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St. John's Church History
by John Roper
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The first half of the 18th century had
seen very considerable changes in the development of
Wolverhampton. Nat the least 'Of these had been the enormous
growth of such long established trades as lock making and
buckle making, with the result that in the 1750's we read of
the town as a ‘large and populous trading place,’ with a
steadily rising number of inhabitants. Isaac Taylor's Map of
Wolverhampton, which first appeared in 1750, gives us a good
idea of what this growing town looked like, with its closely
congested area round the High Green market place and its
projected new streets and sites for building on the
immediate outskirts.
An increase in church accommodation had
not, however, gone hand-in-hand with the town's development.
The Collegiate Church (St. Peter's) had still to cater for
the needs of the whole of Wolverhampton, and what is perhaps
even more significant, so had its churchyard, which was
rapidly becoming inadequate.
The only solution was the provision of
a new church and burial ground, and to this end a voluntary
subscription had been entered into somewhere about the turn
of the century, and a favourable site, on the western side
of the town, had been offered. Contributions arrived slowly,
however, and little progress seems to have been made with
the proposed scheme until about 1754 when the Earl of
Stamford offered to give the sum of £1,000 to the building
fund on condition that he and his successors might have the
perpetual right of presentation to the living of the new
church. There were however several practical difficulties to
be overcame before his offer could be accepted. One of these
arose from the necessity of obtaining a private Act of
Parliament because of the condition imposed by Lord Stamford
on his gift, and a certain amount of delay unavoidably
occurred before this received the Royal Assent in 1755 and a
start could be made.
The numerous provisions of the Act were
to be carried out by trustees or commissioners: 34 of these
are named and in addition, any person who contributed £20 or
more to the building fund automatically qualified as a
trustee and his name was added to the list. At their head
was the Dean of Windsor and Wolverhampton Dr. Penyston Booth
who had already shown great enthusiasm in the building or
re-building of churches in his vast parish, notably at
Wednesfield in 1746, at Willenhall in 1748, and at Bilston
in 1753.
Among the other names we find those of
William Archer who was later to provide £200 towards the
purchase of the famous Renatus Harris organ; a factor,
Rowland Carr of Queen Street; an upholsterer, James Eykyn;
four ironmongers including the celebrated Benjamin Molineux
of Molineux House: and one of the early Wolverhampton
japanners, Thomas Wightwick of King Street.
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An internal view. |
Five of the trustees who were owners of
an extensive area of land known as the Cock Crofts,
stretching from Snow Hill across to Worcester Street, had
made a free gift of some 2 acres of this as a site for the
new church and burial ground and once the Act for the
building of the church had become law a start was possible.
The choice of an architect and a
builder was the first problem. It is now virtually certain
that for their builder the trustees selected a Wolverhampton
man. Roger Eykyn. He, in turn, was probably responsible for
the ultimate decision to appoint as architect William Baker
of Audlem, Cheshire.
Eykyn's father, the James Eykyn already
mentioned as trustee, was well-known in the town. His
premises were in High Green (the present Queen Square) where
he carried on a flourishing trade as an upholsterer. His
son, Roger, appears to have taken an interest in building
quite early in life and soon became an amateur architect of
the type so frequently found in England at this time.
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The experience he was to gain in the
building of St. John's probably enabled him to design his
own church in Birmingham (St. Paul's) in the 1770s. This
bears a striking similarity to St. John's in many of its
details, and was almost certainly modelled on it.
Closely associated with Eykyn at this
time was the architect mentioned, William Baker, whose name
first becomes known to us in 1743, in which year he designed
the Butter Cross at Ludlow. From then onwards, he was
engaged on a number of Midland buildings and in 1749 he went
to Patshull Hall to work under the instructions of its
owner, Sir John Astley, Bt., who was then in the course of
reconstructing the house. It is at this point that Baker's
association with Wolverhampton becomes important.
Sir John Astley had about 1742 engaged
James Gibbs, Sir Christopher Wren's famous successor, and
architect of St. Martin's-in-the-fields, London (1722-6) to
redesign his house and church at Patshull, but it appears
that Gibbs was unable to complete the work there, probably
because of ill-health, and Baker took over from him.
