Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 153, Thursday 8 October 2026

‘Knock, and the door will be opened for you’ (Luke 11: 9) … a variety of door knockers seen in Rethymnon in Crete (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, with the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII, 4 October).

I may stay awake late tonight and into the early hours of Friday morning watching the results coming in from the by-election in Holborn and St Pancras in London today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ’ (Luke 11: 11) … a variety of fish on display in a seafood restaurant at the harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 5-13 (NRSVA):

5 And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” 7 And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

9 ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

‘If the child asks for an egg, will [you] give a scorpion?’ (Luke 11: 12) … painted eggs at Easter time in Panormos near Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 11: 5-13), we continue on from yesterday’s reading (Luke 11: 1-4), with Saint Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer. In verses 5 ff, Christ tells two stories: even one who is asleep with his family responds ‘because of … persistence’ to a neighbour in need; a parent provides for a child. Even these people, separated from God, respond to the needs of others. How much more so will God respond to our prayers for help, through the Holy Spirit.

These following verses develop the themes in the Lord’s Prayer, including the idea of God as a loving Father, meeting our daily needs, and, in a subtle way, the constant need for forgiveness.

Saint Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer has made me ask in the past how Jewish is the Lord’s Prayer.

As a rabbi and religious leader, Christ was responsible for teaching his followers how to fulfil Jewish religious commandments, including the obligation to pray at certain times and in certain forms.

The most important Jewish prayer, the Shema, is the basic Jewish affirmation of faith and is based on Deuteronomy 6: 7. Other basic prayers include the Grace after Meals, derived from Deuteronomy 8: 10.

But the central prayer of Jewish public worship is the Amidah (‘the Standing Prayer’) or the Shemoneh Esreh, which means 18, referring to 18 petitions, although the number of petitions is now 19. Observant Jews recite the Amidah at each of the three weekday prayer services: morning, afternoon, and evening. Praying three times a day is a long-established Jewish tradition (see Daniel 6: 11, Psalm 55: 18).

By the time of Christ, daily prayer was an integral part of Jewish religious life, and the basic structure of the Amidah was well established. Its form was regularised soon after, so that the prayer had taken its present form in the early first century CE.

The schools of Hillel and Shammai both accepted as the proper form nine petitions for Rosh Ha-Shanah (New Year) and seven petitions for the Sabbath. By the first century CE, the Amidah was one of the most important series of petitions. By then, there were probably 12 to 14 petitions, and more were added after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 CE to reflect changes in Jewish life.

There are many discussions in the Talmud about the minimum number of petitions, but consensus was not reached until the sixth century CE.

The rabbis recognised that not everyone in every circumstance could find time to pray the entire Amidah. Even as early as the third century CE, shortened versions were being prayed. So, is the Lord’s Prayer an early version of the Amidahthat Christ taught his disciples so they could fulfil their minimum obligations of prayer?

But, just how Jewish is the Lord’s Prayer?

Perhaps when the disciples are asking Jesus to teach them to pray, they are also asking him the minimum number of petitions needed to fulfil the obligation to pray.

1, ‘Father’ or ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’: The Lord’s Prayer opens with the acknowledgment of the fatherhood of God and his place in heaven. While the opening verses of the Amidah talk of God as the God of our fathers in, the fatherhood of God is a common phrase throughout Jewish liturgy.

Avinu, meaning ‘Our Father,’ is a word repeated constantly throughout the prayers that make up the Jewish services (see also Deuteronomy 32: 6; Isaiah 63: 16).

In the Amidah, the title occurs twice: ‘Cause us to return, O our Father, unto thy Torah; draw us near, O our King, unto they service …’ (fifth benediction); ‘Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed’ (sixth benediction). It is also found in the second benediction before the Shema: ‘O our Father, our King, for our fathers’ sake, who trusted in thee, and whom thou didst teach the statutes of life, be also gracious unto us and teach us. O our Father, ever compassionate, have mercy on us.’

The name ‘Father’ is also widely used in the liturgy of the celebrations of the new year and of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement – which this year was on Sunday evening and Monday 20-21 September 2026 – where the phrases ‘Father of mercy’ and ‘O our Father’ occur frequently.

2, ‘Hallowed be thy name,’ or ‘may your name be sanctified’: The Hebrew word kadosh can be translated as either holy or sanctified. The third petition in the Amidah prays: ‘Thou art holy and thy name is holy and the holy praise thee daily. Blessed art thou O Lord, the holy God.’

3, ‘Your kingdom come’ or ‘Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’: In the Amidah, the words pray: ‘Reign thou over us O Lord, thou alone in loving kindness and tender mercy and clear us in judgment. Blessed art thou O Lord the King who lovest righteousness and judgment.’

The words ‘thy will be done’ also occur in I Maccabees: ‘It is better for us to die in battle than to see the misfortunes of our nation and of the sanctuary. But as his will in heaven may be, so he will do’ (I Maccabees 3: 59-60). The same attitude of abandonment to God’s will finds expression in the prayer Jews utter as they feel death drawing near: ‘May it be thy will to send me a perfect healing. Yet if my death be fully determined by thee, I will in love to accept it at thy hand.’

4, ‘Give us each day our daily bread’ or ‘Give us this day our daily bread’: The ninth Amidah blessing prays: ‘Bless this year unto us O Lord our God together with every kind of the produce thereof for our welfare.’ A short prayer ascribed to the rabbis prays: ‘O God, the needs of thy people are many, their knowledge slender. Give every one of thy creatures his daily bread and grant him his urgent needs.’

