Newington Green
Encyclopedia
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
which straddles the border between Islington
London Borough of Islington
The London Borough of Islington is a London borough in Inner London. It was formed in 1965 by merging the former metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, Islington North and Islington South & Finsbury...
and Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
. It gives its name to the surrounding area, roughly bounded by Ball's Pond Road to the south, Petherton Road to the west, the southern section of Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
with Green Lanes
Green Lanes
Green Lanes, London, is a main road in North London and forms part of the A105. At approximately 7.5 miles from end to end, it is one of the longest streets in the capital....
-Matthias Road to the north, and Boleyn Road to the east. The Green itself
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
is in N16 and the area is covered by the N16, N1 and N5 postcodes.
Origins
The first record of the area is as 'Neutone' in the DomesdayDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
Survey of 1086, when it still formed part of the demesne
Demesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
of St Paul’s Cathedral. The thirteenth century saw Newton become Newington, whilst the prefix 'Stoke' was added in the area to the north, distinguishing it from Newington Barrow or Newington Berners in Islington. Newington Barrow later became known as Highbury
Highbury
- Early Highbury :The area now known as Islington was part of the larger manor of Tolentone, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Tolentone was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Road. The manor house was situated by what is now...
, after the manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
built on a hill.
There was probably a medieval settlement, and the prevailing activity was agriculture, growing hay and food for the inhabitants of nearby London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. By the 15th century the area had become more prosperous and in 1445 there were a good number of Londoners living in the hamlet. The name Newington Green was first mentioned in 1480. By the 1490s it was fringed by cottages, homesteads and crofts on the three sides in Newington Barrow manor in Islington. The north side was divided between the manors of Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
and Brownswood
Brownswood (ward)
Brownswood is a ward in the London Borough of Hackney and forms part of the Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency.The ward returns three councillors to the Borough Council holding an election every four years. At the previous election on 6 May 2010 Brian Bell, Feryat Demirci, and Oli de...
in South Hornsey
Hornsey
Hornsey is a district in London Borough of Haringey in north London in England. Whilst Hornsey was formerly the name of a parish and later a municipal borough of Middlesex, today, the name refers only to the London district. It is an inner-suburban area located north of Charing Cross.-Locale:The ...
.
Royal visitors and ministers
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
. The king himself used a house on the south side of the Green as a base for hunting the wild bulls, stag
STAG
STAG: A Test of Love is a reality TV show hosted by Tommy Habeeb. Each episode profiles an engaged couple a week or two before their wedding. The cameras then follow the groom on his bachelor party...
s and wild boars that roamed the surrounding forest.
In 1523 a resident of the north side of the Green, the future 6th Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English nobleman, active as a military officer in the north. He is now primarily remembered as the betrothed of Anne Boleyn, whom he was forced to give up before she became involved with King Henry VIII.-Early life:He was eldest son of Henry...
became engaged to Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
. At the time he was page
Page (servant)
A page or page boy is a traditionally young male servant, a messenger at the service of a nobleman or royal.-The medieval page:In medieval times, a page was an attendant to a knight; an apprentice squire...
to Cardinal Wolsey. Lord Percy had not sought permission from either his father
Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Algernon Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English noble who was a member of the courts of both Henry VII and Henry VIII.-Biography:...
or the king, causing Wolsey to scold him and his father to refuse the marriage. He later found himself a member of the jury that convicted Anne of adultery. His home, Brook House, stood at the northeast corner of the square. It contained a central courtyard and was decorated with gilded and painted wainscotting. It was later demolished, renamed Bishop's Place, and divided into tenements for the poor.
In 1535 Henry VIII's chief minister (i.e. prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
), Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, , was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540....
, took up residence at Canonbury Tower to the south of the area, from where he organised the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
and their transfer into royal ownership. (Just a year later Cromwell was accused of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
and executed on spurious evidence.) Other Tower residents included, in the 16th century, John Dudley
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, KG was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death...
, Earl of Warwick and afterwards Duke of Northumberland, general, admiral, and politician; in the 17th century, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, the father of the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
, at that time the Attorney General, and Sir Thomas Coventry
Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry
Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry was a prominent English lawyer, politician and judge during the early 17th century.-Education and early legal career:...
