UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

It was opened in 1771 as a proprietary chapel used as a Christian place of worship

In 1829 it was “well attended by respectable inhabitants” (Rowland Dobie, History of the United Parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury, 1829)

Its first minister was Rev. Dr John Trusler, literary entrepreneur and author of the first English thesaurus ; his connection with the Chapel is not mentioned in Trusler’s Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (Rowland Dobie, The History of the United Parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury, 1829; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

It was remodelled in 1846: the frontage on Charlotte Street had “five arches divided by flat composite columns; over the centres of the arches appeared in medallions the emblem of the Trinity and two lambs and two doves...the north side of the chapel in Oxford Street and the south side in a small street were treated in a similar manner to the frontage, and each showed five bays bearing the same emblem. On the roof was a belfry turret and on the corners of the roof were four monoliths. The interior was very plain and lighted with round-headed windows. The pres were of the old-fashioned box pattern, and an ugly gallery extended round three sides of the building” (George C. Boase, ‘Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury’, Notes and Queries, 21 March 1896)

In the 1860s it was one of three churches together in Charlotte Street: the French Protestant Church, the Baptist Chapel, and that “tasteless pile to the north” being Bedford Chapel (John Timbs, Curiosities of London, revised edn, 1868)

Rev. John Chippendale Montesquieu Bellew was a famous and popular preacher at the Chapel from 1862 until 1868, when he suddenly resigned the post; he was received into the Roman Catholic church the following year, and subsequently travelled around giving public readings of literature (George C. Boase, ‘Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury’, Notes and Queries, 21 March 1896)

In March 1874 the Bedford Estate agent recorded that the vaults under the Bedford Chapel were being used by a wine merchant (Bedford Estates Middlesex Estates’ Report Book 1, 1869–1879)

This was permitted by the lease, as no other part of the building was being used for anything except Church of England worship (although the chapel was not consecrated for marriages and christenings) (Bedford Estates Middlesex Estates’ Report Book 1, 1869–1879)

However, the problem was that the lessee J. J. Haslewood, a vicar in Kent, wanted to use the chapel for secular purposes; it was a failure as a church and had by then closed (Bedford Estates Middlesex Estates’ Report Book 1, 1869–1879)

In 1876 the Chapel was taken over by another popular and eloquent preacher, Stopford Brooke; in 1880, he announced his secession from the Church of England in a sermon at the chapel (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

Because the Chapel was proprietary and had never been consecrated, he was able to keep preaching there as an unofficial Unitarian until 1895, when he retired (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

He was ill and wanted to surrender the lease of the chapel, which was due to fall in during 1899 (Bedford Estate Middlesex Estates’ Report Book 2, 1883–1895)

The Bedford Estate agent in his report recommended pulling the Chapel down and clearing the site, which would be valuable for business purposes (Bedford Estate Middlesex Estates’ Report Book 2, 1883–1895)

Also a distinguished literary scholar and editor, Brooke went on to lecture on English poetry at University College London in 1900–1905

The building was closed shortly after Rev. Brooke’s retirement and demolished in 1896: “the tearing down was commenced on 4 February, and its site will soon be occupied by the works of the Lighting Corporation” (George C. Boase, ‘Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury’, Notes and Queries, 21 March 1896)

In fact, its site seems to have been reused for a new development of flats, Ashley House, which George Duckworth described in 1898 as having “respectable, theatrical tenants” (Booth poverty survey update notebooks, 26 July 1898, walk with PC E. Tait; see also The Builder, vol. 169, 1945)

It no longer exists