5 : Welcoming Irish navvies to Huntingdonshire
An influx of workers from Ireland swelled Huntingdon's population during the 19th century.
The first arrivals came during the early 1840s, working as navvies constructing the Great Northern Railway (today the East Coast Mainline). Devout Church of England worshipper Lady Olivia Bernard Sparrow saw the hundreds of Irishmen working on the railway construction, and felt moved to build a chapel for them.
Lady Olivia, born in 1774, was an extremely religious woman, a member of the evangelical tradition within Anglicanism. She is remembered today largely for the charitable building which she funded in Brampton, and for the Lady Olivia Bernard Sparrow Educational Foundation.
The site she chose for her chapel was where the old Georgian theatre was situated, at the junction of George Street and Brampton Road. This theatre had been built in 1801 but was considered by some townspeople to be rather ugly; Robert Carruthers, writing in 1834, wrote that its "exterior is mean and inelegant." The theatre was torn down and a chapel was erected in its place. Lady Olivia seems to have employed her own parson who gave communion without the consent of the Bishop of Ely.
|
|
Exterior of Lady Olivia's chapel [Huntingdonshire Archives: PH48/117] |
|
|
Plan and sketch of the interior. This drawing dates from the reconstruction of 1873: in the original chapel the pews were arranged across the hall, as in a traditional church, and there were two galleries running along the walls [Huntingdonshire Archives: Acc 4683] |
Unfortunately when she died in 1863 she left no funds in her will for the maintenance of the chapel, and it was given to the parish of All Saints for use as a parish hall. In 1873 it was consecrated as a Chapel of Ease for All Saints church, dedicated to St John. The chapel was deconsecrated in 1925, and its tower was demolished.
Even after the railway construction had moved on Huntingdon's population continued to grow, as Irish workers moved into the town to supply labour for the area's growing industries. The Earl of Sandwich, a major local landowner, organised the creation of Huntingdon's Newtown estate as an area where his Irish employees could live. Towards the end of the 19th century a timber Roman Catholic church was built for these workers on Hartford Road. This is the only known surviving photograph of the interior of the 19th century Catholic church.
|
|
Interior of the pre-1901 Roman Catholic Church on Hartford Road, Huntingdon [Huntingdonshire Archives: WH3/2028] |
In 1901 a more substantial church, dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, replaced the earlier wooden church on the same site.