PLAISTOW CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SWANSCOMBE STREET, WEST HAM

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: N/C/33
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: PLAISTOW CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SWANSCOMBE STREET, WEST HAM
Date(s)	: 1859-1903
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 0.1 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: Congregational Church of England and Wales

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Canning Town Congregational Church, Barking Road, originated in 1855, in services conducted at Plaistow Marsh by Thomas Perfect, who had been converted at Brickfields by Robert Ferguson. Although lacking formal training, he served successfully as pastor until he retired in 1884. In 1860 a small chapel was built in Swanscombe Street. This was superseded in 1868 when a new building was erected in Barking Road, Plaistow, but remained in use as a mission hall. Another mission hall was maintained at North Woolwich from about 1879 to 1907. Under F. W. Newland the Mansfield House university settlement became closely associated with the church, its boys' club being centred at the Swanscombe Street hall, which was rebuilt in 1891. The Canning Town church reached its peak membership of 261 in 1902. F. W. Piper devised a scheme to unite under his superintendency most of the Congregational churches in the area, as the South West Ham mission. Canning Town, Victoria Docks, and their missions came together in 1906, and were joined in 1909 by Greengate. The object of the mission was to ensure pastoral care for churches too poor to support separate ministers, but the traditions of independence were too strong: Greengate left the union in 1914 and Victoria Docks in 1917. Canning Town continued to call itself the South West Ham mission until 1923. All its buildings were badly damaged in the Second World War. Swanscombe Street, wrecked in 1940, was later demolished. The Barking Road church, twice bombed, was derelict from 1941. Its dwindling congregation continued to meet elsewhere in various borrowed premises, under the leadership of Mrs. M. Angel, widow of a former minister. Through her efforts a smaller church, opened in 1949, was erected on the foundations of the old one. She died in 1959 and the church closed almost immediately.

From: 'West Ham: Roman Catholicism, Nonconformity and Judaism', A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6 (1973), pp. 123-141.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Church book containing minutes of Church meetings, 1859-1863, roll of members, 1859-1880, register of baptisms, 1860-1882 and minute book of Church meetings, 1892-1903.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Two volumes.

Conditions governing access:

Available for general access.

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 20th August, 1964 (AC/064/48)

Allied Materials

Related material:

See LMA/4106 for marriage registers of the Canning Town Congregational Church.

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