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St Paul’s Church, Shadwell was
designed by John Walters and consecrated by the Bishop of London on the 15th April 1820. A
Chapel of Ease, within the Ancient Manor of Stepney, had been built on the site in 1656,
by Thomas Neale, a speculative builder, who had developed much of Lower and Middle
Shadwell. As the population of Shadwell increased during the 17th century, the inhabitants petitioned for Shadwell to be made a parish. This was granted in 1669 and a church was built. The Bishop of London owned the land and the church was to be named after his St Paul’s Cathedral. Consecrated on the 12th March 1671, St Paul’s Church soon became known as the "Church of Sea Captains". Among the many sea captains who worshipped there was Captain James Cook, the famous explorer. He was a parishioner and lived in Upper Shadwell. His marriage banns to Elizabeth Batts were read in the Church and his son, James, was baptised there, in 1763. |
| Another parishioner was Jane
Randolph, born near the church and baptised there in 1720. She married Virginian Peter
Jefferson in 1739 and became the mother of Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the USA.
The family’s plantation in Virginia was named after Jane’s birthplace,
"Shadwell". But by 1811 St Paul’s Church was in danger of collapsing and closed to parishioners. With the coming of the new docks at Poplar and Wapping, Shadwell had ceased to be a home of sea captains. These changes were used in a petition to build a new Church for the growing population. It stated that Shadwell had a population of 10,000 souls and that they were mainly labours in the Docks or worked on the River. The petition was successful and the present St Paul’s Church was built as part of the county’s celebration for the victory at Waterloo. In the 1840s, the London Dock Company compulsory purchased half of the Churchyard for the construction of Shadwell New Basin. During the construction in 1858, it was discovered that because of geological conditions the Church was actually slipping into the excavations. To save the Church heavy buttressing of the Churchyards retaining wall was needed. Henry William Perkin, whose discoveries lead to the foundation of the modern dye-stuff industry, was born in nearby Sutton Street in 1838 and baptised in St Paul’s Church. While carrying out his experiments in Sutton Street, he was an active parishioner at the Church. St Paul’s Church survived the Blitz with only
minor damage but all parish records were destroyed |
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