Patrick Comerford
During my ‘church crawling’ adventures in the Bloomsbury, Soho and Fitzrovia areas of London in recent weeks, one of the interesting churches I have stopped to look at is the Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road, now the home of the American International Church.
On these sunny, summer days, the church is partly hidden behind the spreading trees and the many food stalls along this stretch on Tottenham Court Road. But many people are familiar with the open space on the south side of the church, now known as the Whitefield Gardens, one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London.
The American International Church was formed to cater for American expatriates living in London. It was originally the American Church in London but changed its name in 2013 to reflect the 30 or more nationalities involved in its membership and supporting its activities. The church is particularly known for its soup kitchen, which feeds around 70 people a day.
But the church building itself dates back to 1756, when the first chapel on the site was built for the evangelical preacher George Whitefield (1714-1770). Whitefield had been driven to seek a place where he would be free from opposition from the Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields at the Long Acre Chapel where he had been a minister.
Whitefield got a lease of the site for his chapel in Tottenham Court Road in 1756, and the first chapel, between Tottenham Street and Howland Street, was surrounded by fields and gardens. The foundation stone was laid by Whitefield in June 1756, and the dedication service took place on 7 November 1756.
The chapel was funded by Whitefield’s patron the Countess of Huntingdon, and it was built and probably designed by Matthew Pearce, with burial grounds to the north and south. The initial popularity of the chapel led to it being enlarged in 1759-1760, and a vault was also prepared beneath the chapel.
Whitefield hoped he could be buried there along with his wife Elizabeth and the brothers John and Charles Wesley. But Whitefield died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 30 September 1770 and was buried there. John Wesley preached Whitefield’s memorial sermon in the chapel later that year.
The Church of England had refused to consecrate this ground so after Whitefield’s death in 1770 his successor, the Revd Torial Joss, took a creative, if unusual approach. Saint Christopher-le-Stocks Church, near the Bank of England was being demolished to allow an extension to the bank. Joss arranged for ‘several cartloads’ of earth to be transported from that consecrated churchyard to Tottenham Court Road.
When the original lease expired in 1827, the freehold was bought by trustees, who refurbished the chapel, and it reopened in October 1831.
The burial ground was in use from 1756, apart from an interval of eight years in 1823-1831, but was closed in 1851. Notable burials at the church included the writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, who died in 1797; the surveyor George Gauld (1731-1782); the hymnwriter Augustus Toplady (1740-1778), author of ‘Rock of Ages’; and the great clown and harlequin JS Grimaldi (1802-1832).
The chapel was refurbished yet again in 1856, only to be almost wholly destroyed by fire in February 1857. The property was then bought up by the London Congregational Building Society who built a new church designed by John Tarring.
By 1860, the chapel had bought its own site plus the burial ground to the south. However the site to the north was sold to an unscrupulous businessman, Nathan Jacobson. He bought the land expecting to be able to develop it, but removing coffins and bodies was not a straightforward task and he repeatedly failed to do it in a way that satisfied the law.
Jacobson died in 1881, and while the ownership of the land was disputed it was leased by a fairground operator who moved noisy machinery onto the site in 1887, disrupting services in the Tabernacle, leading to complaints and legal proceedings that continued until about 1890, when the council bought the land, landscaped it and turned it into a public garden with a playground. The burial ground on the south side was treated in the same way at the same time.
Meanwhile, the foundations began to give way in 1889, probably because the many burials inside the building had disturbed the filling to the pond underneath. The chapel was closed, the building was taken down, and the grounds were eventually laid out and opened as a public garden in 1895. The coffins in the crypt – including that of Elizabeth Whitefield, but not the lead coffin of Augustus Toplady – were moved to Chingford Mount Cemetery in north London in 1895.
In those intervening years, while the chapel was closed and being rebuilt services took place in a temporary iron structure until the new building was opened in November 1899 as Whitefield’s Tabernacle or Whitefield’s Central Mission. Toplady Hall, below the church, was named after the Revd Augustus Toplady.
The Revd Silvester Horne, who was the minister from 1903 until his death in 1914, was the father of the broadcaster Kenneth Horne.
The church was used as a hostel during World War II, and a deep level bomb shelter was built in the east section of the old northern burial ground.
The building was totally destroyed on Palm Sunday 25 March 1945 by the last V-2 rocket to fall on London during World War II. The bomb also destroyed the five houses on Tottenham Court Road and the old Chapel Street, but left what is now Caffé Nero relatively intact.
A new church, the Whitefield Memorial Church, designed by EC Butler, was built in 1957 and the grounds became a public thoroughfare.
The American International Church, an independent congregation within the Thames North Synod of the United Reformed Church, has been at the building since 1972. Its history begins with members of the US military worshipping at the Grosvenor Chapel, close to the US Embassy then on Grosvenor Square, during World War II, with services led by US Navy chaplains.
After the war, the congregation grew with US diplomatic and military personnel and their families still relying on military chaplains. The church became independent of that support in 1969, became the American Church in London and called the Revd William Schotanus as its first minister.
After worshipping in several places, the American Church moved to the Whitefield Memorial Church in 1972, when it was offered by the United Reformed Church. The URC was formed that year from the union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England.
In 1986, the church launched the Soup Kitchen, serving a hot meal to people in need. Still housed in the church, the Soup Kitchen now serves meals six days a week. The community outreach has expanded to include a seasonal night shelter staffed by volunteers from the congregation in partnership with the C4WS Homeless Project.
In the mid-1990s, the American Church formally joined the United Reformed Church, which owns building. The premises also house the London Chinese Lutheran Church.
The congregation has become more international iIn the 21st century, bringing together people from every continent. In 2012, the congregation voted to change its name to the American International Church to reflect the broad range of membership. The church adopted a welcome statement in 2022 and registered for same sex and opposite sex weddings, as a clear sign of inclusion to the LBGTQ+ community.
The adjoining grounds have recently had a series of interpretive panels designed by Groundwork Camden. They depict scenes in the history of the chapel, Whitefield’s links to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, and the abolition of slavery as represented by Olaudah Equiano, who was buried there.
Some of the original graves remain on the south side of the church on the west side of Tottenham Court Road. The Fitzrovia Mural towers above the paved open space now known as Whitfield Gardens. This is one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London, and the colourful mural, created in 1980 by Mick Jones and Simon Barber of the Art-Workers Co-Op, is a story worth telling another day.
• The main Sunday service is at 11 am, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday each month, followed by coffee and tea. The Revd Jennifer Mills-Knutsen has been the Senior Minister since 2016. The Revd Jared Jaggers has been the Associate Minister since 2020.
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