There is an interesting thought in the Book of Proverbs: ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need,’ or, ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread’ (Proverbs 30: 8).

5, ‘Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’ or ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’: The sixth Amidah blessing prays: ‘Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned, pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed, for thou dost pardon and forgive. Blessed art thou O Lord who art gracious and dost abundantly forgive.’

It is an important Jewish concept that one cannot ask for forgiveness from God until first making amends with others I may have wronged or I have been wronged by. Before going to sleep at night, pious Jews pray, ‘Master of the universe, I hereby forgive anyone who angered or antagonised me or who sinned against me.’

The majority of the rabbis taught, ‘if you forgive your neighbour, the One will forgive you; but if you do not forgive your neighbour, no one will have mercy on you’ (Midrash Tanhuma Genesi).

6, ‘And do not bring us to the time of trial’ or ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’: The seventh blessing in the Amidah is a prayer for deliverance from afflictions of all kinds. A modern version says, ‘Look with compassion on all afflicted among us; be thou our guardian and our advocate, and redeem us speedily from all evil, for in thee do we trust as our mighty Redeemer.’

7, ‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever’: the doxology is not included in the Lord’s Prayer in Saint Luke’s Gospel, but is added in some manuscript versions of Saint Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 6: 13). It is similar to David’s benediction (see I Chronicles 29: 10-13), which is part of the daily prayer service and an essential component of the section called Pesukei D’zimrah (‘Verses of Praise’) that comes immediately before reciting the Shema. Whether or not the doxology is included in the Lord’s Prayer, it is rooted firmly in Jewish tradition.

‘Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?’ (Luke 11: 11) … a variety of fish advertised at a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 8 October 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, 4-10 October 2026 (pp 44-45), is ‘The Gun, The Sword, and The Bible’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Les Isaac OBE, founder and President of Ascension Trust and co-founder of Street Pastors.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 8 October 2026) invites us to pray:

Help your Church to rediscover its calling as an agent of your gospel in the world. May we live boldly and faithfully, bringing Your light into every community.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast:
for here we receive you,
here the memory of your passion is renewed,
here our minds are filled with grace,
and here a pledge of future glory is given,
when we shall feast at that table where you reign
with all your saints for ever.

Additional Collect:

God, our judge and saviour,
teach us to be open to your truth
and to trust in your love,
that we may live each day
with confidence in the salvation which is given
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘If the child asks for an egg, will [you] give a scorpion?’ (Luke 11: 12) … painted eggs at Easter time on a table in Panormos, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Change Alley off Cornhill in the City of London became home to four generations of the Comerford family

Change Alley off Cornhill in the heart of the City of London was home to at least four generations of the Comerford family in the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in London last week, I visited Quemerford Street in Islington, wondering whether its name was linked with Quemerford in Wiltshire or the Quemerford origins of the Comerford family in Ireland, and I then went to the City, searching for the Jamaica and Jonathan’s, two of the oldest coffee houses in London, dating back to the mid-17th century.

The Jamaica Wine House is in Saint Michael’s Alley and Jonathan’s was in Change Alley, two of the many parallel narrow laneways running from Cornhill at the north end to Lombard Street at the south end, within three or four minutes of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in heart of the City.

Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway that was once home to some of the best-known early coffeehouses in the City of London. Change Alley is not just one alley but a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages that have changed shape and direction down the centuries and with five access points: two off Cornhill, two off Lombard Street and one leading out of Birchin Lane.

Change Alley, with the site of Jonathan’s to the immediate left, is a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The 17th and 18th century coffeehouses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, were early venues for lively trading in shares and commodities, leading to the formation of both the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London.

Change Alley was one of the main stages of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, when feverish buying and selling of South Sea Company stock sent prices soaring to over £1,000 a share before a dramatic collapse ruined many investors.

A fire on 30 March 1748 that began in a wigmaker’s shop in Exchange Alley destroyed between 90 and 100 houses and premises in the alley and nearby streets, killing several people. The blaze consumed many coffeehouses and taverns, including Jonathan’s, Garraway’s, the Swan, the Fleece and the George and Vulture, and the area had to be extensively rebuilt.

The shops that once lined Exchange Alley included ship chandlers, makers of navigation instruments such as telescopes, and goldsmiths from Lombardy in Italy, and the King’s Arms Tavern, where the Marine Society was founded in 1756.

But Change Alley was also the home for at least four generations in an interesting branch of the Comerford family in London, which was involved in book collecting for three generations and in medicine for two generations.

James Comerford (1764-1833) lived and worked for much of his life in Change Alley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Although there are some traditions that this branch of the Comerford family originated in Coventry, family tradition insists that the family originated in Ireland and moved to London in the mid-18th century, and traces the family back to Thomas Comerford (1738-1812), who may have been born in Ireland and is the first-known ancestor of this family.

Despite family tradition that Thomas Comerford came from Ireland, Ashworth-Hill, in his paper on the Bosworth Crucifix, which was in the possession of James Comerford’s family from around 1810, wonders whether this Comerford family was related to the Comerford family who lived in Saint Michael’s Parish in Coventry in the first half of the 19th century.

