On the plaque the
name is spelt 'Wainright' but references seem to use the name
'Wainwright'.
The plaque,
maintained in good condition, reads:
| |
London County
Council
Lincoln
Stanhope
Wainright
1847 -
1929
Vicar of St Peter's,
London Docks
lived here
1884 -
1929
|
|
The East
London History website tells us:
"It was the
fiftieth anniversary of Lincoln Stanhope Wainwright’s arrival at St Peter’s
Church in the London Docks, and the Bishop of London decided something had to be
done to mark a half century’s selfless devotion to the
congregation.
The problem
was, what do you give the man who has nothing yet has all he wants? Ever since
his arrival as a young priest in 1873 he had been working tirelessly at the
Wapping Lane church, providing local people with schools, clubs, medical
facilities … even on occasion his own clothes and shoes when they had
none.
St Peter’s Church, Wapping Lane
His pay went
the same way, and it’s doubtful he found much use for the £1000 the bishop
decided on as a gift (on the strict proviso he spend it on himself for once)
except to donate it to the poor.
The Blue
Plaque on the wall of St Peter’s today states simply ‘The Vicar of St Peter’s,
London Docks, lived here 1884-1929, Clergy House, Wapping Lane, E1’. But behind
that plaque lies a story of crusading young clergymen who came as missionaries
to the East End, and who threw themselves into improving the awful conditions of
East Enders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
‘From Prospect
of Whitby to Tower Bridge’:
St Peter’s London Docks is the Anglican Parish Church
of Wapping ‘from the Prospect of Whitby to Tower Bridge’ and was consecrated in
1866. But the seeds were sown more than 30 years earlier, when the Reverend John
Keble gave a sermon in University Church, St Mary Oxford.His message was that
the Anglican Church of England should rediscover its Catholic roots, as one of
the three branches of the one Catholic Church, Anglican, Roman and
Orthodox.
The Rev
Keble’s message wasn’t universally popular. Unsurprisingly it drew condemnation
from traditional ‘Low’ Anglicans, who saw the Church as ‘the nation at prayer’.
This Established Church was a kind of ‘Department of Good Works’ and indivisible
from English society and indeed Government – and it was Parliamentary
interference with the workings of the Church that first roused the ire of Keble
and his fellows.
Keble, John Newman and Edward Pusey.
Keble, along
with John Newman and Edward Pusey, had a grander vision. The Church of England
was to go forward as a missionary movement, tracing its roots back to Christ,
himself the first missionary. With this energy and zeal, members of the new
‘Oxford Movement’ would go forth and continue Christ’s work in the darkest
corners of England.
It undoubtedly
gave new energy and impetus to a Church of England which many thought had lost
its way, with priests distant from their parishioners, and not at all keen to
take on missionary work in places like the East End. Young priests like
Wainwright no longer sought comfortable country parishes, but headed for grim
places like Wapping.
Rev CF Lowder
in Lower Well Alley:
The Rev CF Lowder set up a mission in Lower Well Alley
(now the park by James Orwell sports centre) in 1856. He was working with young
clergymen and sisters alongside prostitutes, petty criminals and families
scraping a living on the docks. Lowder’s group may have preached salvation but
the route was entirely practical – schools, clubs, cheap canteens and child care
to go along with the Mass and spiritual sustenance.
The group
moved from venue to venue but by 1866 had raised money for a permanent home, and
the Church of St Peter was consecrated in Old Gravel Lane (now Wapping Lane).
The team worked through the cholera epidemic of those years, tending the sick at
a tented hospital. Lowder was soon being addressed as ‘the father’ for his
paternal role in the community.
Lincoln
Wainwright as curate to Lowder:
Soon this had been contracted to Father (rather than
Rev) Lowder, the first recorded example of an Anglican priest being called thus.
For the Low Anglicans, ever suspicious of a drift toward Roman ways, the title
was anathema, but to this day the priests at St Peter’s are dubbed
‘Father’.
Lincoln
Wainwright arrived in 1873 as curate to Lowder. Described as ‘a living saint’ by
the church today, he unfailingly saw the good in parishioners. Catching a boy
stealing a clock from the Clergy House, he persuaded the lad to sit and have a
cup of cocoa in the kitchen. A long chat saw the thief serving Mass in the
church and taking up a job at Wainwright’s recommendation.
Wainwright
dies at St Peter’s Wapping:
The long-serving priest died in 1929 at the Clergy
House, and the people of Wapping filed past the coffin to pay their respects.
Today the work at St Peter’s goes on, and remarkable men such as Wainwright (and
many more) are remembered in the church’s marvellous collection of stained glass
windows.
It’s worth a
trip for even the most sceptical non believers amongst us … who can look at
images of men and women who didn’t just preach good words but put them into
practice."