| AdminHistory | St. George's German Lutheran Church, founded in 1792, is the oldest surviving German Lutheran church in the UK. Its founder, Dietrich Beckman, a successful sugar baker, put up half the money required to buy the site, and thus build the church. The building contains an important story about the history of Germans living in East London, and the links between the church, its congregants and the sugar industry. At its height, around 16,000 German Lutherans lived in Whitechapel. Many worked in the sugar baking industry and were the majority of the congregation at St. George's.
From the mid 18th century, the vicinity of Alie Street was home to many sugar houses, which often used techniques previously adopted in Hanseatic countries in order to build up the industry. German speakers refugees from German speaking areas of Europe, not yet recognised as modern Germany, ran most of the sugar refining industry in London, and chiefly in the Aldgate area. The sugar industry could be a "volatile and dangerous trade",* which involved lifting heavy pans of sugar in a hot and sticky working environment. There developed tension over whether English or German should be spoken in church, and questions about integration. This controversy led to a riot in the church in December 1767.
As the population flourished, it single-bay, single-storey school, together with a single-bay, three-storey clerk's house, was built in 1805 on a site near the pastor's house. The school housed a mixed class of boys and girls, aged 7-14. In the 1850s, an infants' school was built, and was seen as a necessary development in order to enable mothers to go out to work. In 1859, a separate infants' school was built on the site of a nearby burial ground, and with the help of influential benefactors, including James Duncan, a local sugar baker who employed many German workers. The schools were eventually closed in 1917, when the incumbent Pastor Maetzold was deported to Germany. St. George's had become a hub for pastoral work among the German community during WW1, many of whose members were interned as 'enemy aliens'. The premises were then used for tailoring or commercial lets. Some of the premises were converted into flats in the 1990s.
The church was given grade II* listing in 1994. Much of St. George's well-preserved internal furniture dates from the 18th century, although by 1995, it had fallen out of use. The church's library collection found its way to the British Library. Responsibility for the church was transferred to the administration of the Historic Chapels Trust, which, helped by English Heritage and several private foundations, undertook a programme of restoration. The schedule included repairs to the church roof, and its brick walls which were showing signs of movement. Currently St. George's is used for, inter alia, secular events; filming; wedding ceremonies and other public events.
Sources of Information:
hct.org.com
prins.co.uk
surveyoflondon.org
*"At St. George's German Lutheran Church in Aldgate ": The Gentle Author in 'Spitalfields Life', 29th November, 2017
"German Parish Life in London and an East End Church Library ": in 'European Studies Blog ' - British Library, 22nd January, 2014. |