Margaret Street Chapel According to the
Survey of London, Margaret Street Chapel was founded by William Cudworth, who used to be
Methodist but later became
antinomian. The chapel was built in 1752 and leased to Cudworth in 1754, and there was a
nonconformist congregation by 1757. In 1776, the
deist David Williams rented the chapel to promote a "universalist liturgy". In the 1780s the chapel was closed before it became a
proprietary chapel in the Church of England and its ownership came under the Crown. J. D. Hazlewood was the minister of the chapel for a period of time after its reopening. According to Galloway and Rawll, the chapel looked like an 18th century meeting house of
English Dissenters and did not possess architectural significance. The chapel was damaged in the Titchfield Street fire of 1825. In 1827 the English banker and politician
Henry Drummond purchased the site and the building, hoping to promote
Irvingism within the Church of England. He also appointed
William Dodsworth to be the minister of Margaret Street Chapel in 1829.
Oxford Movement (1798–1861), minister of Margaret Street Chapel from 1829 to 1837, introduced the Oxford Movement there. William Dodsworth became an early follower of the
Oxford Movement, a 19th-century religious movement in the Church of England that sought a return to
Catholic thoughts and practices. It was preceded by an 1820s intellectual revival at Oxford, in particular the
Noetics of Oriel College, and its key leaders were
John Henry Newman,
Richard Hurrell Froude,
John Keble, and
Edward Bouverie Pusey. The Movement's ideas are manifest in the
Tracts for the Times, and its adherents were often called "Tractarians". Among its ideas, the Tracts emphasised
apostolic succession and the episcopacy, defended the practice of liturgy, and underscored the importance of the
eucharist, advocating for its more frequent celebration.
Anglo-Catholicism stemmed from the Movement. Dodsworth introduced many ideas of the Oxford Movement to Margaret Street Chapel. He was a popular preacher, and the chapel attracted many London Tractarian supporters. Dodsworth later left Margaret Street Chapel in 1837 to join
Christ Church, Albany Street and was succeeded by Charles Thornton. Thornton, a cousin of Edward Bouverie Pusey, was also a member of the Oxford Movement. He translated a volume within the
Library of the Fathers, a collection of English translations of the works of the
Church Fathers, but died in June 1839 before its publication.
Frederick Oakeley, a fellow of
Balliol College, Oxford who joined the
Oxford Movement in early 1839, left the university and became minister of Margaret Street Chapel on 5 July that year. As minister, Oakeley rearranged the interior of the chapel and practised
Anglo-Catholic high liturgy, making it a "showcase of the liturgical practices of the Oxford movement" according to Galloway and Rawll. James Pereiro also wrote that the chapel was an example of the "new spirit of liturgical worship" of Oxford. In 1845, Oakeley wrote a letter to
Charles James Blomfield, Bishop of London, asserting his right to uphold all Roman doctrine. Facing opposition from the bishop, Oakeley gave up his minister licence on 3 June and joined the
Roman Catholic Church on 29 October that year. He was succeeded by
William Upton Richards, assistant minister of the chapel. Members of the Oxford Movement were concerned with the liturgical use of architecture. During his tenure, Oakeley envisioned rebuilding the chapel according to a proper ecclesiastical style and raised about . His successor Upton Richards continued the project of rebuilding the chapel. Meanwhile, the
Cambridge Camden Society, a society studying
Gothic architecture, was seeking to build a church that would embody their architectural ideal and provide orthodox liturgy at the same time. In 1845,
Alexander Beresford Hope, a leader of the society, realised that the chapel rebuilding scheme could be combined with the society's goal. His proposal received the approval of Richards and Bishop Blomfield. Upton Richards purchased the sites of the chapel and adjoining houses in 1849 in order to build a new church, and the Ecclesiastical District of All Saints' was soon founded on 30 July 1849. The Cambridge Camden Society took charge of the rebuilding and appointed
Sir Stephen Glynne and Beresford Hope overseeing the work. Glynne, however, did not participate in the project, and Hope took sole charge.
