15 February 2023

Praying in Ordinary Time
with USPG: 15 February 2023

The Revd Thomas Bray (1658-1730) … founder of SPG (now USPG) and SPCK, died on 15 February 1730

Patrick Comerford

These weeks, between the end of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, are known as Ordinary Time. We are in a time of preparation for Lent, which in turn is a preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

Before today becomes a busy day, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

In these days of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday next week (22 February), I am reflecting in these ways each morning:

1, reflecting on a saint or interesting person in the life of the Church;

2, one of the lectionary readings of the day;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today commemorates both Sigfrid, Bishop, Apostle of Sweden (1045), and Thomas Bray, Priest, founder of the SPCK and the SPG (1730).

The Revd Dr Thomas Bray (1658-1730), an Anglican priest who spent time in Maryland as a missionary, was the founder of both the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG, now the United Society or Us) and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). He is commemorated on this date [15 February] in several Churches in the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England and the Episcopal Church.

Thomas Bray was born into a humble Shropshire family in 1658 in Marton, near Chirbury, the son of Richard and Mary Bray. The house on Martin Crest is now known as Bray’s Tenement.

The local bishop took notice of young Thomas and felt that with his bright mind he should receive a good education. The bishop sponsored him and paid for his education. Thomas Bray He was educated at Oswestry School, matriculated at All Souls’ College, Oxford, as a ‘poor boy’ on 12 March 1675, and graduated BA in 1678. He later received the degrees MA at Hart Hall (now Hertford College) in 1693, and BD and DD at Magdalene College, Oxford, in 1696.

Thomas Bray was ordained priest in 1682, and he was curate at Bridgnorth before becoming a private chaplain and then Vicar of Over Whitacre and from 1690-1695 Rector of Saint Giles, Sheldon, in Warwickshire, in the Diocese of Lichfield. There he wrote his Catechetical Lectures, which was dedicated to William Lloyd, Bishop of Lichfield. While he was in Warwickshire, he married is first wife, Eleanor.

He appears to have been widowed by 1695, when the Bishop of London, Henry Compton, appointed him as his commissary to organise the struggling Anglican presence in the colony of Maryland.

But his visit to Maryland was long delayed by legal complications, and during that delay, the widowed Thomas Bray married Agnes Sayers of Saint Martin’s-in-the-Fields in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, Holborn in 1698.

Thomas Bray eventually set sail for America in 1699 for his first and only visit. Although he spent only ten weeks in Maryland, Bray was deeply concerned about the neglected state of the Church in America and the great need for the education of the clergy, the laity people and children.

He radically reorganised and renewed the Church in Maryland, providing for the instruction of children and the systematic examination of candidates for pastoral positions. He also took a great interest in colonial missions, especially among the Native Americans.

At a general visitation of the clergy in Annapolis before his return to England, he emphasised the need for the instruction of children and insisted that no clergyman be given a charge unless he had a good report from the ship he came over in, ‘whether … he gave no matter of scandal, and whether he did constantly read prayers twice a day and catechise and preach on Sundays, which, notwithstanding the common excuses, I know can be done by a minister of any zeal for religion.’

As a result of his visit to Maryland, he proposed a successful scheme for establishing parish libraries in England and America. Bray’s vision was for a library in each parish in America, funded by booksellers and stocked with books donated by authors. These libraries were to encourage the spread of the Anglicanism in the colonies, and were primarily composed of theological works. It was a major endeavour, as at the time the only other public libraries in the American colonies were at a small number of universities.

Back in England, he raised money for missionary work and influenced young Anglican priests to go to America. But his efforts to secure the consecration of a bishop for America were unsuccessful.

In England, he also wrote and preached in defence of the rights of enslaved Africans, and of Indians deprived of their land. He also worked for the reform of prison conditions, and for the establishment of preaching missions to prisoners. He persuaded General James Oglethorpe to found a colony in Georgia for the settlement of debtors as an alternative to debtors’ prison.

In response to his experiences, Thomas Bray was instrumental in establishing both SPCK in 1699 and SPG in 1701.

From 1706 until his death in 1730 he was Vicar of Saint Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, where he continued his philanthropic and literary pursuits. He served the parish with energy and devotion, while continuing his efforts on behalf of African slaves in America and in founding parish libraries.

By the time he died on 15 February 1730 at the age of 74, Bray had succeeded in establishing 80 libraries in England and Wales and 39 in America.

Thomas Bray’s most widely circulated work is his four-volume A Course of Lectures upon the Church Catechism, published in 1696.

Thomas Bray was Vicar of Saint Botolph Without, Aldgate, London, from 1706 until his death in 1730 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 22-26 (NRSVA):

22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’ 24 And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Then he sent him away to his home, saying, ‘Do not even go into the village.’