, afterwards Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the English Crown charged with physical custody of the Great Seal of England. This evolved into one of the Great Officers of State....
; in the 18th century, Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
, the writer.
Samuel Pepys
The famous 17th century diarist Samuel PepysSamuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...
was sent to the Newington Green and Kingsland area by his mother in order to benefit from the fresh air and open spaces of what was a rural area at that time.
Mildmay
Newington Green's history is marked by several streets in the area taking their name from this period, such as King Henry’s Walk, Boleyn Road (formally Ann Boleyn’s Walk), Wolsey Road and Queen Elizabeth’s Walk. Many other thoroughfares are named after the Mildmay estate, including Mildmay Park, Mildmay Grove North and Mildmay Grove South. Sir Walter Mildmay was the Chancellor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth I. He was one of the special commissioners in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, and founded Emmanuel College, CambridgeEmmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
in 1584.
His grandson Sir Henry Mildmay
Henry Mildmay
Sir Henry Mildmay was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1659. He supported the Parliamentarian cause in the English Civil War and was one of the Regicides of Charles I of England....
served as MP and was Master of the Jewel House for Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
. Henry was critical of the king's religious policies, supported Parliament during the civil wars
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
and attended the king's trial. After the Restoration Henry was arrested for his part in the regicide
Regicide
The broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after a trial...
, but granted leniency because he had refused to sign the king's death warrant. Instead of the death penalty he was sent to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
, stripped of his knighthood and his estates and sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
.
Mildmay Mission Hospital was founded in the 1890s, inspired by the work of the Reverend William Pennefather during the cholera epidemic of 1866. It was absorbed into the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
(NHS) in 1948, and in the 1980s began pioneering work into the treatment of patients with HIV/AIDS, which it continues.
These days Newington Green has largely absorbed the settlement of Mildmay, which took its name from the family. Its designation is still used by the local council and can be seen in the names of many local streets to the southeast of the Green. Mildmay may have started on the road to eclipse as early as 1934, when its North London Railway station
North London Railway
The North London Railway was a railway company that opened lines connecting the north of London to the East and West India Docks. The main east to west route is now part the North London Line. Other lines operated by the company fell into disuse, but were later revived as part of the Docklands...
, Mildmay Park
Mildmay Park railway station
Mildmay Park railway station is a former railway station on the North London Line between Canonbury and Dalston Kingsland stations. The station was on Mildmay Park between Newington Green and Balls Pond Road....
, on the road of the same name, was closed. The old station building was demolished in 1987, but remnants of the old platforms can still be seen at track level. The Mildmay area has also suffered by being wedged between areas with far more well-established identities, Newington Green itself, prosperous Canonbury
Canonbury
Canonbury is a residential district in the London Borough of Islington in the north of London. It is roughly in the area between Essex Road, Upper Street and Cross Street and either side of St Paul's Road....
and dynamic Dalston
Dalston
Dalston is a district of north-east London, England, located in the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
in Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
.
Nonconformists and the Dissenting Academies
The area became the home of English DissentersEnglish Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
during the 17th century. Following the religious upheavals after the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
, some Protestants chose to remain in England and maintain their faith openly, but they had to live with the restrictions the state placed upon them. They moved to places tolerant of them; often they set up educational establishments, known in general as dissenting academies
Dissenting academies
The dissenting academies were schools, colleges and nonconformist seminaries run by dissenters. They formed a significant part of England’s educational systems from the mid-seventeenth to nineteenth centuries....
, which were intellectually and morally more rigorous than the universities. One such place was Newington Green, then still an agricultural village, but conveniently near London (though there were highway robbers between the Green and Islington ). Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
's family had links there : his great-granddaughter Mary was born at the Green on 11 April 1691.
A critical mass
Critical mass
A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The...
of "dissident intellectuals, pedagogues with reforming ideas and Dissenters" and "the well-to-do edge of radical Protestantism" clustered around Newington Green, and other villages nearby such as Stoke Newington and Hackney. Not all of these free-thinkers were Unitarians: other notables include the Quaker physician John Coakley Lettsome and the Anglican pacifist Vicesimus Knox
Vicesimus Knox
Vicesimus Knox was an English essayist and minister. He was born December 8, 1752, at Newington Green, Middlesex. Knox was educated at St John's College, Oxford, took orders, and became Head Master of Tonbridge School. He published Essays Moral and Literary , and compiled the formerly well-known...
