Almshouses and Chapels

The church had a close relationship with a number of almshouses in the area, particularly the Fishmonger’s Company Almshouse and the Draper’s Company Almshouse. The Fishmonger’s Company, paid 40 marks in 1607 for the privilege of using a large pew in the church to seat their alms people who came from their alms house of St. Peter’s. The 1629 rebuilding project caused hostilities with the Fishmongers Company, as they demanded the continuation of their right to use the same pew in the same location in the church. This would have been a logistical impossibility after the rebuilding, as the original location of the pew was now be in the middle of the churchyard.

A number of chapels also existed in the church and parish, as evidenced in the 1725 visitation. The lecturer of the church, Francis Phillips, served the King’s Bench chapel, which was maintained by fees from the prison. There was also two chapels associated with local almshouses, the Fishmonger’s almshouse and the Drapers’ almshouse. Both these chapels were served by almsmen. Within the Marshallsea prison, there was a chapel served by a Mr. Gainham in 1725 and maintained by collections from the prisoners. By 1840, there were six Anglican chapels in the parish; St. John’s Chapel and the Philanthropic Chapel on Borough Road, the Magdalen Chapel on Blackfriars Road, the chapel at the Marshalsea Prison, the chapel at the Queen’s Bench Prison and a chapel at the parish school.

Edmund Bonner

Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London 1539-1547 and again 1553-1559, was buried in the churchyard of St. George’s in 1569, and it is said his ghost still haunts the church. A staunch Catholic during the period of the English Reformation, Bonner fought against the tide of Protestantism rolling across England in the period. Deprived of his see under Edward VI in 1547, after resisting official visitation, he was a leading opponent in Parliament of both the Act of Supremacy and the Book of Common Prayer. When both became law in 1549, Bonner refused to enforce them in his see. After the restoration of Catholicism under Mary I, Bonner was re-established as Bishop of London. He is strongly associated with the persecution and eradication of Protestantism during her reign. With her death, England once again veered towards Protestantism under Elizabeth I. After Bonner’s refusal to take the oath of the Act of Supremacy in 1559, Bonner was imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison, in the vicinity of St. George the Martyr. On 5th September 1569, he died in the Marshalsea and was buried at midnight in the churchyard of St. George the Martyr.

George Martin

In 1902, George Martin was arrested for having a package of gunpowder. His aim was to use this gunpowder to blow up a stand at St. George the Martyr during Edward VII’s Royal Procession through London. Due to the occasion, the church had decided to build a stand on the steps of the church and rent out seats for people to watch the procession, just as they had done during Queen Victoria’s 1897 Jubilee. The money raised would be used to fund the parish school. George Martin was an ordained Anglican Priest but in 1902 was not practicing, was working at Borough Market and living on Newcomen Street. Martin’s objectives in trying to blow up the stand was to protest the erection of the stand on consecrated ground and also highlight the relationship between the Church of England and the upper classes, creating a barrier between the church and the general population. It is unknown if this was a genuine social protest or if George Martin was suffering from mental health problems.

Southwark Fair

The church was at the centre of the community gathering at Southwark Fair, officially granted Royal permission by Edward IV in 1462. The fair began on the 7th September and by the 18th century could last up to two weeks. The fair spread up the present day Borough High Street from Southwark Cathedral (then the church of St. Mary Overie) to St. George the Martyr. It would have included stalls selling food and drink, circuses, boxing competitions, puppet shows, music and the performance of plays. However, the fair was associated with vice and crime. The fair finally came to an end when it was banned in 1763, around thirty years after the building of the current church.