Thomas Comerford was a tobacconist in London. He was twice married and married his first wife Alice Davenport (1735-1769) on 26 October 1759 in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel. They lived in Leman Street, Whitechapel (1759-1768), and they were the parents of three sons:

1, William Davenport Comerford (1763-1763), died in infancy.
2, James Comerford (1764-1833), of whom next.
3, Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), draper, of Bond Street, who married Charlotte Watson (1772-1851), and has a large number of living descendants.

Alice died in childbirth in 1769, and Thomas Comerford married his second wife, Ann Underwood (1734-1807), in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, on 28 October 1770. Thomas and Anne Comerford were the parents of two more children, a daughter and a son:

4, Mary (1775-1839)
5, Charles Comerford (1784-1849), solicitor. He married Elizabeth Edings Morgan (1797-1867) in Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on 1 May 1813. He lived at East Street, Lamb’s Conduit Street, off Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury (1807), 16 Clement’s Inn, off the Strand in Saint Clement Danes parish(1838-1840), 72 Old Broad Street (1848), and 21 Oxford Square, Paddington (1849).

Thomas Comerford died on 29 June 1812 in the Parish of Saint Botolph, London. Hissecond but eldest surviving son was:

James Comerford (1764-1833) was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth and his son James William Comerford (1829-1917),who was born in Change Alley, was baptised in Saint Mary Woolnoth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

James Comerford (1764-1833) lived and worked for much of his life in Change Alley, where he traded as a tobacconist and snuff maker. He was born in 1764 and was baptised on 22 November 1764 at Saint Mary’s, Whitechapel. He was living at Tower Hill, London, on 7 November 1780, when he was indentured to a seven-year apprenticeship as a cooper. By 1790 he was a tobacconist and snuff maker at 50 Holywell Street, subsumed into the Strand years later when the street was widened. He then lived at Bayley’s Place, Tower Hill (1791-1795), before moving his home and his business to Change Alley.

James Comerford and his wife Elizabeth (1773-1833) were the parents of at least two sons:

1, William Comerford (1785-1801)
2, James Comerford (1787- )

When James Comerford died in 1833 at the age of 68, he was a tobacconist, living at Change Alley. He was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth Church, close to Change Alley. His remains and those of four other people were removed on 14 December 1892 and reburied at Ilford Cemetery.

His second named son:

James Comerford (1787- ) was born on 26 October 1787 and was baptised at Saint Botolph Without Aldersgate Church on 28 January 1788. He married in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, on 6 March 1805 Sarah (or Anne) Suffolk, then living in Saint Andrew’s Parish.

A family tradition says Anne Suffolk may have had a Jewish mother, and there was a tradition in the family – later dismissed – that her father was one of the many illegitimate sons of King George III.

This James Comerford started the book collection that his son, also James Comerford continued.

His son:

The miniature portrait of James Comerford (ca 1829) by François Theodore Rochard, in the Lady Cohen Collection at Kenwood House … probably pained to mark his marriage to Sarah Anne Bissett

James Comerford (1807-1881) was a Victorian book collector, antiquarian and notary. He was born on 7 November 1807, in Castle Street, now Furnival Street, Holborn, and was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, in March 1808.

James first practised as a notary public in partnership from December 1827 with TS Girdler as Comerford and Company at 27 Change Alley, which may have been his grandfather’s former tobacco shop. Later, he practised from premises at 7 Tokenhouse Yard, Lothbury, close to the Bank of London. He was also a magistrate or Justice of the Peace (JP). James Comerford was secretary to the Society of Public Notaries of London in 1833. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians (FSA) on 27 December 1840. His heraldic bookplates, with the motto So Ho Ho Dea Ne, are much sought-after collectors’ items.

James married Sarah Anne Bissett (1809- ), daughter of Captain James Bissett, in Wilmington, Sussex, on 16 July 1828. Her father was a sea captain who died in the American War in 1812. Her eldest sister, Anna Maria Bissett, married the Revd Robert Philip Blake (1801-1841), curate of Wilmington and of Stoke, near Guildford, who drowned at Niton, Isle of Wight, while swimming with his son; this son, the Revd Professor John Frederick Blake (1839-1906), was lecturer in Comparative Anatomy, Charing Cross Hospital, London (1878-1881) and Professor of Natural Science, University College Nottingham (1881-1888).

After their wedding, Sarah and James Comerford took a honeymoon during the Belgian/Dutch civil war. From 1829 and 1851, James and Sarah Comerford and their family were living at No 7 Saint Andrew’s Place, Regent’s Park, London. By 1872, the family had moved to Framfield, Sussex.

Family tradition says James was something of a rake, took fencing lessons from a well-known fencing master named Angelo, and fought a duel with a man named Atwood over his future wife.

James Comerford is best remembered as a book collector and antiquarian. He built on his father’s earlier book collection, and amassed a library that included a large collection of county histories, local topographies and books of Catholic religious piety.

James Comerford died on 8 March 1881 in the last cholera epidemic in London. After his death, Sotheby’s sold his library at auction on 16-20 November 1881, realising a sale total of £8,372 13 s. His books occasionally come back on the market, but more often they are valued for his heraldic bookplates than as antique books.

The Bosworth Crucifix … the most notable antiquarian item in James Comerford’s private collection, is now in the collection of the Society of Antiquarians

The most notable object of antiquarian interest in Comerford’s private collection was the ‘Bosworth Crucifix’, a 15th-century bronze processional crucifix, measuring 585 mm x 280 mm, now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London. The Bosworth Crucifix is said to have been dug up on the Field of Bosworth in Leicestershire around 1778, and came into the possession of the Comerford family around 1810.