According to Baker's own account book he was at Patshull
fairly regularly from 1749 until about 1759, so that it does
not altogether come as a surprise to find the following entry in August 1755:
July 28-Aug. 5. Paid Expens. to
Patshull & Surveying of Plans for Wolverhampton Chapel. 9s.
Several entries similar to this follow
Baker was at the stone laying ceremony in April of the
following year, and charged a further guinea for his
trouble. Between that date and the end of 1759 his accounts
show that he received about £190 as fees from one or other
of the commissioners of St. John's.
There seems very little doubt on this
evidence that Baker did in fact design the church, though we
should not dismiss entirely the possibility that Eykyn
himself drew up the plans, and that Baker acted as overseer
of the work, as he almost certainly did at Penn Church in
1765.
The new church was of brick, encased in
Perton freestone, which was brought from Lord Wrottesley's
estate, an excellent stone, as Richard Wilkes, the famous
Willenhall antiquary described it when he saw the building
going up. By 1758, the nave, chancel and tower had been
erected, and the interior of the church was being plastered
and fitted out. As the present spire was not at the time
intended, probably because of expense, the building must
have been almost ready far use. And then the oft recorded
tragedy occurred.
Wilkes tells us about it in an account
which the great historian of Staffordshire, Stebbing Shaw,
thought fit to include in his description of Wolverhampton
later in the century . . . . after it was covered and
plastered in 1758, when the wainscoat for the pews or seats
was all finished, and ready to be fixed a fire broke out in
the night (the workmen having left some in the steeple, and
well secured it as they imagined), which burnt it all, and
did same damage to the roof, the whole loss amounting to 7
or £8,000.
His estimate of the damage caused is an
exaggeration. Baker himself came over early in November to
Survey the Expence done, and his figure is much more
conservative, £350. 12. 6d. But this was serious enough in a
church barely completed and still in need of funds. How the
difficulty was overcome is not really known. Wilkes goes on
to tell us that the inhabitants of Wolverhampton went to the
principal towns, and gentlemen of fortune, to ask their
assistance, and says that this was so readily forthcoming
that they were able to clear the debt already outstanding on
the building fund and carry on with the work of repair. He
may, of course, be right, for there appears to be no record
of the more usual remedy of briefs being resorted to
although we certainly read of a rate of 5d. in the pound
being levied far the repairs and other uses of the church
shortly after its opening in June 1760.
Unfortunately, little or no details of
the actual opening ceremony survive. The Chapelwardens'
Accounts begin on 30th June, 1760 with the record of a
vestry meeting in the new church called St. John's and it is
made plain that notice of the meeting had been given both at
the Collegiate Church and at St. John's itself on the
previous Sunday. This may conceivably have been the first
occasion on which the building was used far warship.
The choice of wardens fell to the lot
of the vestry mentioned. Their names are recorded as William
Hilliard and Roger Eykyn, builder. Hilliard was well-known
in Wolverhampton far his efforts to reform the Grammar
School and it is pleasant to think that the builder of the
church himself was appointed to play an active part in it
during the early years of its life. He remained warden until
1763. Hilliard was succeeded, after one year in office, by
Thomas Wright, an ironmonger of Snow Hill.
As first minister for his new church,
Lard Stamford as patron, selected the Rev. Benjamin Clement,
B.A., a Dudley man, who had recently come to Wolverhampton
on his appointment as headmaster of the Grammar School. His
early career at St. John's seems to have been quite
uneventful but after the opening of the Roman Catholic Schoo,
at Sedgley Park in 1763 we find him engaged in a vigorous
campaign against papery. Many of his printed sermons testify
to his feelings on the subject. He remained minister of St.
John's until his death in 1768, though he became a hardy
pluralist and held the living of Braunton, Devonshire, at
the same time.
It is odd, perhaps, that the only other
official of whom anything is known during these first few
years is the dog-whipper, that important subordinate of the
wardens, whose duty it was to expel from the church such
dogs as did not behave well. This was usually done by
gripping them about the neck with wooden tangs, several
pairs of which remain up and dawn the country. At St. John's
the office was filled by William Shaw, who was paid an
annual salary of 6s. He was still serving in this capacity
in 1778 when the wardens' accounts record the purchase of a
pr. of second-hand breeches for 'Old Shaw" at the price of
1s.
