KINGSWAY HALL, HOLBORN

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: N/M/008
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: KINGSWAY HALL, HOLBORN
Date(s)	: 1870-1960
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 2.28 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: Methodist Church of Great Britain x United Methodist Church x Wesleyan Methodist Church x Primitive Methodist Church

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Hugh Price Hughes a Wesleyan Minister in London founded the West London Mission in 1887 as part of the Forward Movement in Methodism which stressed that faith had to be expressed in social and political as well as personal life. The Inaugural meeting of the then West Central Mission was on 21st October 1887 with the Sermon at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly preached by C.H. Spurgeon. The West London Mission remained at St. James' Hall which was a popular Concert Hall, until 1905 when it was demolished to form the Piccadilly Hotel. The Mission moved to Exeter Hall, another concert hall, in the Strand.

In 1906 the Methodist Conference gave the Mission its own building, the Wesleyan Chapel at Great Queen Street. The building was later condemned by the LCC and the Mission were temporarily housed in the Lyceum Theatre, while on Great Queen Street at the old site a new place of worship, Kingsway Hall, was under construction. Kingsway Hall opened in 1912 and enjoyed nearly 70 years of occupation until it was sold in the eighties after the amalgamation of the Kingsway Circuit and Hinde Street; the Mission returned to the West End to Thayer Street/Hinde Street.

In the early days, much of the day to day work went on in smaller chapels and halls in the middle of slum areas where social needs were great. These buildings such as Craven Hall at Fouberts Place were used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, education and welfare. However, this use of smaller halls was dropped after the First World War in favour of the new Kingsway Hall premises.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Kingsway Hall Trust, 1870-1947; cash books, ledgers, vouchers and bank books, 1908-1914; cash book and ledger for Building Fund 1910, 1908-1913; bank books, 1908-1914; balance sheets, 1915-1938; Trustees minutes, 1929-1933; papers of the International Building Trust, 1909-1944; receipts and expenditure for Kingsway Hall, 1933-1938; account books for the Community Centre, 1947-1956; wages books, 1946-1954; collection journals, 1924-1955 and papers of the Kingsway Creche Committee, 1908-1960.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Financial papers; Administrative papers.

Conditions governing access:

These records are available for public inspection, although records containing personal information are subject to access restrictions under the UK Data Protection Act, 1998.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright: Depositor

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited in 1971 (AC/71/024).

Allied Materials

Related material:

See also LMA/4474 for records relating to Kingsway Hall. See N/M/002 for the West London Mission.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
January to March 2009