The crucifix was owned by the Carter family of Saint Michael’s Parish, Coventry, before it passed to the Comerford family – probably James Comerford’s father. However, it is still unclear how the crucifix passed from Joseph Carter, sexton of Saint Michael’s Church, Coventry, who died in June 1808, and whose will was granted administration in the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Lichfield on 7 October 1808. The cross may have been bought from Carter’s widow Mary between 1808 and 1810.

Sarah and James Comerford were the parents of two son and a daughter:

1, James William Comerford (1829-1917), who shared many of his father’s antiquarian interests, and of whom next.
2, Charles Frederick Comerford (1831- ), born on 2 July 1831, at Change Alley.
3, Emily Sarah (1842-1909). She was born in 1842, and was married twice: (1), Henry Burchett, and (2) the Revd Hamilton Brand in 1873and she was the parents of six children, with descendants living in Australia and South Africa.

James Comerford died on 8 March 1881. His elder son:

Colonel James William Comerford (1829-1917) was born in Change Alley on 6 November 1829 (Comerford family collection)

Colonel James William Comerford (1829-1917), was born in Change Alley on 6 November 1829, and was baptised on 19 January 1830 in Saint Mary Woolnoth. James and his siblings, who were born in Change Alley, were the last generation of the family to have an immediate connection with Change Alley, meaning four generations of the family members of four generations of Comerfords had a link with Crown Alley.

James W Comerford was a notary public, of 7 Tokenhouse Yard, London. By 1871 he was living at Coleshill Street, London, now Eaton Terrace. Following his father’s death, he sold his father’s and grandfather’s book collections in 1881. At the end of that year, in December 1881, James William Comerford exhibited and presented the Bosworth Crucifix to the Society of Antiquaries ‘in the name of his late father, James Comerford, Esq, FSA.’

James William Comerford lived at 38 Cambridge Street, London, and Saint George’s Road, London. He was a lieutenant-colonel and honorary colonel in the 13th Middlesex (Queen's Westminster) Volunteer Rifle Corps. He married Marianne Rouse (1829-1900) and their descendants included another generation of notaries public and athree or four generations of distinguished medical practitioners and surgeons.

James Comerford’s bookplates have become collectors’ items … they perpetuate the claims of the Comerford family in Ireland to descent from the Comberford family of Staffordshire

Conway Hall in Bloomsbury and its origins in a radical Unitarian chapel in the 1820s

The Theobald’s Street entrance to Conway Hall … its story dates back to a group of Unitarian dissenters in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was visiting a number of churches in the Hatton Garden and Holborn area in London recently, including Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, the City Temple near Holborn Viaduct and Saint Peter’s Italian Church on Clerkenwell Road, facing the top end of Hatton Garden.

While I was walking back to Euston Station, I also found myself at the Theobald’s Road entrance to Conway Hall. I had written about Conway Hall in the past when I was visiting Red Lion Square, and about both the statue of Fenner Brockway by Ian Walters and the violent death of Kevin Gately, a young student, during a protest against fascism and racism in 1974.

Conway Hall describes itself as a home for humanism and is the base for the Conway Hall Ethical Society, whose aims includes the study of ethical principles based on humanism and free thought.

It was named after Moncure Daniel Conway, an anti-slavery campaigner, outspoken supporter of free thought and biographer of Thomas Paine. The hall and building were designed by F Herbert Mansford and were built in 1929. But they are the spiritual or social heirs of the former South Place Chapel, which was opened in Finsbury in 1824, and their origins can be traced back to radical Unitarian and Universalist chapels and pastors in that part of London in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Conway Hall Ethical Society is devoted to free religious thought and ethical inquiry. It trace its beginnings to a small chapel on the east rim of the City of London. After 30 years, the society moved to a building in Finsbury that was its home for a 105 years, and then, in 1929, it moved its present site in Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury.

The founder was the Revd Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797), who was born near Boston, Massachusetts. He taught himself Hebrew Greek, Latin and French, and grew up in the harsh Calvinism. By 19, he was preaching about election, reprobation, and everlasting torment. A personal awakening came brought about in a rebuke during a casual encounter and in time he was preaching universalism and the final restoration of all things. By 30, he was filling one of the largest churches in Philadelphia and in 1787 he moved to England.

English Nonconformity had never heard of Universalism, but many Baptist pulpits in London were open to him. At 42, he was a popular preacher and a prolific writer of sermons, hymns and tracts, and in 1793 his adherents found a building in Parliament Court, off Artillery Row, close to Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane) and Liverpool Street station.

His congregation was made up of seceders from various Calvinist chapels. Winchester called his congregation Philadelphians and he stayed at Bishopsgate for 18 months, until he returned to America in 1794. He died in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1797, at the age of 46.

The second minister of the Bishopsgate congregation, the Revd William Vidler (1758-1812), was born in Battle, near Hastings. The son of a mason and bricklayer. At 19 he joined a local Independent or Congregational chapel. He moved around the Sussex villages, preaching and baptising in the open air.

On a preaching journey to London and the Midlands, he came upon Winchester’s writings and was invited to preach at Parliament Court. Vidler was soon recognised in London as recognised as leader of the scattered Universalists but he moved steadily to the Unitarian position. Many members left the chapel in Parliament Court because of his Unitarian opinions, and his stipend fell by more than 60%, but he worked hard to rebuild his congregation. He died in 1812, and his funeral was held in the Gravel Pit chapel.

