St Michael's, East Wickham

Parish registers & other administrative records

In 1986 the parish records were transferred to Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre from Kent Archives office, where they had previously been deposited by incumbent.

St Michael's, East Wickham is one of six ancient churches to be found within the London Borough of Bexley. Although originally a chapel of ease for the Parish of St Nicholas, Plumstead, a fact confirmed by Hasted in 1779 it kept separate registers of baptisms, marriages and burials from 1730 onwards and maintained its own Churchwardens and Vestry. Even in 1813 the registers are describing it as a parish in its own right, a claim repeated in the vestry minutes as early as 1818, yet only formally conceded in 1852. The Local government Act 1894 transferred the civil functions of the Vestry to the newly created East Wickham Parish Council. However in 1902 the Council was abolished and the Civil Parish absorbed into the Urban District of Bexley. The growth of the local population during the First World War meant that the old Parish Church was too small for the congregation. A new church was built and consecrated in 1933. The old church was converted into a Greek Orthodox Church in 1969.