Nature Study Centre,  St George’s Churchyard

In the south-east corner of St George-in-the-East Churchyard, converted into a public garden in 1886, stood the disused parish mortuary and this was chosen to be the Nature Study Centre. Paid for by an anonymous benefactor, the Nature Study Centre and Museum opened to the public on Friday 3rd June 1904.

From its opening the Nature Study Centre was a huge success attracting from the start as many as 1,000 visitors a day in the summer months. The Centre became part of the Elementary Schools’ Curriculum and visited regularly by children from local schools. These children can still recall the things they had seen at the Centre some sixty years before.

Into this small building, crammed to the rafters, were examples of nature and the countryside. There were aquariums bubbling away with brightly coloured tropical and fresh water fish, glass cases full of beautiful butterflies, moths and stuffed birds in glass domes, live reptiles and amphibians: frogs, toad, and newts and salamanders also in glass tanks. In a composition written by one of the children "Tom" the Borough toad is described: "The Italian toad sits in a little pot of water and hardly moves. When we look at it, it makes a snap at us, as if it wants to eat us" Examples of wood and pressed dried flowers were also displayed. While outside the Centre were an aviary, ant’s nest and the most popular exhibit of all, a beehive, whose internal activities were observed through a glass partition inside the Centre. A meteorological station was maintained and regular records kept.

The Nature Study Centre experienced some difficulties during the First World War but it was the Second World War that led to its closure. A Report written on the 10th March 1942 about the Centre stated that it had been impossible owing to the War conditions to obtain live specimens to replace the stock. Coupled with the fact that most children had been evacuated to the countryside and the added strain placed on ordinary living had forced the closure of the Centre. The exhibits were transferred to the Whitechapel Museum.

This temporary closure of the Nature Study Centre gradually turned into permanent one as neglect and vandalism rendered it too expensive to reopen after the War. The shell of the building still stands bricked up with part of its roof missing. However, still above a door is painted the words: "Metropolitan Borough of Stepney Nature Study Centre". There was talk of reopening the Centre.