Patrick Comerford
As I was walking around Soho Square recently, in search of Soho’s Jewish history and of local architectural landmarks, I also visited the two churches on the square: Saint Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, which I described last Sunday, and the French Protestant Church.
The French Protestant Church of London (Église protestante française de Londres) is a Reformed or Presbyterian church that has served the French-speaking community of London since 1550. The church on Soho Square is the last remaining Huguenot church in London and is a Grade II* listed building designed by Sir Aston Webb and built in 1891-1893.
The tympanum above the basket-arched double doors holds J Prangnelli’s 1950 commemorative carving, depicting the arrival of the first Huguenots by sea, and the signing of the 1550 charter, with a Huguenot cross above. A frieze at first-floor level has gilded lettering that reads ‘Eglise Protestante Francaise de Londres’.
The church on Soho Square is the direct successor of the French-speaking Walloon church founded in 1550 at Threadneedle Street, London, with a Royal Charter from Edward VI. Throughout its history, it has been widely regarded as the ‘Mother Church’ of French Protestantism in England.
French-speaking religious refugees and followers of the French reformer Jean Calvin arrived in London seeking sanctuary during the Reformation in the 16th century. The Polish reformer Jan à Lasco, who was also active in London in the mid-16th century, held services at Lambeth Palace for refugees. His proposals for a reformed church for foreign worshippers was encouraged by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of Edward VI.
Edward VI signed a royal charter on 24 July 1550 for the foundation of the Strangers’ Church in London for those ‘banished and cast out from their own country for the sake of the Gospel of Christ’. It was the first of the foreign Protestant churches serving the Dutch, Italian and French-speaking refugee communities in London. The charter authorised the use of Saint Augustine’s Chapel in Austin Friars in the City of London and required royal approval for the appointment of ministers.
The church grew rapidly, with French, Flemish and German-speaking members. Within three months, the French Huguenot congregation moved to the nearby chapel of Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Threadneedle Street.
Services were suspended during the reign of Mary I, Jan à Lasco and his followers returned to the continent, and the French Church went into hiding. The church was formed again in 1559 after the accession of Elizabeth I, and Calvin sent Nicolas des Gallars to formalise church governance based on his church in Genevan model, but adapted to Elizabeth I’s via media for English church life. Elizabeth I appointed the Bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, as superintendent, allaying doubts about allowing freedom of worship to a foreign church.
Three smaller French Walloon churches linked with London were formed in Canterbury, Southampton and Norwich between 1565 and 1575. They formed a network of French-speaking churches that offered a haven from persecution in the Walloon region close to Northern France, and from the Wars of Religion in France (1562-1598).
A new wave of refugees arrived after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, and who were helped by the French churches in London, Canterbury, Norwich, Southampton, Rye and Winchelsea. The French civil wars were brought to a close by Henri IV, who had a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, and the Edict of Nantes in 1598 extended religious toleration in France.
Archbishop Laud and others tried to pressurise the French churches into conforming to the Church of England in the 17th century. Some churches adopt a translation of the Book of Common Prayer, but the Threadneedle Street church retained its constitution and its style of services.
The church on Threadneedle Street was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The second church building was erected within three years and reopened in 1669. Samuel Pepys the diarist and naval administrator, had links to influential members of the congregation, and is known to have worshipped at the church in Threadneedle Street with his French wife, Elizabeth de St Michel.
The French Church of London played a vital role with the arrival of a new wave of Huguenot with renewed religious persecution in France. The first refugees began arriving from the Poitou region in 1681. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 led to the flight of half a million Huguenots, with 40,000 to 50,000 arriving in Britain. In some cases families split up and fled in smaller groups, with parents often forced to leave children behind. The church in Threadneedle Street built a chapel of ease in 1687 to accommodate its burgeoning congregation.
The refugees did not intend to stay in England, originally hoping Louis XIV’s religious policies would be reversed. But by 1700, there were around 25,000 refugees in London, worshipping in 24 Huguenot churches and chapels.
From the outset, there was a divide between the Calvinists who followed the non-conformist practices at the church in Threadneedle Street, and those who adopted the form of Anglicanism found at the French Church of the Savoy, which used a French translation of the Anglican liturgy. The church in Threadneedle Street was the principal church for the Huguenot community in Spitalfields, including many weavers. The Savoy Church served a community in Westminster that included tailors, goldsmiths, silversmiths, gunmakers and watchmakers.
