On September 13, 1855, a charter was granted to "The Rector, Churchwardens, and Vestrymen of St. Clement's Church in the City of Philadelphia". The first rector was the Rev.
Henry S. Spackman, who was elected as soon as the first charter was received. His incumbency began officially on January 1, 1856. The cornerstone of the church building was laid on May 12, 1856, by the Rt. Rev.
Alonzo Potter, third Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. The land on which St. Clement's was built was furnished by William S. Wilson, a Presbyterian and an Englishman, who with his two brothers came to the United States and made a fortune as a manufacturer. He owned most of the land in the section of the city where St. Clement's now stands, and his interest was directed to the development of a residential area by building row houses on Arch, Race and Twentieth Streets. He was eager that a church should be built, not so much because of any religious devotion on his part, but because he felt the erection of a church would greatly enhance the attractiveness of his residential projects. St. Clement's was the third Episcopal church to be designed by architect John Notman and built in Philadelphia between 1847 and 1859. He also designed
St. Mark's Church on Locust Street, the
Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square and, with
Napoleon LeBrun, was associate architect for the
Roman Catholic Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul on Logan Square. In accordance with the architectural wisdom of the time, Notman maintained that the Gothic Revival style was best suited towards the liturgical worship of
High Church congregations, while Romanesque Revival architecture was better suited for the conventional
Low Church worship of mainstream Episcopal congregations. Unlike St. Mark's, which was erected for a High Church congregation and built in the Gothic Revival style, St. Clement's was originally designed for a typical Low Church Episcopal congregation, and like the Church of the Holy Trinity, was designed in the Romanesque Revival style. Like the two nearby churches, St. Clement's was built entirely of brownstone. Its bell tower was originally topped by a spire of over in height. The weight of the spire was more than the foundation could support, and it was removed from the structure in 1869 in order to prevent damaging the foundation. When the cornerstone was laid St. Clement's was almost in the fields. The block between Arch and Race Streets had been, from about 1808 into the 1830s, the site of Sans Souci Garden, the largest for-profit botanical haven within the current-day confines of Center City. It included a hotel at which visitors were furnished with fruit from the garden greenhouses as part of their refreshments. The garden was respected for its botanical collection; a portion of William Hamilton's private collection—developed at
the Woodlands in West Philadelphia—wound up there. The resort was also immediately south of the Magdalene Asylum (a private charitable organization for the redemption of prostitutes) and the Pennsylvania Asylum for the Blind—illustrating how such institutions were established outside of the populated sectors of the city. In the mid-1850s, few houses yet existed nearby and large tracts of open lots surrounded the ground that had been secured for the church. The grid of streets had hardly expanded westward as far as 20th Street and there was no City Hall in the Center Square. The Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal was located at 11th and Market Streets, and there was a covered wooden bridge over the Schuylkill River. The building of St. Clement's Church lasted three years because of recurring financial difficulties. Contemporary evidence indicates that at one time all work was stopped and the building stood roofless for a long period. It was finally opened for services on the first Sunday in January 1859. There is no record of any services for the congregation before the opening of the new building. The Church was consecrated on April 12, 1864. Bishop Potter again officiated and was assisted by Bishop Stevens, Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese, and by
Bishop Lee of Delaware. It was not until the arrival of
Hermon Griswold Batterson in 1869 that the parish increasingly came to be influenced by the theology drawing on the Tractarian or
Oxford Movement and later Ritualist developments. During Batterson's time as
rector, the parish adopted many of the
liturgical practices associated with the
Catholic Revival then taking place within the
Church of England. These changes, which included liturgical practices such as the wearing of colored
chasubles and
stoles, placing lit candles on the
altar during
Mass, and
genuflecting before the
Blessed Sacrament, together with new theological emphases, including the encouragement of private auricular
confession and
absolution and encouraging
prayer for the dead, were not uncontroversial. Despite having the support of the
