Roman Catholic Churches in London in 1900

Antiques from London on eBay

SILVER FIDDLE PATTERN SERVING SPOON ENGLISH LONDON 1796
20 Oct 2009 at 8:45am
US $110.00
End Date: Tuesday Feb-07-2012 5:50:40 PST
Buy It Now for only: US $110.00
Buy it now | Add to watch list
1861 London Guide to Silversmiths Goldsmiths Jewelers Watchmakers Opticians
8 Jan 2012 at 10:06am
US $131.25
End Date: Tuesday Feb-07-2012 8:06:00 PST
Buy It Now for only: US $131.25
Buy it now | Add to watch list

Arthur H. Beavan's survey of London churches in Imperial London, first published in 1901, continued with this look at Roman Catholic churches:

At the corner of East Street, Finsbury Circus, until shortly before 1900, stood St. Mary's, Moorfields, opened in 1820, before the Catholic Emancipation Act legalized the public exercise of the Romish faith.

It was closely linked with the modern history of Catholicism in England, and there Cardinal Wiseman delivered his famous lecture.

Its site realized the magnificent sum of £202,000, more than sufficient to replace the church by another of great splendour elsewhere.

Meantime, there was, in 1900, no Roman Catholic place of worship within the city limits.

St. George's Cathedral, in the "Fields," Westminster Bridge Road, a spot memorable as the meeting-place of the Lord George Gordon rioters, was at one time the largest Roman Catholic place of worship erected in England since the Reformation.

It was in the Decorated style, and cruciform, and was intended to have had a very lofty spire, but this was never carried into effect. Here it was that, in 1850, Cardinal Wiseman's enthronization took place with great pomp.

St. Etheldreda's in Ely Place, Holborn, was interesting to lovers of medievalism, on account of a quaint ceremony, called the "blessing of the throats," that took place there on the festival at St. Blaise.

Two lighted candles were held crosswise over the patient's throat, a prayer was offered up, and this was considered sufficient to effect a speedy cure.

In 1900, no fewer than forty persons on the eve of the feast, and a hundred more on the day itself, tested the healing powers of the departed saint.

One of the most picturesque of religious functions was the Red Mass (so called from the colour of the vestments) that took place before the opening of the Law Courts, at the Sardinian Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the oldest Roman Catholic chapel in London, when the Judges and Counsel of the old faith attended, and the music and singing were specially good.

On All Saints' and All Souls' Day, the services were conducted with great devoutness, and prayers for the great army of the dead were intoned.

"While in more lengthen'd notes and slow,
The deep, majestick, solemn organs blow!"

Going westward, in Farm Street, Mayfair, was the famous and fashionable church of the Jesuit Fathers (the Immaculate Conception), enlarged for the third time since its erection in 1849. It was rather curiously built in a mews, and the last addition involved the purchase of some adjoining stables.

The French people had a church in Leicester Square, and another, Notre Dame de France, in King Street, Portman Square, patronized by a distinguished congregation.

Members of the Spanish Embassy attended Spanish chapel, Manchester Square, built over a century previously, and very effectively lighted from the roof.

Irish people were appropriately the chief worshippers at St. Patrick's, Soho Square, a new red-brick building in Italian renaissance, replacing a curious old galleried church. In the side-chapel nearest its high altar, were two grand pictures by Van Dyck and Carlo Dolci.

In Church Street, Kensington, was the always crowded "Carmelites"; and in the Kensington Road, behind the houses of Newland Terrace, was the unfinished and somewhat attenuated-looking edifice that, up to 1900, did duty as the Roman Catholic Pro-cathedral.

The Servite Fathers, in the Fulham Road, was a very popular community, judging by the manner in which their church was always filled.

The centre of Roman Catholic life in London was unquestionably the new and stately Westminster Cathedral, opened in 1903 with splendid ceremonial.

Two years previously, the Oratorian Fathers celebrated their Golden jubilee on the Feast of their founder, St. Philip Neri, to whom the basilica (a St. Peter's in miniature) is dedicated.

Their history is worthy of a brief digression, for they began their good work on a very humble scale in King William Street, Charing Cross, in a building subsequently occupied by Woodin, the ventriloquist, and afterwards by Toole as his own peculiar theatre.

They then migrated westward to a plain brick structure which they had built on a plot of ground adjoining the South Kensington Museum, acquired by them in perpetuity.

Finding the accommodation all too small for their ever-increasing congregations, they began to build on the same site the present Oratory at Brompton, which bit by bit came into existence at a cost of some £150,000, and was by 1900 completed all but the towers.

It was worth a long journey to view the vast assembly there on some Festival of the Church, and to hear the singing. From the beginning, the Oratory was noted for its music, the works of Palestrina and Cherubini being special favourites with the highly cultured Fathers, and the organ and choir were as good as could be heard anywhere.

The interior decorations of the big church are very fine, and the chapel of the Blessed Virgin is conspicuous for its splendour and costliness. The dome is surmounted by a gilded ball and cross, which, from some defect, began to lean decidedly out of the perpendicular, and had to be set straight.

When commenting upon this to one of the Fathers, he explained that, technically speaking, it had "swayed," ie inclined on one side, and Arthur H Beavan was sorely tempted to reply that such a proceeding was quite opposed to the traditions of the Church of Rome, whose claim to infallibility, whether for good or evil, constitute her chief attraction to the vast multitude of doubting humanity, who gladly take refuge in a system that gives them, at any rate, an appearance of finality in theology.

The trumpet of Roman Catholicism gives no uncertain sound!

Next: Official, Legislative, and Diplomatic London in 1900: No. 10 Downing Street