St. Thomas the Apostle

Names

  • St. Thomas's Church
  • St. Thomas the Apostle

Street/Area/District

  • St. Thomas's Street

Maps & Views

Descriptions

from London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, by Henry Benjamin Wheatley and Peter Cunningham (1891)

Thomas (St.) Apostle, Southwark, on the north side of St. Thomas Street. The church of the dissolved Monastery or Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark; made parochial after the dissolution of religious houses. In 1360 (34 Edward I.) the brethren of St. Thomas were allowed to celebrate divine service. Before 1489 a church was here, with chapels and altars and statues, and in 1521 the parish was known as "the parish of St. Thomas's Hospital." The living is in the gift of the governors of St. Thomas's Hospital. The register records the marriage, January 27, 1613, of the father and mother of John Evelyn. In 1700 the church had long been unfit for its purpose, and in 1703 a new one was erected at a cost of £3043 : 2 : 8, allowed out of the duty upon "coales and culm."

The parish is the smallest in Southwark, but it included within it the two magnificent hospitals of St. Thomas and Guy's, until the former was removed to make room for the extension of the South Eastern Railway. The sculptor of the monument of Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey, and of the remarkable tomb of Sir Roger Aston and his wives in Crayford, describes himself in the agreement, dated January 4, 1612–1613, for making and setting up the latter work, as "of St. Thomas the Apostle in Southwarke." The sculptor of the monumental bust and tomb of Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon was "Gerard Johnson, a Hollander, in St. Thomas Apostells."l In the first edition of this work Mr. Cunningham assumed that this was St. Thomas the Apostle in the Ward of Vintry, but further inquiries convinced him that he was mistaken, and that "Gerard Johnson lived, liked Cure, in St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, near to the Globe Theatre, and that he must have often seen Shakespeare. If I am right in this conjecture, the Stratford bust becomes additionally valuable as a likeness."2 The register of neither parish throw any light on the subject.


1 Dugdale's Diary, by Hamper, 1653, p. 79; and App. 2, 1592.

2 Letter in Builder, April 4, 1386.