His successor, the Revd William Johnson Fox (1786-1864), was involved at an early age in unionising weavers in Norwich and at 20 he entered the Independent College in Homerton. His first chapel was in Fareham, Hampshire, but by the age of 24 he had moved to the general Unitarian position, and in 1812 he became the minister of a unitarian (Presbyterian) chapel in Chichester for five years.

Fox was called to the Parliament Court Chapel when William Vidler died and was installed in 1817 at the age of 31. He was radical in politics and in theology, and his chapel was always filled and was financially prosperous. He married Eliza Florance in Saint George’s in the East in 1820.

The exterior of the former South Place Chapel in Finsbury, which opened in 1824 (StewE17 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fox laid the foundation-stone for a new chapel in South Place, Finsbury, in May 1823, and it opened on 1 February 1824. The former Parliament Court was later transformed into Sandy’s Row Synagogue.

The new South Place Chapel was a centre of liberal religion and intellectual activity, he spoke regularly on progressive causes, including education, the civil rights of Catholics and Jews, the repeal of the Test Acts, and women’s suffrage, and he was a founder of the Unitarian Association.

Fox’s influence in London expanded rapidly and his South Place congregation included families and people prominent in the City and in public life. His Sunday sermons became lectures and addresses. They were prepared in full shorthand notes, and for publication they were usually copied out by Eliza Flower, his devoted amanuensis.

In time, the ties that bound him to the Unitarian Association were wearing thin, as his religious ideas became far too radical for the general body of Unitarians whose theological beliefs still kept within the framework of biblical authority.

During the early 1830s, the important question was whether the minister’s independence, personal and intellectual, was becoming threat to the unity of the congregation. Eliza Flower became the central figure of a crisis in 1834. When Benjamin Flower died in 1829, he entrusted his daughters Eliza and Sarah to the care of Fox, his friend and neighbour. Eliza was a gifted musician while Sarah was known as poet and hymnwriter, and the author of ‘Nearer, my God, to thee’.

Fox’s friendship with Eliza Flower led to the breakup of his marriage and caused a crisis in South Place Chapel. He challenged the right of members of the congregation to interfere with his domestic affairs. Although there was no charge of impropriety, the complainants rejected Fox’s advocacy of divorce in cases of incompatibility. A large majority in the congregation exonerated Fox and asked him to withdraw his resignation, but 50 families withdrew, the chapel lost120 members of the congregation, Fox’s stipend was cut, and five other Unitarian ministers censured him.

The way the scandal unfolded and was handled led to a change in Fox’s ministerial character, and his addresses lost the tone of sermons. Eliza Flower took charge of his household and the care of his three children, and they moved into a cottage in Craven Hill, close to Bayswater, then a rural district and an inconvenient distance from South Place. There they stayed four years, until 1839, when they moved to Queen’s Square, Westminster. Sarah Flower Adams died in 1846 at 40; Eliza died in 1848 at 45. For about 10 years Fox then lived at Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, and then in Sussex Place, Regent’s Park.

Fox was the Liberal MP for Oldham from 1847 to 1862. He offered to resign from South Place when he was first elected an MP, but the society did not accept his resignation until 1852. Fox and his wife Eliza were reunited for a time before he died on 3 June 1864 at the age of 78. His memorial service was conducted by Dr Moncure D Conway who had become Fox’s successor at South Place.

There was an interval of 12 years between Fox’s resignation in 1852 and Conway’s arrival, and some of the ministers who filled the pulpit for short periods included the Revd Newenham Travers, who had resigned his Anglican orders and was there for two years; the Revd Henry Ierson, whose theology was out of key, but who continued for four years; and the Revd HH Barnett from Bristol, who resigned telling the South Place congregation: ‘You want a very different minister; I want a very different congregation.’

The interior of the former South Place Chapel in Finsbury, which opened in 1824 (StewE17 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The society seriously considered dissolving itself in 1863, but the Revd Dr Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907) was in England that summer, and his arrival altered the outlook. He first entered the Methodist ministry, but left Methodism when he was at Harvard Divinity School, then the dominant Unitarian seminary.

He was still in his early 20s when he took charge of a Unitarian congregation in Washington. His outspoken advocacy of abolition brought a quick end that work and he moved to Cincinnati. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, he gave up his church to devote himself to the cause of Emancipation, and edited an abolitionist paper in Boston. A Sunday address at South Place introduced him to the remnant of Fox’s congregation, and the prelude to a ministry of 20 years from 1864, at the age of 32.

The South Place congregation had dwindled and the chapel was heavily in debt. His success was immediate, many families return, the financial basis was quickly restored, and by the close of the 1860s Conway had established himself and South Place had regained much of its former reputation as a centre advanced thought and progressive social activity.

Conway introduced an alternative to the Bible reading, and began to replace prayer with meditative reading. The interior of the chapel was remodelled in the early 1870s, the high pews were replaced by movable seats, a new organ was installed and a new hymnal was introduced. Conway’s religious philosophy had moved on, the Sunday services shed the remaining forms of liberal orthodoxy, and the chapel became the South Place Religious Society.

