LEYSIAN MISSION CIRCUIT

The records reflect the wide variety of settlement activities, for example the Relief Committee minutes and accounts 1891-1989 and affiliated organisations such as the Athletic Society, the Brass Band, the Penny Bank, the Working Mens Club and Moulton House Settlement for Young Men.

<span class="wrapper"><p>The LMA also holds marriage registers for Leysian Mission 1910-1987 (ref ACC/2745/1-5) and some records of Shoreditch Methodist Mission (ref N/M/23/11,12).</p> <p>Some additional records have been retained by the Curator of Wesley's Chapel, 49 City Road, London EC1Y 1AU.</p></span>

• <corpname>Leysian Methodist Mission, London, 1886-1989</corpname>
• <corpname>Haggerston Methodist Mission, Brownlow Street, London</corpname>
• <corpname>Shoreditch Methodist Mission, Nichols Square, Hacknet Road, London</corpname>

The Leysian Mission was founded in 1886 as a large Wesleyan Methodist settlement and mission by past and present scholars of the Leys School, Cambridge. The work started in Whitecross Street, moved to 12 Errol Street in 1890, and then moved in 1904 to the new headquarters building in City Road, Finsbury. This striking building of terracotta bricks and red granite, costing £124,000, was designed by Messrs Bradshaw and Gass. The Queen Victoria Hall seated 2,000 persons and the building itself accommodated 125 rooms and four roof gardens for settlement purposes, with commercial premises at street frontage level.

At the opening of the building by the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1904, Lord Strathcona described the object of the mission as two-fold "to bring religious and ameliorative influences to bear upon the lives of toilers in one of the most crowded districts in London" and "to give to those who have enjoyed the privilege of a public school education the opportunity of coming into direct and sympathetic contact with the social problems that appeal for their solution to the Christian Church and to all good citizens at large".

The Circuit included Haggerston Methodist Mission, Brownlow Street and Shoreditch Methodist Mission, Nichols Square, Hackney Road. The Leysian Mission closed in 1989 and the congregation united with Wesley's Chapel, City Road to form Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Centre.