wfn.org | John Wesley’s Ministry at Poplar

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
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Note 444 by UMNS on Nov. 10, 1997 at 16:36 Eastern (6650 characters).

CONTACT:  Ralph E. Baker						  632(10-71B){444}
		Nashville, Tenn.  (615) 742-5470			Nov. 10, 1997

‘Even at Poplar,’ Wesley had a vital ministry
in this London neighborhood

A UMNS Feature
by John Singleton*

"Even at Poplar I found a remarkable revival of the work of God," wrote John
Wesley, the founder of Methodism, in his journal Nov. 15, 1787.  "I Never saw
the preaching house so filled before; and the power of the Lord seemed to rest
on many of the hearers."
"Even at Poplar?" That happens to be my part of London, England, so let me
tell you something of the roots of Methodism in my own neighborhood.
By the time Wesley came here in 1772 to consecrate his new "preaching house",
the riverside hamlet of Poplar was already a growing center for shipbuilding
and trade on the River Thames. 
Just a few minutes walk from our home - at the point where the river
straightens out downstream from a horseshoe bend around the Isle of Dogs - is
Blackwall, where the historic Blackwall Yard was laid down for shipbuilding in
about 1600.  Tradition has it that Sebastion Cabot, the navigator, and Sir
Walter Raleigh once lived at Blackwall and Nelson resided nearby.
It was from here in 1607 that English colonizer John Smith set sail on the
expedition that established Jamestown, Va., as the first permanent English
settlement in America.
The place where Smith and later expeditions started on their long and often
hazardous voyages to the New World gradually became enveloped in the huge
complex of docks that mushroomed along the Thames during the early 19th
century.
This seething hub of industry and commerce stretched from Wapping (near the
Tower of London) to Woolwich in the east.  The once bleak Blackwall pier from
where Smith embarked - and where a plaque records that he and his adventurers
all received the Sacrament of Holy Communion before sailing - eventually
became sandwiched between the mighty East and West India docks.

The nearby preaching house opened by Wesley was only a few hundred yards from
a church built by the East India Company for its employees  more than 100
years before in 1656.  Much altered since then, the ancient Anglican building
is now a neighborhood center.  On the site of Wesley’s preaching house, from
which the Methodist cause had moved on by 1847, stands an unobtrusive local
mosque.
This encapsulates the changing face of the area, with succeeding waves of
newcomers settling in what had become the "East End" of London and constantly
adding to its cosmopolitan make-up.  Scandinavians, Germans, Huguenots, Irish
and Jewish people; all have settled here during the past five centuries.
More recent arrivals have been people of African, Caribbean and Bengali
origin.  Our local Mayflower school is 85 percent Bengali and many Methodist
churches in inner London would not exist today but for their African and
Caribbean members.
Not far from Poplar is Spitalfields, where a fine French church was erected in
1743 by Huguenot artisans who had fled religious persecution in France in the
late 17th century.  Wesley borrowed this church in 1755 to hold the first
Methodist covenant service shared by a congregation  of 1,800.  It was
acquired as a Methodist chapel in 1809, but in 1897  was bought by a Jewish
immigrant society and became an Orthodox synagogue.  The building is still
used for worship as a mosque.
The survival of early Methodism in Poplar seems to owe a lot to an immigrant
from the north of England, a Mrs. Clippingdale, who had joined a Methodist
society at Swalwell near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as a girl of 13.  When, as a
young woman, she settled in Poplar in the middle years of the 18th century.
Mrs. Clippingdale either joined the existing society or formed one  herself.
By all accounts she was known in the area as a "lovely pattern of holiness." 
The story is told how the Methodist cause in Poplar had declined to a pitiful
handful of members - probably no more than three or four - and it was proposed
at a meeting of Wesley’s London preachers to give it up.
But Wesley himself, who always attended the preachers’ regular Sunday morning
breakfast when he was in town, asked: "Is Mrs. Clippingdale living?" On being
told "yes" he replied: "Then I will not consent to give up Poplar."  Wesley’s
judgment was right; Mrs. Clippingdale lived to see a chapel erected and the
society increased to nearly 250 members.
The year Wesley opened the Poplar preaching house, 1772, was a bad year for
London’s poor, of whom there were many.  A situation of "general and alarming
distress" was said to exist.  Wesley faced the emergency by writing vigorously
to the public press; by calling his people to prayer and by encouraging them
to organize schemes of visitation and relief.
In December he wrote in his journal: "Being greatly embarrassed by the
necessities of the poor, we spread all our wants before God in solemn prayer;
believing that He would sooner ‘make windows in heaven’ than suffer His truth
to fail."
The social witness of Methodism in Poplar and the East End of London has been
a constant priority since the time of Wesley.  The frenetic industry of the
docks, which survived the worst of Hitler’s bombing during the Second World
War, though much of the surrounding area was razed to the ground, has now
departed downstream to Tilbury, Essex.  Left behind are the deep moorings,
largely undisturbed save for luxury boats and water sports.  The wharves have
been regenerated for business and expensive apartments.
The best views of Poplar and Blackwall  today are obtained from the
driver-less trains which trundle round the new "docklands" and beyond. 
Towering over everything is Canary Wharf, the tallest building in Europe,
winking day and night as a guide to aircraft flying in to London City airport
in the former Royal docks.
And yes, the Methodist Church is still a powerful presence, "even at Poplar"! 
A residential  seamen’s mission accommodating up to 170 men (mostly retired
and from all parts of the world) stands adjacent to Trinity church, only a
short distance from Wesley’s original preaching house.  Other churches are at
Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Stepney, Bow and Old Ford - all familiar places on
Wesley’s London itinerary.  These are small but committed congregations at the
heart of an impressive network of social and community witness.  We send you
our greetings.
#  #  #

	* Singleton has been on the staff of the Recorder, weekly newspaper of
British Methodism for nearly 30 years.  A lay preacher, he is an active member
of an inner-city Methodist church in a multiracial East London neighborhood.		
	

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