St. George, Bloomsbury

St. George’s Bloomsbury is one of the fifty new churches appointed to be built by act of parliament within the bills of mortality. The name of St. George was given to it in honour of his present Majesty; and it received the additional epithet of Bloomsbury, from its situation, to distinguish it from others of the same name.

The portico through which you enter the church stands on the south side, as is represented in the print. It is of the Corinthian order, and makes a very good figure in the street, but has no affinity to the church, which is very heavy, and would be better suited with a Tuscan portico. The tower and steeple at the west, is a very extraordinary structure. On the top standing on a round pedestal or altar, is a colossal statue of the late 6King, supported by a pyramid. At the corners near the base are alternately placed the lion and unicorn the British supporters, with festoons between: these animals being very large, are injudiciously placed over columns very small, which makes them appear monsters. The under part is heavy enough, but not connected with the church. The introduction of figures and other pieces of sculpture into steeples, which are so much the work of fancy, and where the artist is not so much confined as in the other parts of the building, if managed with taste and propriety might be made elegant ornaments, and would make a fine variety with the architectonic ones with which the city already abounds.

This church was erected at the public expence, and consecrated in January 1731. A district for its parish was by authority of parliament taken out of that of St. Giles’s, and the sum of 3000l. was given towards the support of its Rector, to which being added 1250l. by the inhabitants of St. Giles’s parish, both sums were ordered to be laid out in the purchase of lands, tenements, &c. in fee simple, as a perpetual fund for the maintenance of the Rector and his successors; but the poor of this parish and 7that of St. Giles’s in the Fields, are to be maintained by the joint assessment of both parishes, in the same manner as before their being divided.

St. George's Church, Hart-Street, Bloomsbury, is near ⅛ of a mile on the R. from the S. side of Bloomsbury-square towards St. Giles's.

St. George, Bloomsbury, the church of, is situated in Hart-street, Bloomsbury-square. It is one of the fifty new churches appointed to be built by act of parliament, within the bills of mortality, and was erected at the public expense, and consecrated in 1731. A district for its parish was taken out of that of St. Giles's in the Fields, and arrangements made for the support of the poor. It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, and has a magnificent portico of the Corinthian order, with a pyramidal steeple, surmounted by a statue of George I., to whose name saint it is dedicated. Hence the well known epigram of—

"When Harry the Eighth, left the Pope in the lurch,
The people of England, made him bead of the church;
But much wiser still, the good Bloomsbury people,
'Stead of head of the church, made him head of the steeple."

This church is a rectory, in the gift of the crown, and in the patronage of the Lord Chancellor; it cannot be held in commendam, and all licences to that effect are made void by the act of parliament for separating this parish from that of St. Giles's. It is in the county and archdeaconry of Middlesex, and its present Rector is the Rev. John Lonsdale, B.D., Precentor and Canon Residentiary of Lichfield, and Domestic Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was instituted by the Lord Chancellor in 1828.

George's (St.) Church, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, a parish church, consecrated January 28, 1731, was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (d. 1736), architect of St. Mary Woolnoth, and pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. The portico is good, and the steeple has found an enduring remembrance in the background of Hogarth's "Gin Lane."

The steeple is a master-stroke of absurdity, consisting of an obelisk, crowned with the statue of King George I., and hugged by the royal supporters. —Horace Walpole.

When Henry VIII. left the Pope in the lurch,
The Protestants made him the head of the church;
But George's good subjects, the Bloomsbury people,
Instead of the church make him head of the steeple.
Contemporary Epigram.

The statue of George I. was erected by William Hucks, the rich brewer (d. 1740). The parish was taken out of St Giles-in-theFidds. The churchyard (now made into a recreation ground) has an entrance from Handel (formerly Henrietta) Street, Brunswick Square. Here are buried—Rev. Samuel Ayscough (d. 1804), known by his Shakespeare Index; Joseph Shepherd Munden, the actor, (d. 1832); and Edmund Lodge (d. 1839), known by his Illustrations of English History, and by his Portraits of Illustrious Personages. The altar was originally on the east side of the church, in the recess which is now used for the Baptistery. At the beginning of the present century the communion table was removed to the north end, and the handsome niche, formed of coloured woods carved and inlaid, is supposed to be of Italian manufacture, and is from the chapel of Bedford House, and presented by the eighth Duke of Bedford. The church was restored and the galleries cleared away in 1870.