Conway first retired in 1885, with seven farewell discourses, and sailed for New York. The chapel faced great difficulties finding a new of minister or leader. Dr Stanton Coit changed the name from the South Place Religious Society to the South Place Ethical Society. He resigned in 1891, founded the West London Ethical Society, and later set up the Ethical Church in Bayswater, where he ministered until old age.

Meanwhile, Conway had kept in contact with South Place and was invited to return for a second term at the age of 60. The society celebrated its centenary in 1893 with a series of Sunday addresses, but Conway tended to withdraw from the general activities of the Chapel, confined himself to Sunday duty, and finally retired in 1897, a few weeks after Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

The committee cast the net widely for the Sunday meetings, and the names included Prince Kropotkin, George Bernard Shaw, GK Chesterton, JM Robertson, John A Hobson, Herbert Burrows and Joseph McCabe, and, from the early 1920s, Dr. Cecil Delisle Burns.

The statue of Fenner Brockway (1888-1988) by Ian Walters in Red Lion Square in Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After World War I, the chapel and freehold were sold in 1920 to the School of Oriental Studies, and a new site was bought and Conway Hall was built on Red Lion Square, and F Herbert Mansford was the architect. The last Sunday meeting in the old chapel was held in March 1926, 102 years after it was opened by WJ Fox. For three years, the Sunday meetings were held in the lecture theatre of the School of Oriental Studies.

Conway Hall opened on Monday 23 September 1929. Sunday mornings were largely devoted to international and Labour problems, as well as philosophy, morals and religion, with a noticeable absence of topics related to the Bible.

Conway Hall opened half-way between the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II. Fox’s ministry spanned 35 years, and Conway’s two periods made 25. Later speakers and lecturers would include George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jacob Bronowski, Fred Hoyle, Laurens van der Post, Alex Comfort, Fenner Brockway, Jonathan Miller, Bernard Crick, AC Grayling and Roger Penrose.

Meanwhile, in 1935, 20 members of the society signed a document stating that Conway Hall was their regular place of worship, and it was therefore certified for marriages by the Registrar-General until 1977 when the Deputy Registrar-General ruled that the hall could not be used for weddings under the terms of the Places of Worship Registration Act after Lord Denning, that marriages could only be solemnised in places whose principal use is for the ‘worship of God or [to do] reverence to a deity’.

Another name change took place in 2012 when it became the Conway Hall Ethical Society. Conway Hall today has a charming wood panelled hall and is a venue for concerts, plays, talks and functions, alongside regular events, such as the Sunday Assembly on the first and third Sunday of each month. The building also houses the Humanist Library and Archives. Access to the library is by appointment, Sunday to Thursday, 10 am to 5 pm.

Red Lion Square in London, with Conway Hall in the distance to the left (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Peter’s Church on Saffron Hill is at the heart of ‘Little Italy’ and the oldest Italian church in London

Looking out on Clerkenwell Road and Hatton Garden from the loggia and portico of Saint Peter’s Italian Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Holborn and the Hatton Garden area recently for an event in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, organised by USPG and SPCK, I visited a number of churches in the area, including Saint Alban’s, Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, the City Temple, and Saint Peter’s Church on Saffron Hill on Clerkenwell Road, facing the top end of Hatton Garden.

Saint Peter’s Italian Church has been described as one of the most beautiful churches in London and is the oldest church for Italians in London. It just within the boundaries of the London Borough of Camden, but it is the spiritual home of the Italian community in Clerkenwell (‘Little Italy’), with its hub in the Borough of Islington.

The church has a modest outer appearance and seems to be hemmed in between the neighbouring tall buildings, including an Italian restaurant to the left, and the Bryson Hotel to the right, so that only the later, narrow entrance front and loggia can be seen from the street. But inside the church has a large and splendid interior.

Saint Peter’s Italian Church has been described is the oldest church for Italians in London and is the spiritual heart of ‘Little Italy’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the early 19th century, Saffron Hill was a poor neighbourhood with crowded and decadent streets, known for pickpockets and fences. By 1850, about 2,000 Italian immigrants were living there, many working as street musicians, artisans, framers, and makers of mirrors, barometers and scientific instruments. These Italians did not have their own church and so used in the Capella Reale Sarda in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Saint Vincent Pallotti (1795-1850), an Italian priest and founder of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate or Pallotine Fathers, decided in 1845 to build a church for Italian emigrants in London. After the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England, sensitivities about the ‘papal aggression’ were still high. Saint Vincent Pallotti was supported by the prominent Italian politician and activist Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), who was living in exile in London at the time.

Inside Saint Peter’s Church, designed by the Dublin-born Irish architect Sir John Miller-Bryson and consecrated on 16 April 1863 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was designed by the Dublin-born Irish architect Sir John Miller-Bryson (1822-1864), whose name is recalled in the Bryson Hotel to the right of the church. Bryson worked from plans drawn up by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna and modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogono in Trastevere in Rome. At first, the new church was to hold 3,400 people, but the original grand designs were never fully realised due to a shortage of funds.

In the course of work, as the church was built in 1862-1863, its size was greatly reduced. Yet, it was the largest Catholic church in Britain for the next 40 years and the only church the built in Britain in the style of a Roman basilica style.

