The Parish of Our Lady and Saint Joseph,
Kingsland, Hackney
The year 2004 marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment in Kingsland, in the borough of Hackney, of the parish of Our Lady and Saint Joseph, and the establishment of the first Catholic church in Kingsland.
The historical background to this event is well known. In the reign of King Henry VIII, England broke away from the Church of Rome, and for several centuries after that Catholics in England were not able to practise their faith freely or hold any kind of public office. In spite of this, a few Catholic families in Hackney secretly continued to practise their faith, even though they had no public place of worship. In 1790, fourteen such families were listed as living in Hackney. Gradually, over the years, persecution of Catholics lessened and finally the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 removed almost all restrictions on Roman Catholics.
Soon after this, in 1833, in Oxford University, a movement for spiritual renewal in the Church of England, called the Oxford movement, began and was to lead eventually to the conversion of a number of highly educated Anglicans to the Roman Catholic Church. This movement became very influential in England and is of relevance to us in Our Lady and Saint Joseph’s Parish because Father William Lockhart, who was appointed as our first parish priest in1854, had been an Anglican parish priest who had joined the Movement. Its leaders, including John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman, emphasised the importance of church tradition and the sacraments. They advocated the restoration to Anglicanism of features such as monastic religious communities like those existing in the Roman Catholic Church. They also wanted an increased use of choral music and a return to the ritual of the Catholic Church.
In 1843 Father William Lockhart (1819-1892) became the first of a community led by Newman who left the Church of England and joined the Roman Catholic Church. Newman joined the Church in 1845, after Father Lockhart. Father Lockhart then joined a new order called the Institute of Charity (the Rosminians).
At the same time that this movement of Anglican converts to Catholicism was taking place, the immigration of Catholics into England was also growing and the number of Catholics was also growing and the number of Catholics living in Kingsland exploded. As a direct result of the potato famine in Ireland, large numbers of Irish immigrants settled in many large towns in England but although they were Catholic, there were few Catholic churches in existence where they could worship. There was an urgent need for churches to be built to provide for this rapidly increasing Catholic population. The first Roman Catholic church in Hackney was Saint John the Baptist on Mare Street, which was built in 1848 (but bombed in the Second World War and later rebuilt), while a church was opened in Kingsland in 1854.
The original interior of Our Lady & St Joseph's
Back to Contents
NB: If you would like to know more about the work of Fr Lockhart, please visit the history section of the web site of St. Etheldreda's Catholic church in Holborn, London: www.stetheldreda.com