By Gerald Bray
St Paul’s church traces its origins to the medieval parish of St Andrew the Less in the Newmarket Road. At a very early date, possibly around the year 1200, this parish had been taken over (‘appropriated’) by Barnwell Priory, a community of Augustinian monks which had moved to the area in 1112. The prior became the rector of the parish, with the right to receive its tithe revenue, as well as its patron, with the right to appoint the clergy (a right known in law as the ‘advowson’). As rector, the prior of Barnwell appointed vicars (‘substitutes’) to do the actual work of parish ministry, and it is probable than the men chosen were mostly, if not all, monks from the priory. When the priory was dissolved on 8 November 1538, the prior’s rights passed to the crown and were then sold to a series of lay impropriators who could dispose of them as they saw fit. In 1835 a young fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, by the name of Charles Perry, bought up the advowson and began an extensive programme of reforms. He built another church in the Newmarket Road, which replaced St Andrew the Less as the parish church in 1846 and is now known as Christ Church. He also established a mission hall in Hills Road, which became St Paul’s.
To further the work of evangelism among the railway workers and tradesmen who were beginning to settle in the Newtown area of Cambridge, Mr Perry had the area made into a conventional district and got the bishop of Ely to license him as its first curate. Within a few years, Mr Perry had accomplished the remarkable feat of building a church which on 2 January 1845 became the centre of a new parish. The parish was created under the terms of the New Parishes Act of 1843 and was carved out of St Andrew the Less, with the addition of some land to the west of Hills Road, which had previously been part of the parish of St Andrew the Great, a church located near the market square in the centre of Cambridge. Mr Perry became its first minister, with the title of ‘perpetual curate’. In 1847 he was appointed the first bishop of Melbourne (Australia), where he served for twenty-nine years before retiring to Cambridge. On his return to England, he became one of the founders of Ridley Hall, which has been a theological college of the Church of England since 1877. He lived until 1891, long enough to see his church firmly established.
Mr Perry’s immediate successors were also styled ‘perpetual curates’ but in 1891 Henry Paine Stokes was instituted as the first vicar. This was the designation preferred by the New Parishes Act because the ancient system of tithe had been dismantled in 1836 and the traditional rectorial rights had been extinguished at that time. Until 1975 vicars were appointed for life, but only one (John Gwyn-Thomas) actually died in office at the age of 55. Mr Stokes came from an Anglo-Irish family of great distinction and he served in the parish almost to the end of the First World War. He then moved to Little Wilbraham where he served until his death in 1931.
His successors were all prominent preachers, and one of them, Gerard Gregson, went on to become an army chaplain during the Second World War and a travelling evangelist afterwards. In the post-war years Kenneth Hooker had an active evangelistic ministry among students, before moving to the North London suburb of Cockfosters in 1958. One of his curates, Mark Ruston, became the vicar of the Round Church (Holy Sepulchre) in the centre of Cambridge where he developed a popular student ministry which continues to this day, though it is now housed in the redundant church of St Andrew the Great. The next vicar, Herbert Carson, seceded from the Church of England to become a Baptist and split the congregation in the process. The damage caused by this was considerable but it was successfully repaired by John Gwyn-Thomas, who had a popular ministry of expository preaching and counselling which attracted a congregation from outside the parish itself. This trend has continued under his successors although the development of the St Paul’s Centre has led to a renewal of ministry within the local community.
Today the advowson is held by the Church Trust Fund Trust, established by Charles Perry and administered by the Church Pastoral Aid Society, which ensures that the incumbent of the parish will be an Evangelical clergyman. The original parish was subdivided in the late nineteenth century by the creation of St Barnabas (1888) and St Philip (1902). More recently, the parish of St Martin has also been carved out of St Paul’s parish (1961). The vicar of St Paul’s remains the patron of St Barnabas and St Martin, while St Philip is in the hands of the Church Trust Fund Trust, which is also the patron of St Andrew the Less (Christ Church) and through its vicar, of St Matthew’s church as well. Currently St Philip’s looks after a daughter church (St Stephen) and St Martin’s has another daughter church (St Thomas). All of these are linked through the Church Trust Fund Trust and belong to the same Evangelical family of parishes as St Paul’s.
Assistant clergy have been appointed to serve at St Paul’s for many years, though the last resident full-time curate left in 1977. Since that time, assistants have served on a part-time, unpaid basis and many services are taken by lay readers and other members of the congregation.