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A view from around 1830. |
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After the opening of the church,
preparations for its final completion had gone an apace. The
chapel wardens were continually finding money for same new
addition to the fabric. In August 1760, for example, the
bell had arrived, having been purchased from George Birch of
Birmingham, at a cost of £35. 1 .8, and brought to
Wolverhampton far a further 15/-. As work was still
continuing on the spire, temporary arrangements had to be
made to hang the bell in the lower part of the tower, and a
special floor was constructed far this purpose. It now
transpires that this bell, cast in 1706, belonged at one
time to St. Martin's Parish Church, in the Bull Ring,
Birmingham, and the inscription (of which there is a
facsimile in the west parch of St. John's) has the names of
an early 18th century Rector of Birmingham, William Daggett
and his two wardens. Perhaps the ring of twelve musical
Bells, mentioned by Hutton in his History of Birmingham
replaced the one sold in 1760.
The next acquisition of which anything
is known was the magnificent Communion Plate, consisting of
the silver flagon, two chalices and two plates, as the
Benefactions board has it. It was given by Samuel
Whitehouse, who was one of the original trustees of the
church. It is almost unequalled in this part of
Staffordshire. An interesting entry in the wardens' accounts
on 7th August 1761 relates that John Carter was paid 4s. for
horse hire to carry the Communion Plate to be engraved and
to fetch it back, but we are not told where the work was
done.
It would appear from the church records
that the famous Renatus Harris organ was not installed until
some time after the building was opened. and that during the
first two years of its history, St. John's had the use of
the little organ supplied on loan by a Mr. Abraham Adcock of
London. This instrument seems to have caused nothing but
trouble, for the wardens had to pay for substantial repairs
twice within the course of a few months and it cost them
nearly £12 to send it back to London after it had fulfilled
its purpose. One wonders if this unfortunate experience
prompted the opening of a subscription list for the Harris
Organ. The Benefactions Board states very precisely that it
was purchased by a subscription of £500, towards which Mr.
William Archer contributed Two Hundred Pounds, Anna Domini.
1762. The story of this superb instrument is told later.
For another 14 or 15 years building
operations were to continue, for the erection of the spire,
commenced after the disaster of 1758 (and presumably because
of it) was a lengthy task. It seems. therefore, all the more
commendable that during this period the wardens put in hand,
and indeed completed, the laying out of the churchyard, with
its walks and avenues, in preparation for the planting of
the lime trees a few years later. The brick wall surrounding
this large 2 acre site was also finished, and an order
placed with Mr. Hilliard and Co." (probably the Mr. Hilliard
who was elected warden in 1760 with Roger Eykyn), for Iron
Gates at the East End of the Chapel Yard Wall. The pair of
wrought iron gates now displayed in the Wolverhampton Art
Gallery are probably the ones Hilliard supplied. If so, it
is of interest to read that his account for them came to £10
. 1 . 9½d.: gates of similar design were placed at the
opposite end of the churchyard in 1775. The report of the
Victorian architect, Drayton Wyatt, who restored St. John's
in 1869, speaks well of this ornamental ironwork: it urges
that the gates should be restored, for they are very good
specimens of the art, and coeval with the church itself,
high praise indeed from one who was a pupil of Sir Gilbert
Scott and himself an ardent Gothicist.
Apart from all this we are fortunate in
knowing pretty well what the interior of the church looked
like during this first phase of its history, and the
opportunity will be taken at this stage to say a few wards
about this. Instead of the low, open-ended pews
which now fill the nave and aisles, there was the quite
common arrangement of enclosed boxes, each with its door and
having its number displayed in a prominent place on the
outside. Along the tops of the pews at intervals, were
wooden candlestick holders, for there was no gas lighting in
the church until well into the 19th century, and the
wardens' accounts contain references to the purchase of a
dozen-pounds " of candles at 5¼d. a pound, and of
candlesticks at 3d. each. Lighting was not a particularly
serious problem at first because of the holding of the
services only during the hours of daylight. Evening prayer
was usually said at about 3.30 p.m., after which the church
was closed for the day.
