SAINT SAVIOUR, HAMPSTEAD: ETON ROAD, CAMDEN

Summary of Registers at GLRO Parish registers and administrative material

Baptisms at the temporary church 1853 - 1856

Baptisms at St Saviour's 1856 - 1958

Baptisms at the Hostel for Mothers and Babies, Fitzjohn's Avenue 1938 - 1940

Marriages 1857 - 1975

Banns of Marriage 1857 - 1975

The archive contains records in various formats - volumes, plans, papers - and has been sorted into categories which reflect divisions between the different functions and operations of the parish and its administration. Order within these categories reflects chronology and the GLRO's hierarchical schema for parish sources. Amongst the items in the collection are: records pertaining to the building of the church (1846 - 1858), subsequent restoration and repairs (from 1872 onwards); documentation regarding Mission Hall and Wharrie Hall (1877-1950); a collection of parish publications (1884-1926); and a richly illustrated and supplemented Book of Remembrance for World War One.

As part of London's expansion to the north-west in the 1830s-1840s the Chalcot estate, part of the endowment bestowed on Eton College by Henry VI, was developed. The burgeoning middle-class community in the area engendered the construction of a church and, by 1846, a committee of local residents was in place to supervise proceedings. Eton College (dominant landowners in the locality) donated a site and in 1847 building began. The following year however, financial problems caused work to be suspended and a temporary church on another part of Eton Road was raised instead. By 1852 a new building committee had formed. Subscriptions were sought and, under the direction of architect E.M. Barry, work recommenced on a permanent structure. The church was consecrated in 1856; a tower and spire were added in 1864; and the vicarage was completed in 1870.

St Saviour's was initially established as a district chapelry of St John's in the Archdeaconry of Middlesex (now Hampstead) and later became a parish. The cure was subject to numerous boundary changes, the most significant of these in 1870 when the Fleet Road district passed to St Saviour's from St Stephen's, Hampstead. A leased site in Fleet Mews became the locus for day and Sunday schools, administered by a Schools Committee. On the lease's expiry in 1877, a purpose built room was founded in Fleet Road to extend mission work in the area. At the same time, the day school was discontinued. The Schools Committee was duly dissolved to be replaced by a new Mission Room and Sunday School Committee. Work at Fleet Road prospered under the stewardship of licensed reader Charles Mackeson. Its success led to the foundation of All Hallows, Gospel Oak where Mackeson served as an ordained minister. The Mission Room (later Hall) was augmented and expanded by the Wharrie Hall building - erected in 1924 with a bequest from local benefactor Mary Wharrie.