| STMW History |
The first years of St Matthew's with the Revd Richard Malone (1851 - 1866)The consecration of St Matthew's Westminster > View of Great Peter Street in 1851 < The account of the consecration of the church by the Bishop of London, has been taken directly from ‘Notes on the condition of St Matthew’s church and parish in the year 1851’ which was written by the Revd Richard Malone and sent by him to the Revd William Trevelyan, in 1901, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration. [5] "It was a hot summer day, and the unusually bright light more clearly exposed the squalor and misery of the streets and people. The Church, closely hemmed in by two gin palaces, was scarcely finished, and the Bishop had to wait nearly an hour before the necessary Deeds were prepared. The warmth on the seats was quite hot and a friend said to me after the service that he was glad that I intended to make the people stick to the church! There was absolutely no furniture provided: no gas, no warming stoves, no organ, no vestments. The floor of the chancel, which had long been exposed to the weather, was badly laid and very dirty. The east window was so close to the houses opposite in St Ann’s Street that the residents gazed through it, and sitting in the their shirt sleeves, made their comments on what passed within.” The Revd Richard Malone mentioned that the services continued to be ‘obstructed’ in the early days. The inhabitants of Johnson’s Court ‘obtained a large empty barrel and beat upon it, making such a noise that we could scarcely be heard’. Gin Palaces One of the gin palaces, immediately next to the church was ‘The Greycoat Boy’ and this is now the site of St Matthew’s Clergy House, on the corner of St Ann’s Street and Great Peter Street. |
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