The pulpit was similar to many of the
3-deckers, still to be seen up and dawn the country. The
minister's entry and exit were controlled by a door, and
above him was the sounding board, a device which enabled his
voice to carry to the more distant parts of the building.
This was later ornamented by a dove, probably in the manner
of the pulpit of St. Swithin's, Worcester and must have been
one of the more delightful features of the church.
There was, of course, no stained glass
in any of the windows, so that the interior was almost
certainly much lighter than it is at present, especially as
the walls were as yet unpainted. The first attempt at
decoration in fact appears to have been left until 1787 when
the wardens were authorised to have the inside walls painted
with oil colours of a light colour and also the pillars:
They had previously been whitewashed.
Several additions to the church had
however been made before the date of this improvement and
among them were some of the more familiar features of the
present interior, including the magnificent coat of Royal
Arms, now hung on the front of the west gallery. These were
set up in 1778 or 1779 at a cost of £9. 9 . 0d., no small
sum of money at that period. Their authorship is uncertain
though it is highly probable that William Ellam who executed
the commandments at the same time, had a hand in them.
During the course of the following
year, 1780, the wardens were given authority to article with
Mr. Josh. Barney jun'r. to paint and complete a new altar
piece for the east end of the church. The result of this
commission was the purported copy of Rubens' "Descent from
the Cross" which today forms part of the reredos of the
chancel altar.
Barney came of a Wolverhampton family
and had himself been born in the town in 1751. When he was
16. he was sent to study under Zucchi and Angelica Kauffman,
but he eventually took up an appointment as drawing master
at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. This post he held
for 27 years and must have gained considerable distinction
in it, for we find him as painter of fruit and flowers to
King George III and as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy
from 1786 onwards. Ultimately he settled in Wolverhampton
again, to become a decorator of the japanned trays for which
the town became famous towards the end of the 18th century.
According to Pearson and Rollason's Trade Directory of 1781,
he had a house in the old Horse Fair, now part of Wulfruna
Street. His fee to St. John 's was £50. This
was paid in April 1782 so it is probable that the work took
about 18 months to complete. As proof of the esteem in which
the painting was held, another entry in the wardens'
accounts, this time in August 1806, is interesting:
‘. . a Curtain shall be put up to the
window on the South side of the communion place to prevent
the sun damaging the altar piece.’
It is unfortunate that we have no view
of the interior of the church as it was after these many
additions had been made, for it must have appeared very
different from the rather bleak interior seen by Richard
Wilkes before the fire. Few chapels of ease, for that is the
status St. John's enjoyed, apropos of the Collegiate
Church-could have claimed to be more handsomely appointed.
This fact does indeed prompt us to
consider the people the new church had come to serve during
the first 40 years or so of its history, for many of them
played an important part in beautifying and adorning the
fabric and in serving one or other of the church's offices
such as warden, beadle or clerk.
When St. John's was opened for worship
in 1760 it stood in comparative isolation. The square which
now surrounds it was not yet begun, nor had George Street or
Church Street been built up. Temple Street (Grey Pea Walk)
was, as its old name implies, a mere footpath from one side
of the town to another, whilst the west side of Snow Hill
had but a few houses on the edge of the great fields which
stretched from Worcester Street to the main Dudley Road and
were known as the "Cock Closes." And yet during the 20 years
or so which saw the completion of the church, changes of
unparalleled consequence for the town took place. The first
directory of Wolverhampton, published by Sketchley and Adams
in 1770, gives us an idea of how firmly industry had taken
root in some quarters of the town by that date, and in
particular, so far as the history of St. John's is
concerned-in Snow Hill. No longer did the traveller to
Dudley look across open fields in the direction of Worcester
Street and Brickhill Lane; houses, workshops, and business
premises of many kinds were beginning to crowd the one side
of Snow Hill, and already by 1770 we read of buckle-makers,
lock-makers. toy-makers and other men of small trades
established there. On the other side of the hill, the old
Hall, long the ancestral home of the Levesons, had been
converted for use as a japanning factory by Taylor and
James, and within a few years under the direction of William
and Obadiah Ryton, was to become one of the most famous
centres of the industry in the Midlands.
