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St Paul's Shadwell was constructed in 1656 as a chapel of ease to the church of St Dunstan; the cost was largely borne by the building speculator Thomas Neale, who owned property in Shadwell and had leased land from the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, a fact which influenced the dedication to St Paul. With a new church augmenting the chapel in 1669, St Paul Shadwell was separated from the mother parish of Stepney and became a small parish in its own right the following year (the first such parish created out of Stepney since Whitechapel in 1338). By 1811 the church had become dilapidated and was closed; the present building was constructed by John Walters between 1817 and 1820, costing in the region of £14,000.
With the construction of the first church came a strong phase of development in the area, again much of it encouraged by Thomas Neale: roperies, breweries, smithies, numerous taverns and residential buildings all appeared as the riverside was developed in the seventeenth century. Some 8,000 people were estimated to reside in the parish by 1674. In the eighteenth century the church maintained a strong maritime connection, unsurprisingly as the bulk of the population of the parish worked in the docks and on the Thames. Over 75 sea captains' wives lie buried in the churchyard, and over 175 sea captains were married in the church in the 60-year period between 1730 and 1790.
The parish was bordered to the west and partly to the north by the parish St George-in-the-East, and on its eastern flank (and part of the north) by the hamlet of Ratcliff. The Thames frontage of the parish was a quarter of a mile or so in length.
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. Inhabitants rated at £10 and over per year could vote in vestry elections. The name 'vestry' 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.
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.
In the middle of the eighteenth century there was, in addition to the Parish Clerk, a total of 27 parochial officers for St Paul Shadwell, as follows:
- Churchwardens: 2
- Overseers of the Poor: 4
- Constables/Headboroughs: 8
- Scavengers: 2
- Beadles: 2
- Watchmen: 9*
*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.
The key officials responsible for 'local authority' functions were:
1) 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.
2) 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.
3) 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. Unfortunately, very few records from the early period of the parish's history have survived, although there is Trustees' attendance book covering 1811-49 and nineteenth-century rating and assessment records
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. In the less densely populated parishes of London such as St Paul Shadwell, these vestries - technically known as 'Schedule B Vestries' from that part of the 1855 Act in which they were listed - were invested with no authority apart from the power to elect representatives to a District Board which was endowed with municipal powers under the Act.
Limehouse District Board of Works was one of the 12 newly created District Boards across central London to govern and manage certain defined aspects of local affairs. Under the terms of the 1855 Act, St Paul Shadwell elected six members to the Limehouse District Board of Works; St Anne Limehouse elected 15 members, the Hamlet of Ratcliffe 12 and St John Wapping three members, respectively. The records of the Limehouse District Board of Works are catalogued as L/LBW.
This framework of local government in London remained unchanged until the Local Government Act was passed in 1894. In time, the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney was created under the terms of the 1899 London Government Act, which replaced the old system of governance across London. The Metropolitan Borough of Stepney (catalogued as L/SMB) took on the functions previously carried out by Limehouse District Board of Works.
Key dates and events
- 1665-66: the environs of St Paul's Shadwell used as a plague pit
- 1670: St Paul's becomes a parish in its own right
- 1763: Captain James Cook's eldest son baptised at St Paul Shadwell
- 1794: a huge fire consumes many houses on Ratcliff Highway
- 1805: racial disturbances involving lascar seamen reported in the parish
- 1817: first church building demolished
- 1828-32: first Shadwell Basin (the south section) built as part of the London Docks complex
- 1840s: half of St Paul's churchyard compulsorily purchased by the London Dock Company in order to expand Shadwell Basin
- 1843: Coal Whippers' Office established in Lower Shadwell to regulate the unloading of coal
- 1851: population of the parish reaches a peak of about 12,000 and declines thereafter
- 1854-58: opening of a new, larger section of Shadwell Basin (the north section)
- 1886: following the closure of the churchyard to burials, the landscape designer Fanny Wilkinson (1855-1951) lays out the area as a garden on behalf of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association
Sources
- Steven Friar, The Local History Companion (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2001)
- G. L. Gomme, London in the Reign of Victoria (London: Blackie and Son Ltd, 1898)
- 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)
- Ben Weinrab, Christopher Hibbert, Julia Keay and John Keay, The London Encyclopaedia, 3rd edn (London: Macmillan, 2008) |