Bethnal Green St Matthew, Middlesex Genealogy

England Middlesex  Middlesex Parishes  London  London Parishes  Bethnal Green St Matthew

Here is a Comprehensive List of Chapels and District Churches Lying within the Civil Parish of Bethnal Green as of 1900.

Parish History
BETHNAL-GREEN (St. Matthew), an ancient parish, was built by 1743, in the borough of the Tower Hamlets, Tower division in the Ossulstone Hundred, county of Middlesex. It lay about 2.5 miles northeast by east of St. Paul Cathedral. Also see the districts called Church, Green, Hackney-road, and Town divisions. I

See the above link to a "Comprehensive List of Churches and Chapels" for this parishAlso lying within the parish were the following parochial chapels:


 * St. John's district church was built in 1828, by grant from the Parliamentary Commissioners, at an expense of £17,638, and is a handsome edifice of brick faced with stone, in the Grecian style, with a tower surmounted by a cupola: the living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £190, in the gift of the Bishop. Ten additional districts or ecclesiastical parishes have been formed; and the expense of erecting a church in each of them has been estimated at more than £75,000, raised by subscription, aided by a grant of £10,000 from the Metropolitan Society, and of £5000 from Her Majesty's Commissioners. The church of St. Peter, in the Hackney-road, consecrated in July, 1841, is a spacious structure of brick, intermixed with flints, and ornamented by facings of stone, in the early Norman style, with a tower surmounted by a low spire: net income, £200.

The church of St. Andrew, in South Conduit Street, consecrated in December, 1841, is a neat structure of brown brick having stone dressings, in the Norman style, with a tower at the end of the north aisle surmounted by a campanile turret of stone: net income, £224. The church of St. Philip, in Friar's Mount [in 1842], is a neat building of light brick, with red mouldings and dressings of stone in the Norman style, and two square towers at the west end, surmounted by low octagonal spires: net income, £224. The church of St. James the Less, in Victoria Park, of which the first stone was laid in January, 1841, is also a spacious edifice of brick with stone facings, in the Norman style, with a tower at the end of the south aisle, and a circular window in the western gable: net income, £150. The church of St. James the Great, in the Bethnal-Green road [built by 1844], is a handsome structure of red brick with dressings of stone, in the early English style, and has a campanile turret richly canopied and terminating in a crocketed finial: net income, £150. The church of St. Bartholomew, in Cambridge-road, the first stone of which was laid 27th Jan. 1842, is of brown brick with facings of stone, also in the early English style, with a tower surmounted by a well-proportioned spire of stone; it was consecrated on the 8th June, 1844: net income, £230. The foundation stone of St. Matthias' church, Hare-street, was laid in the autumn of 1846; it is in the Byzantine or Romanesque style, and is the largest of the ten churches, the length being 117½ feet: the cost was £7000. The net income amounts to £180. St. Jude's church is also in the Romanesque style, and was built at a cost of about £5000: the interior is well arranged; a series of massive chandeliers depend from the roof by chains, and form a novel and effective mode of lighting. The net income is £200. St. Simon Zelotes' was consecrated July, 1847: the style of the edifice is early English; it was erected at a cost of about £4000, and accommodates 800 persons. The net income is £150. St. Thomas' church is in course of erection [completed by about 1848]: net income, £200. The livings are perpetual curacies, and are all in the gift of the Bishop of London: attached to some of the churches are residences for the incumbents, and in the several schools connected with them several hundred children receive instruction. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Methodists, and others. [Note: The above-mentioned chapels and churches existed prior to the year 1848. Here is a Comprehensive List of Chapels and District Churches Lying within the Civil Parish of Bethnal Green as of 1900.]

An episcopal chapel was erected in 1814 by the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, attached to which are two schools, wherein 50 boys and nearly 60 girls are maintained, clothed, and instructed; the schools are supported by voluntary contributions. St. Matthew's school, founded in 1771, by the inhabitants, for clothing and instructing 50 boys and 50 girls, is supported by the interest of funded property and voluntary contributions. There are also national and Lancasterian schools. In 1722, Mr. Thomas Parmiter left an estate in Suffolk, now producing £25 per annum, for the erection and endowment of a free school and almshouse in the parish, for the promotion of which purpose, other gifts have been made; the schoolroom has been taken down for the line of the Eastern Counties railway, and rebuilt on a new site. Another, called "Friar's Mount school," contains seventy boys, and is partly supported by subscription. The almshouses founded by Captain Fisher in 1711, and those belonging to the companies of Drapers and Dyers, are situated in the parish. Trinity Hospital at Mile-End, was erected in 1695, on land given by Captain Henry Mudd, an elder brother of the Trinity House, and endowed, in 1701, by Captain Robert Sandes, for twenty-eight masters of ships, or their widows.

The union workhouse, recently erected, is near Victoria Park. The Roman road from the western counties of England to the ferry over the river Lea, at Old Ford, passes through the northern part of the parish. Sir Richard Gresham, father of Sir Thomas Gresham who built the Royal Exchange; Sir Thomas Grey, Knt.; and Sir Balthazar Gerbier, a celebrated painter and architect, who designed the triumphal arch for the entrance of Charles II. into London on his restoration; were residents at the place. Ainsworth, the compiler of the Latin Dictionary, kept an academy here for some years; and Caslon, who established the celebrated type-foundry in Chiswellstreet, lived here in retirement till his decease in 1766.

1.Samuel Lewis, ed. "Besford - Beverley," In A Topographical Dictionary of England 223-228. (London: S. Lewis and Co., 1848), Online | here. Adapted.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, nonconformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection. Here is a list of church records on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Poor Law Unions
Contributor: Add information about the pertinent poor law unions in the area.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.