No less than 68 different trades
associated with iron, tinplate, or brass are listed by
Sketchley and Adams as being in or near to the centre of the
town. Wolverhampton was growing rapidly and St. John's was
in a part of it which was to be extensively developed.
Pitt's drawing of the town, published in 1796, gives us an
idea of the way in which new building was changing the
scene. Whole streets of houses and workshops in the Dudley
Road, Snow Hill area are seen and the industrial development
on the south and south-west sides of the present square is
astounding.
It is not surprising then when we look
into the church's own records for the period to find that
many of the people active in the life of St. John 's were
also closely connected with the new industrial growth of the
town. The list of wardens from 1760 to 1790 provides us with
at least 16 names of those engaged in one or other of the
many branches of the metal trades. Among them we discover a
Steel Tobacco Box Maker, 2 Buckle Makers, a Toy Maker, a
File Maker, a Brass Founder, a Pistol Tinder Box Maker, and
a Hinge Maker. The town of small trades is thus
appropriately represented, and after the beginning of the
new century names such as William Ryton and Richard Farmer,
famous in the Midland japanning trade, vivify the annals of
the church on almost every page.
So much, then, for the more general
history of St. John's during the latter part of the 18th
century. It had been one of more or less constant change and
development; so much so, in fact, that when we consider its
history in the first half of the succeeding century, it
tends to disappoint us. For the greater part it was a period
of consolidation. Few material changes are recorded, and the
accounts and minute books are devoid of the fascinating
information we find earlier on. There is a good deal of evidence, however, that the church
continued to flourish.
Towards the end of the Napoleonic wars,
the Rev. Joseph Reed had been appointed Minister of St.
John's. He was an energetic man, interested in education and
cultural activities in the town. No doubt it was due to his
influence that the church at this time provided a weekly
Evening Lecture, paid for by subscription. Reed's
intellectual talents also found an outlet in the running of
a Seminary in his house in Dudley Road, where French,
Drawing, English, Latin, Greek and everything else, except
Science, was taught. Like his predecessor, the Rev. Benjamin
Clement, he held St. John's in plurality, being curate of
Bobbington; he was also chaplain to the Earl of Stamford,
his patron.
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An
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A
view from the east. |
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The records of the church for the
period between, say 1820 and the beginning of Queen
Victoria's reign in 1837 are in the main unfruitful, though
it is pleasant to find associated with St. John's at this
time such names as Robert Noyes, whose delightful water
colours of old Wolverhampton are one of our most valuable
sources of local history, and George Cope, the wine and
spirit merchant, of Lich Gates. His famous shop still
remains, much altered, as the only ancient building in Queen
Square. We should not forget, moreover, that St. John's
Schools in Cleveland Street had their origin during these
years, and formed one of the largest of the National Schools
in the town. The buildings were opened for use in 1832.
Towards the end of the period, we find
the trustees of the church occupied by a problem which had
beset generations of English churchgoers, namely that of pew
rents. By the Act of Parliament under which St. John's had
been founded in 1755, the greater part of the Minister's
stipend derived from rents, fixed and set upon the pews or
seats. These were not to exceed £200 in any one year, nor to
be less than £130. Out of them the Minister was to pay the
Clerk his annual salary of £10. This arrangement was not a
satisfactory one any longer. The trustees were insistent
that they should have power to vary the pew rents and
reimburse the Minister accordingly. The proposed change did,
however necessitate the promotion of another bill in
Parliament, and it was not until March 1840 that this became
law and the trustees could carry their plans into operation.
The whole system of rents was
accordingly revised. A list which appears in the Minute Book
in April 1840 is of more than local interest, providing as
it does an example of the manner in which Victorian
churchgoers were so frequently assessed. The seats in the
middle aisle of the church attracted the highest rents; the
figure varies from 14/- to 5/- for each kneeling. Then come
the two side aisles where the amount decreases as the seats
get further away from the centre of the church, numbers
22-24, for example, are charged at a mere 4/- each kneeling.
The first three rows of the galleries were considered
important enough to be charged at approximately the same
rate as the aisles and even the three small seats adjoining
the organ cost their occupants 4/- a kneeling.