.
One such academy was set up on north of the Green, run by Charles Morton
Charles Morton (educator)
Charles Morton was a Cornish nonconformist minister and founder of an early dissenting academy, later in life associated in New England with Harvard College.-Life:...
. One of the academy's students was Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
, the writer, journalist and spy famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
. Another pupil was the controversial poet Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley (poet)
Samuel Wesley was a poet and a writer of controversial prose. He was also the father of John Wesley and Charles Wesley, founders of the Methodist Church.-Family and early life:...
, father of John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, the great religious leader. A later schoolmaster was the Rev. James Burgh
James Burgh
James Burgh was a British Whig politician whose book Political Disquisitions set out an early case for free speech and universal suffrage: In it, he writes, "All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people." He has been judged "one of England's foremost propagandists...
, author of The Dignity of Human Nature and Thoughts on Education, who opened his Dissenting Academy on the green in 1750 and sent his pupils to the church there.
Unitarian Church, Price and Wollstonecraft
Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London is one of England's oldest Unitarian churches. It has had strong ties to political radicalism for over 300 years, and is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use...
was built on the north, Hackney side of the Green. The minister whose name is still remembered centuries later is Dr Richard Price
Richard Price
Richard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...
, a libertarian and republican who cemented the village's "reputation as a centre for radical thinkers and social reformers". He arrived in 1758 with his wife Sarah, and took up residence in No. 54 the Green, in the middle of a terrace even then a hundred years old (The building still survives as London's oldest brick terrace, dated 1658). A large number of important politicians, thinkers, reformers, and writers visited him at Newington Green, including Founding Fathers of the United States
Founding Fathers of the United States
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, establishing the United States Constitution, or by some...
, British politicians such as Lord Lyttleton
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton PC , known as Sir George Lyttelton, Bt between 1751 and 1756, was a British politician and statesman and a patron of the arts.-Background and education:...
, the Earl of Shelburne
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
William Petty-FitzMaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, KG, PC , known as The Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history, was an Irish-born British Whig statesman who was the first Home Secretary in 1782 and then Prime Minister 1782–1783 during the final...
, Earl Stanhope
Earl Stanhope
Earl Stanhope was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1718 for James Stanhope, 1st Viscount Stanhope, the principal minister of King George I, with remainder to the heirs male of his body. Stanhope was the son of the Hon. Alexander Stanhope, fifth and youngest son of Philip...
(known as "Citizen Stanhope"), and even the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
William Pitt
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC was a British Whig statesman who led Britain during the Seven Years' War...
; philosophers David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
and Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
; agitators such as prison reformer John Howard
John Howard (prison reformer)
John Howard was a philanthropist and the first English prison reformer.-Birth and early life:Howard was born in Lower Clapton, London. His father, also John, was a wealthy upholsterer at Smithfield Market in the city...
, gadfly
Gadfly
Gadfly can refer to:* "Gadfly", a fly that annoys horses and other livestock, usually a horse-fly or a botfly*Social gadfly, a person who upsets the status quo*Gadfly , a relational database in the Python programming language...
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke
John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
and husband and wife John and Ann Jebb
Ann Jebb
Ann Jebb , political reformer and radical writer, was born at Ripton-Kings, Huntingdonshire, to Lady Dorothy Sherard and the Revd James Torkington. She grew up in Huntingdonshire and was probably educated at home. She married religious and political reformer John Jebb in 1764 and fully shared his...
. Price was fortunate in forming close friendships among his neighbours and congregants. One was Thomas Rogers, father of poet and banker Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
, a merchant turned banker who had married into a long-established Dissenting family and lived at No. 56 the Green. Another was the Rev. James Burgh
James Burgh
James Burgh was a British Whig politician whose book Political Disquisitions set out an early case for free speech and universal suffrage: In it, he writes, "All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people." He has been judged "one of England's foremost propagandists...
, author of The Dignity of Human Nature and Thoughts on Education, who opened his Dissenting Academy on the green in 1750 and sent his pupils to Price's sermons. Price, Rogers, and Burgh formed a dining club, eating at each other's houses in rotation. When Joseph Priestley's support of dissent
Joseph Priestley and Dissent
Joseph Priestley was a British natural philosopher, political theorist, clergyman, theologian, and educator...
led to the riots named after him
Priestley Riots
The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley...