The church was consecrated on 16 April 1863 as the Church of Saint Peter for All Nations, and was the first Italian church outside Italy. The architect Bryson died the following year (3 October 1864) and was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

The statues of Christ, Saint Bede and Saint George and the mosaics depicting scenes in the life of Saint Peter (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Peter’s Church is 19 metre high church with a capacity for 2,000 people. The front section has a loggia and portico with twin arches. Above them are three niches: the central alcove has a statue of Christ, while the side alcoves have statues of Saint Bede and Saint George. Between the alcoves, two large mosaics depict two scenes in the life and ministry of Saint Peter: the first miraculous draught of fish (see Luke 5: 1-11), which results in Peter, James and John following Jesus; and Christ giving the keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter (see Matthew 16: 19).

Above the façade, a 33-metre-high bell tower built in 1891 houses a bell known as the ‘Steel Monster’. The great bell was cast in 1862 by Naylor Vickers of Sheffield and was one of several bells exhibited at the International Exhibition that year. At the time, the only other large bell in London, apart from Big Ben in Westminster, was Great Tom in Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

The ‘Steel Monster’ remains one of the largest bells in England, though there are larger Roman Catholic bells at Downside, Ampleforth and in Liverpool Roman Catholic Cathedral.

The organ is part of the original organ built by the Belgian company Annaesens in 1886 and at the time it was considered one of the best in the country.

The organ is part of the original organ built by the Belgian company Annaesens in 1886 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

There are two wall memorials in the loggia: one, installed in 1927, remembers veterans, mostly Italian Britons of World War I; the other, installed in 1960, commemorates the 446 Italians who died on the SS Arandora Star in 1940.

Mussolini declared war on Britain on 10 June 1940, and after Churchill’s famous outburst, ‘Collar the lot!’, many Italians were interned. The SS Arandora Star sailed from Liverpool for Canada on 1 July 1940 with 712 Italian internees on board. The remaining passengers included 479 interned German men, among them a number of Jewish refugees, and 86 German prisoners of war – 1,216 detainees in total – and there was a crew of almost 400 British military guards and merchant sailors.

The SS Arandora Star was without escort and had no Red Cross insignia. On 2 July 1940, it was sunk by a German U-boat about 75 miles west of Bloody Foreland, Co Donegal, with great loss of life. One of the internees on board, the German Captain Otto Burfeind, went down with the ship having organised the lifeboat evacuation of British, German and Italian men alike. Over 800 people – British, Italian and German – were lost. It was the worst mass loss of life of any foreign-based Italian community.

During World War II, when many Italian immigrants were interned, the Irish Pallottine fathers took care of the church. During the war, Polish Catholics were permitted to worship and hold services in Polish in the church, as they had no other church. The church returned to the Italian Pallottines in 1953, and since then it has been substantially remodelled. Today it is a Grade II listed building.

Two memorials in the loggia recall the tragedies of World War I and World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue, comprising the Saffron Hill part of Clerkenwell. The Clerkenwell area spans the London boroughs of Camden and Islington. Today, the Italian community in London is more dispersed, but the church remains a major venue for the community of Little Italy.

A highlight in the community calendar is the annual processione in mid-July. The annual procession began in the 1880s, and is believed to be the first of its kind in England since the Reformation. It remains a focal point of the calendar in Little Italy.

Sunday Masses in Saint Peter’s are at 7 pm on Saturdays, and 9:30 am, 11 am (Sung), 12: 30 and 7 pm. Masses on Holy Days are at 10 am, 12:15 pm and 7:30 pm. Weekday Masses are at 12:15 pm, Monday to Friday.

Saint Peter’s remains a major venue for the community of Little Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The City Temple, a church on Holborn Viaduct with a reputation for having radical preachers

The City Temple on Holborn Viaduct, which has sometimes been described as ‘the nonconformist cathedral’ in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

While I was visiting a number of churches in the Holborn area of London recently, including Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, where I was attending an event hosted by both USPG and SPCK, and Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, I stopped for a while also at the City Temple on Holborn Viaduct, which has sometimes been described as ‘the nonconformist cathedral’ in London.

The City Temple, beside Saint Andrew Holborn, should not be confused with the Temple Church, between Fleet Street and the Embankment, a mediaeval church known to many only because it features in both The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and the film based on the book.

The church in Holborn is part of the United Reformed Church and one of the oldest Congregational churches in London, with connections with the early Puritans of the mid 16th century. It is famous for its notable preachers, pastors and theologians, especially the Revd Leslie Weatherhead, who led the church from 1936 to 1960, but also Thomas Goodwin, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and Joseph Parker, one of the great Victorian preachers.

The City Temple traces its story back to the Puritans and Calvinists of the 1560s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The first church building on the present site in Holborn was built in 1874, but the congregation was founded much earlier. The traditional date is 1640, when the church possibly started as a nonconformist, congregational church. But evidence suggests it was founded as early as the 1560s by Puritans and Calvinists who refused to conform to the Church of England, to use with the Book of Common Prayer and wanted freedom in their approach to worship.

Throughout its history, the congregation has worshipped in many buildings in London. Since 1874, it has met in its building on Holborn Viaduct, and for long claimed to be the only historic English Free Church in the City of London worshipping in its own building every Sunday.

The City Temple is widely believed to have been founded by Cromwell’s chaplain Thomas Goodwin around 1640. It is the oldest Nonconformist congregation in the City of London, and its first meeting house was on Anchor Lane.

The second minister was Thomas Harrison, who succeeded Goodwin in 1650, when the congregation moved to a meeting house in Lime Street. Harrison remained only until 1655 and a successor was not appointed until 1658, when Thomas Mallory became the pastor. Mallory led the congregation through a difficult period after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

The congregation moved several times until it found a more permanent home in the Poultry, Cheapside, in 1819.