An informative little note below these
entries, in a different hand-tells us that the pews in the
middle aisle are calculated at 6 kneelings, the large pews
at 8 kneelings, and the small pews at 5 kneelings. Those by
the pillars accommodated only 2 people.
All this may sound rather unrealistic,
especially when we consider the interior of the church
today, but we should remember that in 1840 St. John's still
had its Georgian Boxes which were much higher than the
present open-ended pews, and were made secure by doors
latched in no uncertain manner. A pew was, indeed, a
stronghold, the privilege of which could only be guaranteed
by the timely discharge of its rent! At any rate, the new
Act of Parliament appears to have served its purpose, for we
hear no more of this usually controversial subject for some
time.
Perhaps the promise of St. John's
becoming a parish church, with its own vicar, was sufficient
to provide a topic for discussion among its people during
the middle part of the century. After the suppression of the
ancient Wolverhampton Deanery by the Wolverhampton Church
Act of 1847, St. John's was constituted a parish-and for the
first time for nearly 90 years was not dependent on the
Collegiate Church.
As one would expect, in an age when the
building and reconstruction of churches up and down the
country was occupying an extremely prominent place in men's
minds, the task of restoring the fabric of St. John's was
another subject which was now to loom very large is, in
fact, true to say that between 1854 and 1881, renovation and
repair of one kind or another went on almost continuously
and right in the middle of the period came the first major
restoration, under the London architect, Drayton Wyatt. This
was an event of great importance, and we may consider it in
some detail.
Wyatt was a pupil of the famous Gilbert
Scott, the arch Gothicist of Victorian England, whose mark
has been left on over 700 churches, restored according to
his somewhat hard and fast rules is, therefore, the more
amazing that a person whom we can only assume followed at
this time pretty closely in his master's footsteps should be
let loose on a building so uncompromisingly Classical in
design as St. John's. The result of Wyatt's first visit,
however, was far more happy than might have been expected.
He opens his Report (in 1868) by saying
that the Classical Style of the Church is not now prevalent,
but that it would not be prudent to alter the general
character of the building in any way. The exterior
stonework, he reports, has perished, though it is not
dangerous, and he does not suggest any serious external
restoration at all. This is perhaps very fortunate, as it is
doubtful indeed whether Wyatt was competent to restore a
church built in the Gibbs fashion!
Internally, however, there was room for
much improvement. He suggests the lowering of all the pews
to a height of 3 feet, and the use of the old panelling thus
left over in "rebuilding them into modern pews." Further,
the floors should be tiled and the glazed doors at the west
entrance of the church should "be moved further west and a
glazed fanlight fitted above them." To give more efficient
lighting, he recommends the new sunlight appliances in the
nave, and gas standards or brackets under the galleries.
There was little else that troubled
him, though his strictures on the 18th century pulpit are
worth noting. "Anything more unsightly or inconvenient than
the present Desk would be difficult to conceive"; obviously
the traditional arrangement of the "three-decker" was not to
his Gothic taste and though the site of the pulpit was not
altered from South to North as Wyatt went on to suggest, the
present rather conventional pulpit with its massive stone
base is the direct outcome of his report.
His advice was accepted almost
unreservedly, and in March 1869, a Wolverhampton firm, G. &
F. Higham of Castle Street, were authorised to begin the
work. The church was closed until the following October.
Meanwhile, the subscription list was put out and it is of
interest to note that the patron of St. John's, the Earl of
Stamford, was still conscious enough of his position to open
it with a donation of £100. A printed copy of the list hangs
in the South porch; it leaves little doubt as to the
response to the wardens' appeal for funds.
The re-opening was marked by a dinner
in St. John's Schools, provided by Mr. A. R. Britton of the
Star and Garter. About 100 people were present, including
the architect himself, the Dean of Lichfield, and the Mayor
of Wolverhampton. It is a testimony to Victorian
thoroughness that the visiting clergy on this occasion were
first assembled at Messrs. W. & H. Bates' Warehouse, before
being allowed to proceed to the dinner. From the reports
given in the local press of the re-opening, it is clear that
it was considered a major event in the town that its second
oldest church had been restored so extensively.