ordinary as well as that of the vast majority of the people and clergy of the diocese, the anti-Catholic faction was unable to use the judicial processes prescribed in the
canons to remove Batterson from office as rector, and eventually the
vestry, with the support of Bishop Stevens, voted to remove Batterson (and his curate) from office without the requisite canonical trial. The manner in which Batterson was dismissed, circumventing the proper procedures after forcing the parish to endure more than a year of internal conflict, caused the anti-Catholic faction to lose significant support among parishioners. As a result, control of the vestry shifted after the annual election of vestrymen when a number of Anglo-Catholic candidates defeated the incumbent anti-Catholic vestrymen. Later in the year, the vestry elected Theodore M. Riley, an Anglo-Catholic, as the fourth rector of St. Clement's Church. From 1875-1877 the church's organist was the prominent Philadelphia musician
Henry Gordon Thunder, Sr. The catholicization of the parish continued during the tenure of the
Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE), more commonly known as the Cowley Fathers, who were responsible for the parish from 1876 to 1891. Some maintain that the work of the Fathers and the entire St. Clement's community among the poor and needy in Philadelphia may have influenced the diocesan authorities to moderate their criticism of the "high church" parish. Father Charles Neale Field, one of the assistant priests sent to St. Clement's from Cowley in 1882, established the Guild of the Iron Cross for Working Men and Boys during this time, eventually drawing thousands of working men from all over the United States into its membership. His intent was to create a "crusade against Blasphemy, Impurity and Intemperance among working men themselves" and posed the question "Are we by our lives and teachings preaching the gospel to the poor?" The guild was a recreational as well as a religious association. The cleric from Yorkshire established the Iron Cross Parlor and Gymnasium in 1889, and he often took large groups of boys and men for outings at various parks and places out in the country. St. Clement's was located near the
Baldwin Locomotive Works on Spring Garden Street and other nearby factories and workshops, so its congregation was made up of many working families whose fathers and sons were members of the Iron Cross Guild. It has also been widely said that St. Clement's was one of the first Episcopal parishes in the city to be integrated. While direct evidence is scanty, unlike its neighboring parishes of St. Mark's and Holy Trinity and numerous other Philadelphia churches, St. Clement's never established a separate "mission church" for African-Americans. Also, Field had come to St. Clement's and established his outreach to the workers of the city having already become known for his ministry to people of color, so the church already had a long tradition of tolerance and inclusion. Meanwhile, one long cherished wish of Father Basil Maturin, rector from 1881 to 1889, and his assistant priests, was for the establishment of a hospital for adults. Beginning the work by opening a dispensary in a nearby house in 1885, the plan was to have evening hours so that the working people could benefit. The only requirement for treatment was to be poor and sick. By 1890, the hospital facility had moved to Cherry Street and expanded its services beyond the capacity of the parish to sustain them financially. After a brief period of retrenchment and use of the hospital exclusively to treat epileptics, in 1899 the building was sold to the Community of the
All Saints Sisters of the Poor, to be used as a mission house. The Cowley Fathers withdrew from St. Clement's in 1891 to focus their American work and ministry in Boston and, in 1895, the Rev.
George Herbert Moffett became rector. His coming ushered in a new era of prosperity for the church. He built the present clergy house; began perpetual reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the crypt chapel; was the first to use the term "Mass" officially in the parish; put the first side altar in the church, and moved the baptistry from the head of the south aisle to the rear of the north aisle. Moffett served until his death in 1904. In 1895, Saint Clement's became the first parish in the Diocese of Pennsylvania to institute perpetual
reservation of the
Blessed Sacrament. The latter part of the 20th century saw a significant change in the church congregation as the nearby factories and other industrial and commercial establishments closed, families moved to the suburbs or farther away, and the parish neighborhood changed profoundly. St. Clement's evolved from a parish church to a shrine church, its outreach and membership becoming more regional and its pews filled on great feast days with worshippers often traveling great distances to partake of the traditional Masses that have continued. ==Architecture==