, he fled Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and headed for the sanctuary of Newington Green, where Rogers took him in.
Arguably the most important resident of the Green was the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
, who moved her fledgling school for girls from Islington to Newington Green in 1784, with the help of a fairy godmother
Fairy godmother
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies...
. This was Mrs Burgh, widow of the educationalist, who used her influence to find the young schoolmistress a house to rent and twenty students to fill it. The flavour of the village and the approach of these Rational Dissenters appealed to Wollstonecraft: they were hard-working, humane, critical but uncynical, and respectful towards women. The ideas Wollstonecraft ingested from the sermons at NGUC pushed her towards a political awakening. A couple of years after she had had to leave Newington Green, these seeds germinated into A Vindication of the Rights of Men
A Vindication of the Rights of Men
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France is a political pamphlet, written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism...
, a response to Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
's denunciation of the French Revolution and attack on Price. In 1792 she published the work for which she is best remembered, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects , written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th...
, in the spirit of rationalism extending Price's arguments about equality to women. Newington Green had made its mark on Mary, and through this founding work of feminist philosophy
Feminist philosophy
Feminist philosophy refers to philosophy approached from a feminist perspective. Feminist philosophy involves both attempts to use the methods of philosophy to further the cause of the feminist movements, and attempts to criticise or re-evaluate the ideas of traditional philosophy from within a...
, on the world.
The New River
New River (England)
The New River is an artificial waterway in England, opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water taken from the River Lea and from Amwell Springs , and other springs and wells along its course....
should be constructed to provide London with its first clean, fresh water. Sir Hugh Myddleton
Hugh Myddleton
Sir Hugh Myddelton , 1st Baronet was a Welsh goldsmith, clothmaker, banker, entrepreneur, mine-owner and self-taught engineer...
, a Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
, was given the responsibility, and in 1609 he built a canal from the Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
rivers of Chadwell
Chadwell
Chadwell may refer to:* Chadwell, Leicestershire* Chadwell, Shropshire* Chadwell Heath in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham* Chadwell Springs in Hertfordshire - one of the sources of the New River * Chadwell St Mary in Thurrock...
and Amwell
Amwell
Amwell can refer to:* Amwell, Hertfordshire in England* Amwell Township, New Jersey in the USA, since subdivided into:**East Amwell Township, New Jersey**West Amwell Township, New Jersey* Amwell Township, Pennsylvania in the USA...
, 38 miles to the New River Head Reservoir at Amwell Street in Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...
. Originally open to the air, the aqueduct flowed down the centre of the present day Petherton Road. It was later covered for sanitary reasons.
In 1808, Rochemont Barbauld was appointed minister to Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London is one of England's oldest Unitarian churches. It has had strong ties to political radicalism for over 300 years, and is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use...
. His wife, Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and children's author.A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare...
(1743–1825), was a prolific writer, admired by Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
and William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
. She enjoyed a long friendship with Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
and William Enfield
William Enfield
William Enfield was a British Unitarian minister who published a bestselling book on elocution entitled The Speaker .-Life:...
, starting from their years together at the Warrington Academy
Warrington Academy
Warrington Academy, active as a teaching establishment from 1756 to 1782, was a prominent dissenting academy, that is, a school or college set up by those who dissented from the state church in England...
in the 1760s, where her father was tutor. She wrote poems (including a tribute to Priestley), hymns, children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
, and political and religious tracts. She was an abolitionist, addressing one of her works to William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
. 1793 saw her contribution to the Pamphlet War
Revolution Controversy
The Revolution Controversy was a British debate over the French Revolution, lasting from 1789 through 1795. A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy...
, "Sins of the Government, Sins of the Nation". Two years later she wrote The Rights of Women, but this was not published until her death thirty years later. Rochemont eventually went violently insane, attacked his wife and committed suicide by drowning himself in the river.
In 1946 the supply was redirected at Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington
Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
and in 1990 the New River was replaced by deep mains. Part of the New River’s original course through Canonbury
Canonbury
Canonbury is a residential district in the London Borough of Islington in the north of London. It is roughly in the area between Essex Road, Upper Street and Cross Street and either side of St Paul's Road....
has now been turned into an ornamental walk.