St George's School

St. George’s School was founded in 1698 by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). It was one of the first three such schools to be founded in London. Initially, the school had forty male scholars and was located on what is now Lancaster Street, then Union Street. In 1715, the school had 50 pupils and the master was a Mr. Goswim-Conen. In 1747, a girls’ school was built in a separate building in ‘the late watch house’ in Tabard Street. This was the watch house that was located in the old churchyard, east of the church. The school was described as having ‘four foreigners’; children not from the parish. Students wore uniforms provided by trustees and were apprenticed by the trustees when leaving school aged 13 depending on their records. Both schools moved in 1839 to new buildings on Borough Road and in 1847, an infant’s department was added. In 1902, these buildings were replaced with new buildings on Mansfield Street, Borough Road. The 250th anniversary was celebrated in 1948, with a booklet being produced. In 1966, due to lack of pupils, the school was closed and the remaining pupils amalgamated into St. Jude’s Primary school. The St. George’s school buildings on Borough Road were demolished in late 2017 as part of building work carried out by London South Bank University.

The 17th and 18th Centuries

Religious turmoil ignited by the Reformation continued well into the 1600s, and became a major cause of the English Civil War in the 1640’s. Non-conformity was rife in the Southwark area, and the parish included at least one congregation of Quakers by the Georgian period, confirmed in the 1725 parish visitation. Indeed, the Acts of Parliament proposed strict guidelines on how to deal with non-conformists, for example when they refused to join local Militia’s on account of their conscientious objections. The 1725 visitation also states there were no ‘papists’ in the parish.

Unlicensed ‘puritan’ preachers would force their way into churches to rage against the corrupt and ‘Roman’ Church of England. On 12th December 1641, St. George the Martyr experienced this when a certain Vincent, a cobbler from Holborn, forced his way into the pulpit to rally against the Book of Common Prayer. As stated, Southwark in the period was a hot-bed of non-conformity, so the incident was probably not an isolated one. During the English Civil War, the Royalist Army placed artillery pieces in the churchyard and in 1660, Charles II prayed in the church as he was returning from exile to restore the Monarchy.

Two interesting anecdotes have survived from the 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, the area of the modern day Borough Tube station was an execution ground. In June 1610, Michael Banks was sentenced to be hanged. His execution was botched, and so he was taken to St. George the Martyr to recover for three hours before being taken out and hung again. The church also had the honour of being the burial place of the oldest man in England. Born in 1620, Richard Griffin died in 1736, supposedly aged 116 years old. At his funeral, according to his grave stone, his coffin was accompanied by 1116 ancient people (perhaps a mistake, and meant to be 116) with the oldest Pall Bearer being 95.

The 20th Century

At the turn of the 20th century, the parish continued to be one of the poorest in London. When interviewed in 1899 for the Charles Booth Poverty Maps, the vicar stated that the parish was ‘difficult and at times an almost despairing one, with very little to encourage and a great deal to discourage. It is a work in which we cannot hope or expect to see much result’[1] Health problems and death due to poverty were rife in the parish. Ruby Bellamy died aged 15 months in 1914 brought on by malnutrition ‘the doctor said the child weighed 7lb 6 oz. instead of the normal weight of 18 or 20 lb. Death was due to pneumonia.’  The vast majority of the parishioners continued to live in overcrowded tenements ‘comprised of two rooms in a tenement block, shared by seven other families…lots of poor families lived there in tiny dingy ‘Mermaid Court’.’  However, a strong sense of community did prevail within the parish. A description of church life in the 1930s shows a poor but thriving community where ‘the extreme poverty, the Sunday school numbered in hundreds, the mass weddings (the church usually filled with an inebriated congregation)’ prevailed. Indeed, these mass weddings were commented on by Mary Pinder, a member of the congregation in the 1930s, and seem to have consisted of numerous couples lined up along the chancel arch and being married at the same time.

During the early 20th century, the church also had a close connection with the Ranyard Mission, set up to work with London’s poor. In 1935, a Ranyard Nurse and Ranyard Lady Worker were employed at the church, as well as the Rector, two curates and a Mr. Earnest Cook. In 1941, a Miss. Iris Dean was nurse at St. George’s and St. Michael’s Parishes. The parish continued to relieve the poor and look after the sick and elderly up until the creation of the NHS in 1948.