This list of clergy has been compiled as part of a project covering the entire diocese of Ely, in conjunction with its 900th anniversary in 2009. On the left are the dates of appointment, given in year/month/day order and on the right are the dates of termination. An ‘R’ beside this date indicates that the clergyman resigned, retired or removed to another parish. In the case of assistant curates, only the year of departure is given, unless the man went to another appointment within the diocese of Ely, in which case the date of that appointment is given. The letters NSM indicate a non-stipendiary minister, and women are noted by an * after their name. Inquiries about this list, or that of any other parish in the diocese of Ely, may be sent to the compiler, Gerald Bray (glbray@samford.edu). It is intended that the complete list will be published on the diocesan website during the course of 2009 and kept updated.
Curate-in-charge:
From To
1842/10/24 Charles Perry See below.
Perpetual curates:
1845/01/02 Charles Perry 1847/05/14 R (1)
1847/05/30 John Scott 1863/01/08 R
1863/01/08 Henry Hall 1890/11/06 R
Vicars:
1891/01/10 Henry Paine Stokes 1917/11/20 R
1918/01/21 Johnston Carnegie Brown 1928/09/10 R
1928/10/11 John Arthur Gibson Ainley 1937/04/07 R
1937/04/07 Gerard William Joseph Gregson 1944/06/30 R
1944/10/03 William Hooker Rowdon 1947/08/21 R
1948/04/08 Kenneth Howard Hooker 1958/06/21 R
1958/06/21 Herbert Moore Carson 1965/02/16 R
1965/06/21 John Gwyn Joseph Gwyn-Thomas 1977/11/21
1978/09/19 Michael Robert Wedlake Farrer 1992/09/30 R
1993/03/02 (2) Michael Shaun Beckett
Assistant curates:
1846/01/19 John Young Nicholson 1858 R
1858/11/14 Frederic Edward Wigram 1863 R
1859/06/19 William Saumarez Smith 1861 R
1865/10/25 Richard Judd 1868 R
1868/12/20 Joseph Cullin 1870 R
1869/10/01 David Arthur Williams 1872 R
1870/12/18 Algernon Howell Smith 1873 R
1873/07/28 Daniel Beales Redfarn Banham 1876 R
1875/05/23 Henry Paine Stokes 1877 R
1877/02/21 George Archer 1880 R
1877/07/16 Thomas Ivens 1878 R
1877/12/07 Henry William Fulford 1881 R
1878/12/22 William Warren 1880 R
1891/11/03 Henry Wilmot Watson 1900 R
1900/07/26 John Merrin 1906 R
1906/12/10 James Turkington 1908 R
1907/12/13 Claude Herbert Grant Cowen 1912 R
1911/12/17 James Yorke Batley 1913 R
1912/07/24 Frederick George Marriott 1915 R
1916/10/02 George Frederick Saywell 1918 R
1919/03/07 John Hilton 1920 R
1922/03/20 John Crawford Trotter 1924 R
1924/09/21 Edward Stanley Farrow 1926 R
1928/01/14 Archibald Maclulich Maclulich 1929/08/02 R
1932/10/22 Arthur Hamilton Paget Wilkes 1933 R
1935/12/15 Gordon Hyslop 1937 R
1938/04/07 William George Lee 1944 R
1945/04/30 Alwyn Cobb 1948 R
1949/09/28 Lawrence Davies 1954 R
1953/05/29 Bruce Douglas Reed 1954 R
1953/06/14 Harold Geoffrey Platt 1956 R
1954/11/29 Cuthbert Mark Ruston 1955/05/12 R
1957/06/16 David Charles Knight 1958 R
1958/09/21 John Geoffrey Sharpe 1961 R
1961/05/28 John Roger Bowen 1965 R
1968/10/06 Peter Ernest Dale 1971 R
1971/06/27 David Douglas Sceats 1974 R
1975/06/29 Henry Butler 1977/05/04 R
1981/06/28 Roger William Morgan (NSM) 1984 R
1987/04/04 Diane Beverley Lammas* 1990 R
2000/07/01 Christopher John Rose (NSM)
(1) Became the first bishop of Melbourne (1847-76)
(2) Priest-in-charge. Became vicar on 11 September 1994