IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0074 P84/MTS
Held at: London Metropolitan Archives
Title: SAINT MATTHIAS, EARLS COURT: KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA
Date(s): 1869-1948
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 0.67 linear metres
Name of creator(s): Parish of St Matthias, Earls Court | Church of England
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
The church of Saint Matthias was built between 1869 and 1872 to designs by J.H. Hakewill. The church schools - erected in 1878-1879 - survive. The church dates from the period when there was much church building in Kensington to keep pace with the estate development, regardless of proven need or of financial security. The parish derived from Saint Philip's, Earl's Court Road, which was 'High Church' from the time of its first incumbent the Reverend Joseph Claxton. The first vicar of Saint Matthias was the controversial Reverend Samuel Charles Haines. The doors were at the sides not at the west end because Haines wished to avoid 'the gathering of idle persons around the entrance from the main road and so securing greater quiet in services'. Haines was constantly summoned before the Bishop of London for 'Anglo-Catholic excesses'. Services at Saint Matthias under Haines's ministry were 'fashionably extreme and attracted wide attention'. There was also much dispute over parish boundaries.
During World War Two the church was without a vicar and temporarily administered from Saint Cuthbert's. The church was deemed to be too big for its diminished congregation and the parish was merged with Saint Cuthbert's; the building was razed in 1958.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Records of the parish of Saint Matthias, Earls Court, including registers of baptisms and marriages; Parochial Church Council minutes; papers relating to the church fixtures and fittings; correspondence; legal documents relating to parish property; and plans and drawings of the church.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
The records have 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.
Conditions governing access:
These records are available for public inspection, although records containing personal information are subject to access restrictions under the UK Data Protection Act, 1998.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright to these records rests with the depositor.
Physical characteristics:
Fit
Finding aids:
Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Records deposited in the former London County Council Record Office, 17 April 1963.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Publication note:
Survey of London, Volume XLII, (1986), LMA Library reference 92.1 GLC.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Date(s) of descriptions: April to June 2010.