All Souls’ College, Oxford … Thomas Bray matriculated as a ‘poor boy’ in 1675 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Bray Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Jo Sadgrove, USPG’s Research and Learning Advisor, who shared the challenges of uncovering USPG’s archives.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

We pray for all who live with the shadow of the slave trade. May we work tirelessly to understand and dismantle its legacy.

Additional Prayer:

O God of compassion, who opened the eyes of your servant Thomas Bray to see the needs of the Church in the New World, and led him to found societies to meet those needs: Make the Church in this land diligent at all times to propagate the Gospel among those who have not received it, and to promote the spread of Christian knowledge; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever..

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow


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

Stepney Meeting House
represents a 380-year
‘Dissenting’ tradition

Stepney Meeting House … a ‘Dissenting’ tradition dating back to 1644 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Stepney and the East End of London last week, and took time especially to visit Saint Dunstan’s Church in Stepney, which had close associations with one branch of the Comberford or Comerford family from the late 16th century into the early 18th century.

The story of Saint Dunstan’s in the mid-17th century is closely linked with the development of ‘Dissent’ in Stepney, particularly the Independents or Congregationalist and the Presbyterians, two traditions represented today in Stepney Meeting House.

Stepney Meeting House can be traced back to the first independent or Congregationalist congregation in East London. It was founded in 1644 by Henry Barton and his wife, William Parker, John Odinsell, William Greenhill, and John Pococke. Those present at that founding meeting included the Revd Henry Burton (1578-1648), the vicar of Saint Matthew’s, Friday Street, whose ears were cropped, along with those of William Prynne, in 1637, for publishing anti-Laudian tracts.

The Revd William Greenhill (1591-1671), a member of the Westminster Assembly, was the first minister of Stepney Meeting, from its foundation in 1644 until his death in 1671. He was probably born in Oxfordshire. At the age of 13 he matriculated at Oxford in 1604 and he studied at Magdalen College (BA 1609, MA 1612).

Greenhill was the Vicar of New Shoreham, Sussex, a living in the patronage of Magdalen College, from 1615 to 1633. He appears to have had a parish ministry in the Diocese of Norwich, but suffered the ire of Bishop Matthew Wren for refusing to read The Book of Sports, listing the sports and recreations permitted on Sundays and holy days.

Greenhill then moved to London, and was chosen afternoon preacher to the congregation at Stepney, while Jeremiah Burroughes ministered in the morning. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, convened in 1643, and was one of the Independents. He preached before the House of Commons on 26 April 1643, and his sermon was published by command of the house, with the title The Axe at the Root.

Greenhill was present at the formation of Stepney Meeting House, the first independent of congregational church in Stepney, in 1644 and was appointed its first pastor. After the execution of King Charles I in 1649, parliament appointed Greenhill as the chaplain to three of the king’s children: James, Duke of York, later James II, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Lady Henrietta Anne.

Oliver Cromwell appointed Greenhill as one of the ‘commissioners for approbation of public preachers’ in 1654. He was a member of the committee that drafted the Savoy Declaration in 1658. Cromwell also seems to have appointed Greenhill as vicar of Saint Dunstan’s and All Saints, the old parish church of Stepney, while he continued as pastor of the independent church.

He was ejected from Stepney Parish immediately after the Caroline Restoration in 1660, but he remained the pastor of the independent church, Stepney Meeting House, until he died on 27 September 1671.

Between 1661 and 1689, more members of conventicles were taken to court from Stepney than anywhere else in Middlesex. The figures for these arrests reflect not only the strength of Dissent but also the availability of troops under the lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets.

Greenhill was succeeded at Stepney Meeting House in 1671 by Matthew Mead (1630-1699), who was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, and spent his childhood in Mursley, Buckinghamshire. Mead was elected a scholar of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1648, and became a fellow in 1649. He resigned on 6 June 1651, probably to avoid expulsion.

When the Revd Francis Charlett, rector of Great Brickhill, Buckinghamshire, died in 1653, Mead hoped to succeed him. When the patron, John Duncombe, presented the Revd Thomas Clutterbuck and then the Revd Robert Hocknell, Mead appealed to the Cromwellian authorities and called in a troop of horse as he forced himself on the parish. After violence and a stand-off, Mead stood back and became the morning lecturer at Saint Dunstan’s, Stepney, where Greenhill was the afternoon lecturer.

Mead married Elizabeth Walton in Saint Mary Woolnoth Church in 1654. They lived in Gracechurch Street, and in 1656 he became a member of the congregational church in Stepney formed by Greenhill in 1644. Oliver Cromwell appointed Mead to the ‘new chapel’ of Saint Paul’s Church, Shadwell, in 1658.