Synagogues and Jewish life
Other religious institutions existed nearby. Jews fleeing the pogromPogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
established a congregation by 1876, and built the Dalston
Dalston
Dalston is a district of north-east London, England, located in the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated northeast of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
Synagogue in adjoining Poets Road in 1885. This became one of the leading synagogues of London, with Jacob Koussevitzsky as its cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
from 1936.
For a period from the end of the nineteenth century, the Newington Green Area was host to a large Jewish population which was beginning to leave the East End and move northwards towards Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill. The original Adath Israel orthodox congregation was founded in 1911 and its first permanent building was in Alma Road, off Green Lanes, before moving on towards Stoke Newington and the other side of Clissold Park in the 1950s. A large United Synagogue
United Synagogue
United Synagogue is an organisation of London Jews that was founded with the sanction of an Act of Parliament, in 1870. , it remains the largest religious grouping within the British Jewish community and indeed in Europe, covering 62 Orthodox Jewish communities...
was built in Poets Road in the 1870s and remained active until it closed down in the late 1960s, as the remaining Jewish population moved on further afield. At its height, the Poets Road Synagogue (or as it was known the Dalston Synagogue despite the fact that it was not in Dalston) had hundreds of worshippers and, for a short while in the 1950s, was the home of one of the worlds leading cantors, a member of the Kusevitsky family.
The synagogue site was eventually sold and the beautiful building, along with its stained glass windows, was demolished in 1970 and replaced by a block of council flats, leaving no trace of the Jewish life which existed in this area.
19th century
The early part of the 19th century saw a change in the character of Newington Green. After a patient struggle of 150 years, the English DissentersEnglish Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
were finally freed from their civil disabilities with the passage of the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813. With, it seemed, nothing left to fight for on that front, Nonconformists no longer needed the security of the Newington Green, and the area lost some of its intellectual cohesiveness. The church touched a low point. The nature of Newington Green had changed—the fresh bucolic village had been swallowed up by London's relentless growth, and had become a "thriving and expanding suburb". With this growth of prosperity also came a tide of poverty, and this was to prove the mission for the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. A hundred years before, the ethos had been one of almost Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
self-reliance, but now the Dickensian poverty, evident in cholera epidemics and rampant malnutrition, made social responsibility an urgent necessity. The minister who guided the first 25 years of this (1839–64) was Thomas Cromwell, FSA
Society of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
(1792–1870). (Like many Anglican vicars, one of his hobbies was local history
Local history
Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context and it often concentrates on the local community. It incorporates cultural and social aspects of history...
.) In 1840, a Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
was set up for poor children, and soon thereafter a Domestic Mission Society, to visit the poor in their homes. A library and a savings club emphasised self-help. A regular day school
Day school
A day school—as opposed to a boarding school—is an institution where children are given educational instruction during the day and after which children/teens return to their homes...
ran from 1860 for ten years, until primary education became the responsibility of the state with the passing of the Elementary Education Act 1870
Elementary Education Act 1870
The Elementary Education Act 1870, commonly known as Forster's Education Act, set the framework for schooling of all children between ages 5 and 12 in England and Wales...
.
The "small but energetic community" continued to campaign on the larger political stage. Religious freedom and self-improvement were their watchwords. In the last decades of the 19th century, the church throve and its congregation grew to 80 subscribers. The London Sunday School Society recognised the one at Newington Green as the best in its class, educating up to 200 children and necessitating the construction in 1887 of the schoolhouse immediately behind the main church building. A range of groups sprang up, ranging from intellectual (a Society for Mutual Theological Study) to recreational (cycling and cricket). Young men's and young women's groups met, as did the mothers' meeting, a Provident Society
Industrial and Provident Society
An industrial and provident society is a legal entity for a trading business or voluntary organisation in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and New Zealand...
, and teetotalism
Teetotalism
Teetotalism refers to either the practice of or the promotion of complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. A person who practices teetotalism is called a teetotaler or is simply said to be teetotal...
(abstinence from alcohol) support for adults
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
and children
Hope UK
Hope UK is a national Christian charity located at 25 Copperfield Street, London, England which educates children and young people about drug and alcohol abuse.-Band of Hope:...