There were, however, matters other than
these with which the people of St. John's had to concern
themselves at this period. One, in particular, is worthy of
note. The church had, since about 1840, been faced with the
problem of a parish that was rapidly outgrowing its
strength. The area east of the Dudley Road was beginning to
develop on an extensive scale. New houses and new streets
were being built in the manner and on a scale so typical of
middle-class Victorian prosperity in the manufacturing
towns. This meant an ever-increasing burden on the church,
especially after St. John's became a parish church in 1849
and it was clear that very soon provision would have to be
made for new church accommodation in that quarter of
Wolverhampton.
The answer came in the form of a
mission church, attached to St. John's, and staffed by its
clergy. In the Minute Book early in 1865 there appears the
following memorandum:
In February 1865 the Mission Church and
Schools of All Saints in Steelhouse Lane were opened at a
cost of £300 raised by voluntary contributions aided by a
grant of £80 from the Diocesan Church Building Society and
£10 from the National Society. (The ultimate cost was £400,
beside £40 for the organ.).
There is little doubt that the Vicar of
St. John's, the Rev. Henry Hampton, had been largely
instrumental in the foundation of this new church, and the
records show that he played an extremely active part in its
history until his death in 1880. Only a few months prior to
this event, the fabric of the present All Saints' Church was
consecrated, and in July 1881 a new parish was constituted.
Henry Hampton was succeeded by the Rev.
R. B. Forrester. He remained until 1902 and was in turn
succeeded by the Rev. Robert Allen, whose incumbency brings
us down to modern times. During the 40 or so years
represented by the combined office of the two vicars, a
great deal of the more recent work evident in the interior
of the church was executed. In 1899, for example, the oak
panelling in the chancel was installed and a more fitting
background for Barney's picture of "The Descent from the
Cross" was thus provided. Six years later, the Church was
fitted with electric light. In 1907, the 18th century
wrought iron gates in the churchyard were replaced by the
present ones, and it is pleasant to be able to record that
these were manufactured in Wolverhampton, for they are
admirable specimens of local ornamental ironwork. One pair
of the original gates was placed in the town Art Gallery.
It was during this period also that
some of the finest stained glass which the church' possesses
was given. Three of the windows, in particular are of a high
order of craftsmanship, notably the one in the Kilby chapel,
in memory of Florence May Allen, and two in the north aisle
proper-one in memory of the Higham family, and the other to
the memory of Job Evans. The latter was executed by the
Camms of Smethwick, the other two by Archibald Davies of the
Bromsgrove Guild.
The Rev. Robert Allen left St. John's
to become Vicar of Bradley, near Stafford in 1924, and he
was succeeded by the Rev. Henry Samuel, who remained until
the appointment of the Rev. Joseph Hartill in 1931. In this
latest period of the church's history, two very important
additions to the fabric have been made; they are the chancel
altar, designed by J. A. Swann in 1929: and the splendid
Kilby Memorial Chapel at the end of the north aisle. This
has been fitted up to commemorate Thomas Arthur Kilby
one-time churchwarden of St. John's and headmaster of the
church day school. It is appropriate to mention here that
the altar reredos, made from the desk used by Mr. Kilby in
his school, the altar itself, the communion rails and the
credence table, are all the work of the Rev. Joseph Hartill.
A plaque, handsomely lettered in contemporary style, records
this. most fitting memorial.
The purchase of the Renatus Harris
Organ and its installation in St. John's church have already
been mentioned, but the history of this splendid instrument
is of such interest that it merits fuller discussion.
It is now generally accepted that the
organ was acquired for the town of Wolverhampton from the
widow of John Byfield, an 18th century organ builder of
considerable repute and skill, and probably son-in-law of
John Harris, his partner. Harris himself was son of the
famous Renatus Harris, one of the two great organ builders
in England in the latter part of the 17th century. How
Byfield came by the organ is an oft-told story, but it will
bear repetition-and, perhaps, a few suggestions as to its
authenticity or otherwise.
In 1682, the ancient Temple Church, in
London-spiritual home of the two societies of the Inner and
Middle Temple was in need of an organ. There appears to have
been some dispute among the Benchers of the respective Inns
of Court as to who should, in fact, build the instrument; it
is suggested that the Inner Temple supported Renatus Harris,
whilst the Middle Temple was in favour of his great rival,
Bernard Schmidt ("Father Smith"), who had come to this
country from Germany in 1660 only a few months after the
arrival here of Harris and his father from France.