William Butterfield was selected as the architect. Margaret Street Chapel saw its last sermon preached by
Charles Marriott on 7 April 1850 and held its final service the next day. Edward Bouverie Pusey laid the foundation stone of the new church on All Saints' Day, 1850. During the construction of the new church, the congregation worshipped in
Great Titchfield Street and, after 1855, at 77a Margaret Street. The total cost of the church, including the site and endowments, was around £70,000; several large individual donations helped to fund it. (right) and her two daughters, Maria (left, standing) and
Christina Rossetti (left, sitting), in 1855. The following year Maria joined the All Saints Sisters. Christina also worked for the society in the 1860s. The Oxford Movement also led to the creation of religious orders for women in England, including one at Margaret Street Chapel. Upton Richards encountered Harriet Brownlow Byron in 1848 and encouraged her to live a religious life. Brown later moved to 67
Mortimer Street and created a community for people with disabilities and orphaned children. Upton Richards celebrated Eucharist for the community in 1851, and in 1856 they moved to Margaret Street, across from the new church building. On 5 May 1856 Upton Richards received the professions of religious sisterhood of Byron and two other women, and in August they founded the
Society of All Saints (Sisters of the Poor). Byron was installed as the Superior of the society by
Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. Maria,
Christina Rossetti's older sister, joined the society as an associate sister in 1856. Christina had associations with the society later in her life, working at the society's House of Charity in
Highgate in the 1860s. The scholar Elizabeth Ludlow argued that Rossetti's poem "Yet a Little While" contains phrases that describe the interior of All Saints, Margaret Street.
All Saints, Margaret Street On 28 May 1859, Bishop of London
Archibald Campbell Tait consecrated the church building of All Saints. Upton Richards served actively for ten years until he suffered strokes in 1869. The
Survey of London describes the congregation at the time "occasional in character", as parishioners were not assigned fixed seats. In 1860 Upton Richards also established a choir school on Margaret Street for the church. He remained the vicar of All Saints until his death on 16 June 1873 and was succeeded by
Berdmore Compton succeeded on 28 October. To commemorate Upton Richards, the parish devoted the decoration of the north wall of the church, which was designed by Butterfield, painted by
Alexander Gibbs, and made by Henry Poole & Sons in 1875–1876. Compton's tenure lasted until July 1886, during which Archbishop of Canterbury
Edward White Benson preached at the church on
Ascension Day, 3 June 1886.
William Allen Whitworth became vicar in November that year. He created a newspaper for the parish in 1887, established a mission in
Pentonville in northern London from 1888 to 1897, and offered Welsh services at All Saints from 1889 to 1895. Whitworth died after a bowel operation in March 1905. During the Victorian era,
Princess Alexandra of Denmark frequented the church until the death of her son
Prince Albert Victor in 1892. She sometimes brought her husband, the future
Edward VII, and her family. George Holden led the church from 1905 to his death in 1908, re-establishing a ward of the
Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament there in 1906 and joining the church to the
English Church Union in 1907. He was succeeded by Henry Mackay, the fifth vicar of All Saints from 1908 to 1934. H. F. B. Mackay elevated the liturgy at the church by introducing
incense in 1908 and
paschal candles in 1912. He renamed the services as "Mass" in 1911 and the Solemn Eucharist "High Mass" in 1913, and from 1915 priests were addressed as "Fathers". The
Anglican Benedictine monk Dom
Bernard Clements succeeded Mackay in 1934. In 1939 he oversaw the celebrations of the centenary of the licensing of Frederick Oakeley to Margaret Street Chapel, with preachers including the Archbishops of York and of Wales, and in November that year the Archbishop of Canterbury
Cosmo Gordon Lang preached at evensong at All Saints. During the
bombing of London in the Second World War, the choristers were sent to the countryside and the roof of the parish school was set on fire. Dom Bernard died in 1942, and
Geoffrey Fisher, then the Bishop of London, appointed Cyril Edric Tomkinson as the new vicar in 1943, who resigned due to ill health in 1951 and was succeeded by Kenneth Needham Ross. In 1959 All Saints celebrated the centenary of its consecration, having the Archbishop of York preaching at the High Mass on 31 May. In 1967 the choir school was closed due to financial difficulties and Ross retired two years later. The ninth vicar,
Michael Marshall, led the church from 1969 to 1975. In 1970, Bishop
Graham Leonard of London thought of using All Saints as a centre to catechise lay people, which inspired Marshall to establish the Institute of Christian Studies at 84 Margaret Street, where the choir school once occupied. For the first three years the institute was a resident community, before it transitioned into a place of teaching and was formally opened by
Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1973. The institute closed around 1978. Marshall was elected and consecrated
Bishop of Woolwich in 1975, and the next vicar was David Sparrow, who held the post from 1976 to his death in 1981.
David Hope, then principal of
St Stephen's House, Oxford, an Anglo-Catholic theological college, was appointed the vicar of All Saints in 1982. In 1983 he organised a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Oxford Movement, which saw Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, preaching at
Evensong. In the same year Hope reinstated the celebration of the
Feast of the Assumption and introduced the use of a
monstrance for Benediction. During his tenure, he also established the
Tenebrae service during the
Holy Week. Hope became the
Bishop of Wakefield in 1985, and was succeeded as the vicar of All Saints by
David Hutt in 1986. Alan Moses was the vicar in the early 21st century. The current incumbent is Peter Anthony. In 2020 the church came under the episcopal oversight of the
Bishop of Fulham. ==Architecture==