. Other issues of concern were education, social reform and women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
.
Some individuals who lived at the Green during this period included Thomas Rees
Thomas Rees (Unitarian minister)
Thomas Rees , Welsh Nonconformist divine, was a Unitarian minister and scholar.Rees was educated at the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen, and entered the Unitarian ministry in 1807 at the Newington Green Unitarian Church, London. He went to Southwark in 1813, earned the degree of LL.D...
, the minister after Barbauld, who was a leading authority of the history of Unitarianism
History of Unitarianism
Unitarianism, both as a theology and as a denominational family of churches, was first defined and developed in England and America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, although theological ancestors are to be found in the Protestant Reformation and even as far back as the early days of...
, and made connections with the Unitarian Church of Transylvania
Unitarian Church of Transylvania
The Unitarian Church of Transylvania is a church of the Unitarian denomination, based in the city of Cluj in the Principality of Transylvania, present day in Romania...
. Alexander Gilchrist
Alexander Gilchrist
Alexander Gilchrist was the biographer of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography is still a standard reference work on the poet....
, son of another minister, was the biographer of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
. Andrew Pritchard improved the microscope
History of optics
Optics began with the development of lenses by the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians, followed by theories on light and vision developed by ancient Greek and Indian philosophers, and the development of geometrical optics in the Greco-Roman world. The word optics is derived from the Greek term τα...
and studied microscopic organisms; he was a friend of Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
and for him, science and religion
Relationship between religion and science
The relationship between religion and science has been a focus of the demarcation problem. Somewhat related is the claim that science and religion may pursue knowledge using different methodologies. Whereas the scientific method basically relies on reason and empiricism, religion also seeks to...
were one. He led the Newington Green Conversation Society, membership restricted to 16, a successor to the Mutual Instruction Society. Marian Pritchard is described as an unsung heroine, and "one of the leaders of modern Unitarianism". She set up Oxford Summer Schools for the training of Sunday School teachers and Winifred House Invalid Children's Convalescent Home. John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
recalls his family living in Newington Green "from 1810 to the end of 1813"; it was at the time "an almost rustic neighbourhood", and it was during walks with his father before breakfast "generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey" ("my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers") that John Stuart would recount to James Mill
James Mill
James Mill was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was a founder of classical economics, together with David Ricardo, and the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill.-Life:Mill was born at Northwater Bridge, in the parish of...
what he had learnt reading the previous day.
20th century
Then came 1914, and the horrors of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Men from Newington Green fell in battle. Meanwhile, many of the older people with long family ties to Newington Green simply died. The professional middle class had largely left the area. By 1930 "it was whispered that the church could not survive", but it did, with an influential supporter, an alderman and councillor in the Borough of Stoke Newington. Although attendance at services was low, other activities drew in crowds: 100 to the temperance meetings, for example. The outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
meant that children were evacuated temporarily from London, so the Sunday Schools and Young People's Leagues ceased for a time. The Sunday services never missed a week, however, even when the building was badly damaged by a landmine blast: they just moved to the schoolhouse. After the war, the ministry focused on building bridges between races and faiths, e.g. with the Jewish community of North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
and was recognised by the World Congress of Faiths. Services were often attended by local politicians, including the mayor of Stoke Newington. Leaders for the national Unitarian movement continued to be found within the congregation at Newington Green.
Newington Green today
Garden square
A garden square is an open space with buildings surrounding a garden, often located in fashionable urban areas. There are many garden squares in London, England, for example. The large estates in London, e.g., the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury, included garden squares in their development....
, was for many years just a run-down green space that straddled the border between Islington N1 and Hackney N16. However, in 1979 the Newington Green Action Group (NGAG) was formed to spearhead the regeneration of the area. NGAG worked with Islington Council on this project and traffic calming
Traffic calming
Traffic calming is intended to slow or reduce motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve the living conditions for residents as well as to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming...
measures were installed to ease the notorious local congestion, with additional pedestrian crossing
Pedestrian crossing
A pedestrian crossing or crosswalk is a designated point on a road at which some means are employed to assist pedestrians wishing to cross. They are designed to keep pedestrians together where they can be seen by motorists, and where they can cross most safely across the flow of vehicular traffic...
s that mean pedestrians no longer risk life and limb in the quest for a bit of greenery. The Green itself was regenerated to include more lawn space, a play area and a café. New planting has enhanced the Green and was chosen to encourage biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
.
