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There has been a place of worship where the present church stands for many centuries. The original Saxon church was rebuilt by order of Dunstan, Bishop of London; Dunstan was canonised in 1029, and the church at Stepney was renamed after him. This church was the only one in the geographically large parish of Stepney (which in the medieval period stretched east-west from the River Lea to the City, and north-south from Hackney to the Thames), and for many years it attracted worshippers from far and wide. This situation could not be sustained as London grew, and a chapel was constructed at Whitechapel in the thirteenth century, with the area designated a separate parish in 1338. Another chapel was built at Stratford in the fourteenth century, and more churches were built in the seventeeth century leading to a spate of parish creation: St Paul's Shadwell (1670), St John's Wapping (1694), St Mary's Stratford-le-Bow (1719), Christ Church Spitalfields (1728), St George's-in-the-East (1729), St Anne's Limehouse (1729) and St Matthew's Bethnal Green (1743).
Population growth on the outskirts of London in the latter part of the seventeenth century prompted renewed interest in founding more new churches to serve these rapidly growing areas. Further partition of the parish of Stepney followed the famous 'Act for the building of Fifty New Churches in the Cities of London and Westminster or the Suburbs thereof', which was passed in 1711. The construction work was to be paid for by a tax levied on coal entering the City of London, but only 12 of these churches were built, among them Limehouse, Spitalfields and St George-in-the-East (all in 1715); Bethnal Green followed in 1743. By the end of the nineteenth century some 67 parishes had been created from the original large area of Stepney.
The original mother parish was thus already much decreased in size by the middle of the eighteenth century. The new parishes were not intended to be solely ecclesiastical districts: their functions were to include a significant element of civil administration, although the new parishes had to come to an agreement with Stepney before levying a church rate, poor rate or highway rate. The gradual diminishing of ecclesiastical Stepney was of course mirrored in the civil realm. For civil purposes, Stepney had been divided into four hamlets - Ratcliffe, Limehouse, Poplar and Mile End. However, with the increase in the number of buildings and a growing population, the new hamlets of Shadwell (1645) and Wapping-Stepney (1670) were taken out of Ratcliffe. Bethnal Green (1597), Spitalfields (1662) and Mile End New Town (1691) were all carved out of the Hamlet of Mile End. Whitechapel and Bromley St Leonard were already separate parishes, and Bow followed in 1719. Poplar did not achieve the same status until comparatively late on - 1820 - but with its separation virtually all autonomous rating powers were ceded, and for most practical purposes Stepney from them on came to mean little more than the area in the immediate vicinity of St Dunstan's Church.
Purpose
Before 1855 the parish vestry had met to discharge the business of both ecclesiastical and secular local government. Parish vestries were committees of prominent householders and church officials. The name came from the way meetings took place in the church vestry or sacristy; this is the room where the priest prepares for a service and where vestments and articles of worship are stored.
Stepney Vestry had a rather turbulent history, with irregular meetings and the administrative structure of the vestry changing a number of times during the seventeenth century because of political events.
The two main secular functions discharged by the parish were:
(i) the care of the poor and the administration of parochial charities.
(ii) the maintenance of roads and bridges.
There was also some management of petty law and order.
There were 54 parochial officers recorded for St Dunstan's in the middle of the eighteenth century, although because of the unusual size of the parish they were distributed unevenly throughout the various hamlets as follows:
Mile End New Town: 1 Churchwarden; 1 Overseer; 1 Constable; 3 Headboroughs; 1 Scavenger; 1 Beadle; and 3 Watchmen
Mile End Old Town: 1 Churchwarden; 1 Overseer; 1 Constable; 5 Headboroughs; 2 Surveyors; 1 Beadle; and 3 Watchmen
Poplar: 1 Churchwarden; 2 Overseers; 1 Constable; 6 Headboroughs; 2 Scavengers; 1 Beadle; and 1 Watchman
Ratcliffe: 1 Churchwarden; 2 Overseers; 1 Constable; 5 Headboroughs; 2 Surveyors; 1 Beadle; and 3 Watchmen*
*Figures from Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, The History of East London (London: Macmillan, 1939), p. 116
Most of these officers ultimately derived their historical origins and authority from a variety of sources: the Churchwardens had always been elected by the parishioners; the Overseers were appointed by the County Justices of the Peace; the Constables and Headboroughs were originally manorial officers appointed by the Court Leet; the Surveyors were appointed by the JPs from a list submitted by the parish. The Parish Clerk, the Beadle and probably the Watchmen were the only officials who derived their authority solely from the vestry. As time went on these arcane distinctions of origin, jurisdiction and responsibility became increasingly blurred.
At this time, the key officials responsible for 'local authority' functions were:
Overseer of the Poor: an unpaid office created in 1572. Officials were initially responsible for supervising endowments and charitable funds. Following the 1601 Poor Law Act, the churchwardens of the parish together with two or more substantial local landowners were to act as Overseers. Their role was to collect the poor rate and supervise the relief of the poor, including managing workhouses and arranging the apprenticeship of poor orphans. The 1662 Law of Settlement Act empowered Overseers to remove 'strangers' from the parish. Sometimes referred to as 'aliens' these were people who did not have rights to settle, because, for example, they were born outside the parish. Overseers were chosen at Vestry meetings to administer the Poor Law for the ensuing year. Under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, Boards of Guardians replaced the Overseers and administration of poor relief left the parish's powers.
Surveyor of the Highways: an unpaid position created in 1555. The parish Surveyor's role was to inspect roads and bridges three times a year and to organise repairs. The Surveyor could also raise rates.
The Surveyors and Overseers kept accounts and were answerable to the Justices of the Peace. A new system was introduced in 1835, whereby JPs appointed paid surveyors to groups of parishes.
Constable: although the office was manorial in origin, vestries gradually acquired responsibilities for appointing constables. The position was filled by rotation and was unpaid. Constables' roles included dealing with petty issues of law and order, the collection of rates and taxes, maintenance of the forms of punishment (stocks and pillories - a wooden framework with holes for the head and hands, in which offenders were formerly imprisoned and exposed to public abuse), inspection of taverns, supervision of jury service, apprehending escaped prisoners and convening parish meetings.
The early form of local government outlined above was a fusion of ecclesiastical and civil functions which had evolved to meet the needs of the inhabitants as they arose. A generalised system of local government, separate to ecclesiastical concerns, slowly took shape during the course of the nineteenth century. The first concerted attempt to rationalise administration came in the form of the 1855 Metropolis Management Act. While retaining the ancient parish unit as a basis for government, this Act provided for the election of a new type of vestry by the ratepayers of each parish. However, because the process of reducing and reconfiguring St Dunstan's Stepney had been going on for centuries prior to this, what remained of the parish was not subject to the provisions of the Act.
In time, the 1899 London Government Act totally replaced the old system of governance, and across London 28 new borough councils were created. The Metropolitan Boroughs of Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar absorbed all of the governing bodies for the areas which had in previous centuries formed part of the parish of St Dunstan's Stepney.
Sources
Steven Friar, The Local History Companion (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2001)
David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (Oxford: OUP, 2010)
Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, The History of East London (London: Macmillan, 1939)
Frederick Whelen, London Government (London: Grant Richards, 1898) |