popular with ‘every deputy organist in
London’ - and many survive because they combine inventive harmonic sequences
with a good grasp of fugal technique. But he had his wilder side, enjoying
bull-baiting and dog fights, and was addicted to spiritous liquors of the
coarsest kind. He died in 1745.
On Sunday 1 October 1738 John Wesley preached at the morning and afternoon
services at the church - see here for some details of the history of Methodism
in the parish.The Gentleman's Magazine (vol 37) reported that on 4 March 1767 a
private papist mass-house, which was kept at the back part of the house of a
tradesman near Salt-petre bank [now Dock Street] was suppressed: about twenty
mean-dressed people, with the priest, were assembled; but on the alarm of peace
officers, made their escape at a back door.
Charity schools were established in the parish - see here for an account of
Raine's Foundation institutions from 1719 onwards, and here for the school
founded in 1781 by the Middlesex Society, and also for an overview of all the
subsequent educational foundations."