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The new century and the wars
By 1900, as more and more people migrated to the new suburbs, the church was struggling financially and the end of the site lease was looming ahead. The Baptist Union and London Baptist Association were keen to have a "Central Church", like the Methodists and Congregationalists. They bought the Bloomsbury freehold and cleared the debts, and in 1905 formed Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.
Reconstitution was a legal formality – the church's life continued uninterrupted throughout. Since then the ultimate responsibility has been vested in the Central Committee, with members drawn from the church, Association and Union.
The Revd Thomas Phillips was installed as Superintendent of the reconstituted "institutional church". Few activities were new to the church, but the separate Mission was closed and everything was done from the main base. Teams of deaconesses, some still in training, acted as local missionaries and social workers (the picture shows them setting out on a temperance parade). In 1914 the church premises were extended upwards, the new floor for the "institute" provided a home from home for young people drawn to London for work. The church adopted the motto, "Hospitality".
The first of many young men Bloomsbury mourned in the First World War was a young German, engaged to a Bloomsbury girl, who had been summoned home for conscription. After the war depression, financial and spiritual, hit the work but the church pressed on, and continued to send missionaries abroad, including Phillips' son Edward who went to China with his wife, the daughter of Benjamin Gibbon.
Dr F. Townley Lord became minister in 1930, again aided by deaconesses. Many people still lived in walking distance, while visitors came from near and far. The women's meeting and Sunday school were huge, until the outbreak of war in 1939 emptied central London almost overnight.
In the war, the London County Council (LCC) requisitioned the basement as a refuge for people bombed out of their homes. A first-aid post was established there, and also a base for air-raid wardens. The ministers, caretakers and the remnant of members still in London ministered to the people gathered there. The LCC also took over the top floor as a canteen.
The church building escaped serious damage. Many service personnel passing through London came to the church. Dr Lord served as a naval chaplain in London. He also edited the Baptist Times. A leading member, Ernest Brown MP, was a government minister throughout the war, and the church secretary, Sir Guildhaume Myrrdin Evans, was a senior civil servant, often away on government business.
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Left: Lively music was an attraction in the music-hall age. The chapel was packed for Saturday evening concerts, such as the one pictured here, given by the Band of the Grenadier Guards in 1907. |
