St George's German Lutheran Church

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name = St. George's German Lutheran Church
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denomination = Lutheran
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founded_date = 1762
founder = Dietrich Beckman
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address = Alie Street, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
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St George's German Lutheran Church is a church in Alie Street, Whitechapel.

From its founding in 1762 until 1996 it was used by German Lutherans. It then became the headquarters of the "Historic Chapel Association". The church is still used for organ recitals.

St George's was the fifth Lutheran church to be build in London. It is now the oldest surviving German Lutheran church in the UK. At the time, the street was called "Little Ayliffe Street" and the area was called "Goodman's Fields". The founder was Dietrich Beckman, an wealthy sugar refiner. Beckman's cousin, Gustav Anton Wachsel from Halberstadt, became the first pastor. This area of Whitechapel had many sugar refiners of German descent in the nineteenth century and they constituted most of the congregation. From 1853 the churchyard and crypt were closed, and no longer accepted burials. At its height, there were an estimated 16,000 German Lutherans in whitechapel. The last major influx of Germans was in the 1930s, when refugees fled the Nazis. Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached here for a brief period in 1935. The wooden pews, complete with swing doors, remain intact.

The St John and St Croix refugees

In 1763 about 600 Germans from the Palatines and Würzburg attempted to travel to the islands of St John and St Croix. Unfortunately the officer in charge abandoned them in London with no money or resources. They had no knowledge of English. The same Gustav Anton Wachsel who was pastor of the church appealed for help on their behalf. The tower of London gave them 200 tents to pretect them form the rain, and there were charitable continutions of 600 pounds. King George III intervened and enabled them to travel to Carolina instead (at that time British territory).

The St George's German church book collection

Gustav von Anton's collection of books were kept in the vestry and found themselves in the care of the "Historical Chapel Association", together with later additions to the library. They amounted to about 750 books, including early eighteenth-century prints of the "Waisenhaus in Halle" and Gottfried Keller's "Die Leute von Seldwyla". In autumn 1995 there was a break in. The burglars possibly did not know the value of the books. None were taken but the Historical Chapel Association decided it would be safer to donate them to the British Library.

There are books and michrofiches available for bapitisms 1763 - 1895.

The organ was built in 1886 by the Walcker family. They used the organ case of the previous organ (John England, 1794). When the organ was rebuilt in 1937, the case was reused. The name of the street changed to "Alie Street" about 1800.

External references

* [http://www.walckerorgel.de/gewalcker.de/english/english.htm History of the Walcker family]
* [http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/germans.htm Germans in Whitechapel]
* [http://www.upamerica.org/roots/rootsappb.pdf the St John refugees]
* [http://www.bl.uk/collections/georgs.html The British Library collection of books from St George's]
* [http://www.hct.org.uk/chapel13stgeorges.html Historic Chapels Trust]