When James Spence resigned as the pastor in 1867, the Poultry Chapel offered the position of pastor to Joseph Parker of Cavendish Street Chapel, Manchester, but he did not accept until 1869.

At the same time the congregation was planning to move from its site in Poultry, sold its site for £50,000, and the Poultry Chapel was closed on 16 June 1872. Parker insisted on finding a new site within the City of London and a new site was bought on Holborn Viaduct. Until the new church was ready, the congregation met in Cannon Street Hotel in the morning, in Exeter Hall in the evening, and in the Presbyterian Church, London Wall, for mid-day services on Thursdays.

The City Temple was designed by the architects Henry Francis Lockwood and William Mawson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The new church was designed by the Bradford architects Lockwood and Mason with an elegant, classical stone-clad façade onto Holborn Viaduct, with a prominent copper cupola-clad tower, providing a glowing beacon in the local community. The Doncaster-born architect Henry Francis Lockwood (1811-1878) and the Leeds-born architect William Mawson (1828-1889) also designed some of the most distinguished buildings in Bradford, including Saint George’s Hall (1851-1852), the Venetian Gothic Wool Exchange (1864-1867), and the Continental Gothic Revival City Hall (1869-1873). They also laid out and designed the mill, model town and church at Saltaire (1851-1876), all in an Italianate Classical style. At the time, Saltaire was one of the most important examples of a philanthropic industrial and housing development in the world.

The memorial stone of the new church, to be called the City Temple, was laid by Thomas Binney (1798-1874), popularly known as the ‘Archbishop of Nonconformity’, on 19 May 1873. The Corporation of the City of London presented a marble pulpit, and the new building was dedicated on 19 May 1874. Because of its location and size, the City Temple soon came to be seen as the nonconformist cathedral, and it became the most important Congregational pulpit in Britain, mainly due to Joseph Parker’s reputation.

As Parker grew older and his health declined, the Revd Reginald John Campbell (1867-1956), a Congregational minister in Brighton, was called as his assistant in 1902. But Parker died suddenly and Campbell became his successor from 1903 to 1915.

Parker had been theologically conservative, but Campbell was a socialist politically and a supporter of the Independent Labour Party, and his theology was as radical as his politics. He introduced Biblical criticism in his preaching, and questioned the traditional authorship of books and the origins of the text.

The theology of Campbell and his friends came to be known as the ‘New Theology’ and he answered his critics in a volume called The New Theology. But Campbell came to a crisis of faith when several New Theologians began to question the deity and even the historicity of Christ.

Campbell preached his last sermon in the City Temple in October 1915 and then resigned from the Congregational Church. A few days later, he was received into the Church of England by Bishop Charles Gore in Cuddesdon, and in October 1916 he was ordained as an Anglican priest. On joining the Church of England, he wrote an account of the development of his thinking in A Spiritual Pilgrimage (1916). He was the Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral when he retired in 1946 at the age of 80. His funeral was conducted by Bishop George Bell.

Campbell’s successor at the City Temple, the Revd Dr Joseph Fort Newton (1880-1950), was an American who was almost as radical theologically. He was educated at the Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, and Harvard, and was a theological liberal. He had been asked to the City Temple at first as a temporary appointment after Campbell's resignation, but he was opposed by the deacons and the internal divisions that ensued led to the deacons being dismissed.

Newton asked for an assistant, and the assistant finally called was Maude Royden (1876-1956), an Anglican and radical pacifist. As a woman, she had been prohibited from preaching by the Church of England.

After World War I, Newton returned to the US in 1919 and in 1926 he was ordained a deacon and priest in the Episcopal Church. He was succeeded at the City Temple by FW Norwood, an Australian Baptist who remained until 1935.

Tthe Revd Leslie Weatherhead rebuilt the City Temple after World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Norwood left the City Temple, there were demands within the congregation for the appointment of a Congregationalist as pastor. In the event, however, the Revd Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1976), a Methodist minister then in Leeds, was appointed in 1936.

Weatherhead was a member of Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group from 1930 to 1939, and wrote several books reflecting the group’s values, including Discipleship and The Will of God. He was often seen as the ‘head’ of the Oxford Group in London.

The City Temple was destroyed by fire caused by German incendiary bombs during the Blitz. Weatherhead was able to continue his ministry thanks to the hospitality of a nearby Anglican church, Saint Sepulchre-without-Newgate.

Weatherhead raised the funds to rebuild the City Temple, which was redesigned by by Seely and Paget and reopened in 1958. The completed design included a new copper and sandstone clad concrete and steel-framed form, book-ended by the original surviving front and rear of the church. The City Temple has been a listed Grade II building since 1977.

Meanwhile, Despite opposition, Weatherhead was elected President of the Methodist Conference in 1955-1956. He retired in 1960 and died in 1976.

The present minister, the Revd Dr Rodney D Woods, was appointed in 2001.

The City Temple is currently completing work on a major redevelopment programme, and I was unable to visit the building, which is covered in hoarding and cladding as the work continues. Sunday services are currently taking place in the Chelsea Community Church on Edith Grove.

The City Temple is currently completing work on a major redevelopment programme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke, the bishop with the ‘tallest mitre in Christendom’ and his family roots in Ballinasloe