In an attempt to settle the dispute,
both Harris and Smith were permitted to set up organs in the
church, and the famous Battle of the Organs thus began. By
1684, if we may believe the rather scanty records which
exist, the instruments had been completed, and the trial
began. This was to last for four years, during which period
many eminent musicians are believed to have been engaged by
the rival contestants. It is thought that Henry Purcell,
John Blow, and Giovanni Draghi (organist to the Queen) were
all involved in this long drawn-out struggle. New stops were
from time to time added by each builder in an attempt to
outdo his rival-but with little or no success.
Finally, in 1688, a decision was made.
It was in favour of Smith. Harris' organ was rejected and he
was asked to remove it from the church though without loss
of prestige"; he received £200 by way of compensation.
Whether, in fact, the notorious Judge Jeffreys made this
ultimate decision, as is sometimes suggested, is more than
doubtful. Much as one would like to think this romantic
story true, there does not appear to be a shred of reliable
evidence to support it. It has been suggested that Judge
Jeffreys was implicated owing to the untimely death of Lord
Guildford, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, who was appointed
by the Benchers as arbitrator in the contest.
Whatever the truth of the matter, a
part of the Renatus Harris organ was conveyed to Dublin and
installed in Christ Church Cathedral. It is possible that
the superbly carved case, with its Crown and Mitres dates
from this time: there is, unfortunately, no proof that
Grinling Gibbons was responsible for it, though it reflects
the influence of his school.
The organ remained in Dublin for just
over 60 years. In 1750, John Byfield was asked by the Dean
and Chapter to repair it, but it seems that he managed to
persuade them that a new instrument would be a better
proposition, and he took the Harris organ in exchange for
it. It was some time before an opportunity came of disposing
of this. He appears to have attempted to sell it to the
parishioners of King's Lynn, for use in St. Margaret's
Church there, but it was disdained because it was
second-hand. The famous Snetzler was, instead, invited to
build an organ for them, and part of it remains in the
church today. What King's Lynn despised, Wolverhampton was
glad to accept. Byfield was dead, when the opportunity arose
to purchase the old Harris organ for the chapel of St. John,
but his widow was apparently satisfied to part with it for
the sum of £500 and by 1762 it was set up and in use at St.
John's.
It was erected in the usual position in
the west gallery, where its wonderful case and array of gilt
pipes have ever since been objects of admiration. No
instrument more in keeping with the Classical character of
the church could have been found: it forms an almost perfect
adjunct to the west end of
the building.
There have, of course, been several
alterations to this organ since its installation, but it may
suffice here to say that the first major changes do not
appear to have been made until 1828, When George parsons of
Bloomsbury was called in, after a special meeting of the
township had been held to consider improving the organ:
parsons' report is of great interest to organ students - it
appears in full in the wardens, accounts for 1828, but
briefly what his work seems to have entailed was the
thorough cleaning of the pipes as they are completely
choaked with dust, the provision of additional notes to the
top up to five alt., and at the wish of the organist, Mr.
Rudge, the removal of the vox humana stop from the choir
organ as it is now quite useless and the substitution of an
open diapason on the pedal organ. His report ends with the
encouraging words ". . and I pledge myself it Will then be a
most complete instrument and none will excel it."
After this, there were renovations and
repairs by Tubbs of Liverpool who aspired to change the
instrument into a ‘C’ organ in 1868 and by Nicholson and
Lord of Walsall, in 1881 and on a number of occasions later
on. It may perhaps be mentioned here that at the 1881
restoration, the organ console was first brought forward in
front of the instrument, and the original door panels in the
case sealed. It was in this year that Sir Robert Steward,
organist of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, visited
Wolverhampton and poured out his eulogy on the organ at St.
John’s, commenting that it was far superior to Byfield's old
‘saw Sharpener’ which had replaced it in Dublin.
The Harris organ has, indeed, been the
more fortunate of the two instruments which figured in the
great battle of over 250 years ago, for the Temple organ
which Father Smith built was destroyed in the fire raids on
London in 1940.
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