The Medieval Guild

During the 15th century, the church’s incumbents included two Italian courtiers and diplomats. Between 1477 and 1482, Giovanni Gigli was priest in charge and after him, Peter Carmelianus was priest in charge for 37 years. Earlier still, the church had connections with Royalty. Richard II pardoned a murderer at the church in August 1392 and Henry V met the Aldermen of the City at the steps of the church on his return to London after his French campaigns during the Hundred Years War in the early 15th century, his most significant victory being at Agincourt in 1415.

During the medieval period, there was a guild in the church dedicated to St. George and the Virgin Mary. The earliest mention of the guild is in the period 1459-65, and gained royal license for its representatives to collect arms nationally. Annually, 1,044 masses were said of sung in the church by the three guild priests for its deceased members souls in the early 16th century. Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York, contributed 5 shillings to the guild in 1502 and her son, Henry VIII, made a contribution of 13 shillings 4 pence to the guild on St. George’s Day 1529. The guild would have had lay members who would contribute to the upkeep of perhaps statues of St George and the Virgin Mary and maintain candles in front of them. Funds would also be collected to help guild members in times of need and perhaps they had their own unique livery. However, the effect of the Reformation was felt at St. George’s, and with the suppression of guilds and chantry masses, by 1541, the guild only maintained one priest. By 1548, the guild ceased to exist as a vibrant expression of popular piety in the parish.

The Rectory and Halls

Until 1902, St. George the Martyr did not own a rectory for the incumbent and earlier incumbents lived in their own property. For example, Dr. Nathaniel Hough, rector in the 1730s, lived in Kensington. However, by the late 19th century there seems to be have been a longstanding agreement in regards renting a property known as 15 the Paragon, on New Kent Road. For example, in 1884, the Rev. Burman Cassin was living there. This property was not owned by the church until 1902 when a contract was made with its owner, Lord Llangattock, for a long term lease of 999 years. This cost £1430. This lease came into effect on 25th December 1902. By 1906, the rector had moved into this address and made it the parish rectory. 15 the Paragon was also addressed as 218 New Kent Road, and next door to this was ‘The Rectory House’ at 220 New Kent Road. Both houses were damaged by bombing during the Second World War on both September 29th 1940 and October 25th 1940. Due to this, the rectory had to be repaired between October and December 1940 and the basement was then converted into a flat for the staff.

As of 2018, the Rectory is located on Manciple Street. The site for this house was the former site of St. Stephen’s Church, demolished in 1965, and building work on the new rectory began in 1966. Apparently, the church was designed by the incumbent to be the same size as his retirement house in order that his furniture would fit. The property is owned by the Diocese for the exclusive use of the incumbent of St. George the Martyr with St. Alphege and St. Jude.

The church seems to have had no permanent church halls up until the 1950’s and had to rent them. For example, in 1902 the rent of Red Cross Hall cost 8 shillings and 6 pence per week. By 1920 the church was using 302 Borough High Street as its ‘Parish House’. A fundraising sale was held there on the 9th December 1920, with the proceeds going towards the church and infant welfare in the parish. Various stalls and events were put on, such as a rectory stall, a fruit and vegetable stall, an art stall, side shows, music and a café. By 1940, the church was renting 84 Borough Road off the council to be used as its Parish Hall.

In 1953, the old church building of St. Michael’s and All Angels on Lant Street was converted into St. George’s Parish Halls. These were sold in 2001 in order to fund restoration work. In 1965, the church had three church halls which were rented out to outside groups and used by the parish.  For example, an Orthodox Church used the halls for their Sunday school. A day nursery was also ran from them, as well as many parish events such as drama groups, guides and a youth club. The church acquired more property when the ownership of 85 Mint Street was transferred to the church from the Diocese, and this was made into flats to be rented out.