There were more than 30 Huguenot churches and chapels in London by the early 18th century and more than 20 outside London. But integration gradually led to many French churches closing. The double fees for baptism exacted from Huguenot congregations by parish priests, and the 1753 Act requiring all marriages to take place in the Church of England, contributed to many second-generation and third-generation refugees leaving the Huguenot churches for Anglican churches such as Christ Church, Spitalfields, and Saint Anne’s, Soho.
Only three French churches remained in London in 1841. Two of those conformed to the Church of England, and the Threadneedle Street church was the only remaining non-conformist French church in London. That church was obliged to give up its building in 1841 to allow the expansion of the Bank of England and the rebuilding of Threadneedle Street.
The church moved to imposing premises in Saint Martin le Grand in City of London. The congregation remained there until 1887, when the church was demolished to make way for an extension to the headquarters of the General Post Office.
Temporary premises were found, first at the Athenaeum Hall in Tottenham Court Road, and then at a chapel behind 7 Soho Square, while a new church was being built. Two houses at 8 and 9 Soho Square were bought for £10,500 as a freehold site for the new church, accommodating a congregation of 400.
The consistory of the French Protestant Church of London commissioned the architect Sir Aston Webb (1849-1930) to design the new church in 1889, and it was built by Higgs and Hill in 1891-1893.
Webb is known for designing the principal façade of Buckingham Palace and the main building of the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was president of the Royal Academy (1919-1924), and was the founding chair of the London Society.
Webb was born in Clapham on 22 May 1849, the son of the watercolourist Edward Webb. He received his initial architectural training with Banks and Barry and spent a year travelling in Europe and Asia, before returning to London in 1874 to set up his own practice.
Webb worked with Ingress Bell (1836-1914) over 23 years and their major commissions include the Victoria Law Courts in Birmingham (1886). At the University of Birmingham (1900-1912), the original scheme in the Byzantine style was designed by the Webb-Bell partnership. The free-standing clock tower (‘Old Joe’), over 100 metres high, was the tallest structure in Birmingham until 1966.
Webb also restored the mediaeval Saint Bartholomew-the-Great Church in Smithfield. His other works include Saint Michael’s Court (1903), Cambridge, Admiralty Arch (1908-1909), London, works at King’s College, Cambridge (1908) and the Royal College of Science for Ireland, which now houses Government Buildings in Dublin. He died in Kensington on 21 August 1930.
The foundation stone of Webb’s new church was laid on 28 October 1891 and the building was dedicated on 25 March 1893. The design gives little outward indication of the function of the building, which looks more like an office building than a church.
During World War II, under the leadership of Pastor Frank Christol, chaplain to the Free French Forces, the church on Soho Square provided a rallying point for French Protestant soldiers who had joined General de Gaulle. The resistez badge, incorporating the Huguenot Cross and the Croix de Lorraine, was created as their insignia in 1942.
The carved panel by J Prangnelli was inserted into the tympanum above the main entrance in 1950, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the church’s foundation. The building has otherwise seen little significant alteration, remaining essentially intact throughout.
The church has been listed at Grade II* as a striking and very unusual church design, as the work of a distinguished architect, because of two remarkable interiors, both the church itself and the library, and because of the extensive and effective use of architectural terracotta, both externally and internally.
Today, the French Protestant Church in Soho Square and the Dutch Church in Austin Friars – rebuilt in 1950-1954 – survive as the direct successors of the Strangers’ Church founded in London 1550. The church in Soho Square is the only remaining French Protestant church in use in Britain, although regular services are held for French Protestants in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.
The governing body of the church is the Consistory, and the church has formal links with the French Reformed Churches in France. The Revd Stéphane Desmarais, the pastor of the church since 2013, is the 72nd French-speaking pastor of the church since 1550.
Today, the church on Soho Square is a living reminder of the need to continue to welcome refugees who cross the Channel in boats seeking sanctuary and refuge, and a living reminder too of the riche befits brought by religious pluralism, tolerance and diversity.
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