Mead was ejected from Saint Dunstan’s, Stepney, and Saint Paul’s, Shadwell, at the Restoration in 1660, and also lost his appointment at Saint Sepulchre’s, Holborn, at the Great Ejection in 1662. He was living at Worcester House, Stepney, in 1663, and he seems to have been in London during the Great Plague in 1665. But he was driven into exile in Holland in 1666.

Matthew Mead was ejected from Saint Dunstan’s, Stepney, at the Restoration in 1660 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Stepney had several buildings in 1669 that were fitted up as meeting houses, besides conventicles in private houses. Presbyterians had fitted up a warehouse near Ratcliff Cross, where 200 were said to meet, and a purpose-built house in Spitalfields, where 800 met under Dr Samuel Annesley. They also had a chapel in Broad Street, Wapping-Stepney, from 1668.

The Quakers had a purpose-built brick house in Schoolhouse Lane, Ratcliff (Brook Street), for 500, and a meeting place for 500 in Westbury Street.

Baptists met at the houses of Thomas Launder, a rich butcher, in Limehouse, where the congregation was 100, and of Mr Cherry in Poplar, where Launder was the preacher. In Wapping, they had a purpose-built house in Artichoke Lane, with a congregation of 200, as well as the old meeting house in Meeting House Alley.

In addition to the congregation who shared the Meeting House Alley building with the Baptists and the Stepney Meeting at Greenhill’s house, Independents also met in Rose Lane, Spitalfields, at a house in Bethnal Green, and at a house in Red Maid Lane, Wapping, with a congregation of 300.

The Baptists and Independents were said to assemble daily at one or other of their meeting houses, and to baptise many of the children of the parish.

Mead was called back to Stepney in 1669 as the assistant to Greenhill, and shortly after Greenhill’s death in 1671 he was called to succeed him as pastor. Mead was ordained on 14 December 1671 by John Owen, Joseph Caryl and two others.

Mead’s congregation was the largest in London. On 1 May 1674, he instituted a May Day sermon to the young; he always held a Good Friday service. A meeting house was built for him in Stepney in 1674 on a piece of ground to the west of Saint Dunstan’s Church, south of Stepney Green and near what is now the corner of Stepney Way and Garden Street.

The meeting house opened on 13 September 1674. The roof was upheld by four round pine pillars, presented to Mead by the States of Holland. An attic above the ceiling had a concealed entrance, designed as a hiding-place for the congregation in troubled times.

Sir William Smith, the lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets, took a strong guard with him when he broke into the meeting house in December 1682, pulled down the pulpit, and broke up the benches.

Mead was apprehended in June 1683 on suspicion of complicity in the Rye House Plot. After his release, he was implicated in Monmouth’s Rebellion, and fled to the Netherlands once again in 1686 an stayed in Amsterdam and Utrecht. But he returned to Stepney after James II’s declaration on liberty of conscience in 1687.

After the Williamite Revolution, galleries were built in the meeting house in 1689, and the adjoining residence and garden were settled by the congregation on Mead and his heirs.

Mead supported the movement initiated by John Howe for an amalgamation of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist bodies. The ‘happy union’ held its meeting at Stepney on 6 April 1691, when Mead preached. When the union broke up in 1694 over the alleged heresies of Daniel Williams, Mead took a moderate part.

Mead preached his last sermon on May Day 1699. He died on 16 October 1699, aged 70, and was buried in Stepney churchyard, near the south door of Saint Dunstan’s Church.

The ‘Old Meeting House’ was demolished in 1863 and a new Meeting House was built close by on the same piece of ground. It was badly bombed during the Blitz in World War II, and the remains of this were demolished in 1950 and the site was incorporated into Stepney City Farm.

A third Meeting House was built and opened in 1960. This was on the south side of Stepney Way, on the corner with Copley Street. When the Congregational Church of England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England amalgamated and formed the United Reformed Church in 1972, Stepney Meeting joined up with the John Knox Presbyterian Church some 400 yards further west along Stepney Way.

For a short while, both buildings continued to be used for worship. But in 1976 the building on the corner with Copley Street was sold to the John Cass Foundation for use as a school chapel. The United Church, now worshipping in what had been the John Knox Church, decided to use the name Stepney Meeting House.

John Knox Presbyterian Church, on Stepney Way, was founded in 1844. The church was built on the site of what is now Clichy House. The street at that time was Green Street, but the address of the church was Oxford Street, the name the street took just one block west. The whole street is now Stepney Way.

Redevelopment after the war led to the destroyed church being rebuilt in 1955, 55 yards to the west, and known as John Knox Presbyterian Church. Then, at the formation of the United Reformed Church in 1972, John Knox Church merged with and took on the name of Stepney Meeting House.

Stepney Meeting House … part of the United Reformed Church formed in 1972 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)