Newington Green has grown in popularity with the local multi-cultural community, evinced by the children that now play in the formerly deserted park, which is once more being used like a village green. Community groups hold fairs on the Green and NGAG has organised many events including the annual Jazz on the Green and Open Garden Squares day. These improvements are such that in 2006, Newington Green won the first of many Green Flag Award
Green Flag Award
The Green Flag Award is the benchmark national standard for parks and green spaces in the United Kingdom. The scheme was set up in 1996 to recognise and reward green spaces in England and Wales that met the laid down high standards...
s (the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
, sponsored by Keep Britain Tidy
Keep Britain Tidy
Keep Britain Tidy is a British campaign run by the Keep Britain Tidy environmental charity, which is part funded by the UK government. The majority of their campaigning is around the issue of litter. They have been using "Keep Britain Tidy" as their slogan for almost fifty years...
). It has also won the Green Heritage Site Award for several years running, which is sponsored by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. In 2010 NGAG teamed up with the Mayville Gardening Club and the King Henry's Walk Community Garden; the Newington Green area was awarded a High Silver Gilt Royal Horticultural Society
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...
Urban Communities Award, as part of the London in Bloom
Britain in Bloom
RHS Britain in Bloom, supported by Anglian Home Improvements, is the largest horticultural campaign in the United Kingdom. It was first held in 1963, initiated by the British Tourist Board based on the example set by Fleurissement de France. It has been organised by the Royal Horticultural Society ...
Scheme.
The Newington Green Action Group also published a local history
Local history
Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context and it often concentrates on the local community. It incorporates cultural and social aspects of history...
book The Village That Changed the World: A History of Newington Green London N16 by Alex Allardyce in 2008, which won the Walter Bor Award the following year.
Newington Green and Newington Green Road to the south constitute the commercial and cultural centre of the district. This area shares in the gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
of Islington and Stoke Newington, so the old shopping area has now been supplemented by a number of new and trendy shops, bars and restaurants. However, there is a substantial Turkish Cypriot community in the area which run many of the grocery stores in the area.
Since the millennium, two new ministers at the Unitarian Church have injected energy into the Green and added to its events and publicity. Cathal (Cal) Courtney, characterised as a "radical spirit" who had made a "remarkable spiritual journey", opened the church for a multi-faith silent protest vigil through the night before the huge march against the Iraq War
February 15, 2003 anti-war protest
The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world expressing opposition to the then-imminent Iraq War. It was part of a series of protests and political events that had begun in 2002 and continued as the war took place....
. He used his inaugural column in the N16
N postcode area
The N postcode area, also known as the London N postcode area, is the part of the London post town covering part of North London, England....
magazine to address the international furore around Gene Robinson
Gene Robinson
Vicki Gene Robinson is the ninth bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop in 2003 and entered office in March 2004...
's election as bishop. He was written about as the Right-On Reverend in The Oldie
The Oldie
The Oldie is a monthly magazine launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who for 23 years was the editor of Private Eye. It carries general interest articles, humour and cartoons, and has an eclectic list of contributors, including James Le Fanu, John Sweeney, Thomas Stuttaford, Virginia Ironside,...
s monthly "East of Islington" column. Courtney revived the Richard Price Memorial Lecture, which had last been given in 1981. NGUC now sponsors it annually, to "(address) a topical or important aspect of liberty, reason and ethics."
The current minister is Andrew (Andy) Pakula, an American who grew up in a Jewish family in New York. Newington Green Unitarian Church made history when it became the first religious establishment in Britain to refuse to carry out any weddings at all until same-sex couples have the right to full legal marriage. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
called it a "gay rights church" for its unanimous committee vote suspending full wedding services.
NGUC celebrated its tercentenary in 2008 under the slogan "300 years of dissent", marking this with events such as planting a crab apple tree, organising a picnic in conjunction with the Newington Green Action Group, and hosting a concert of Ottoman classical music
Ottoman classical music
Ottoman classical music developed in Istanbul and major Ottoman towns from Skopje to Cairo, from Tabriz to Morocco through the palace, mosques, and sufi lodges of the Ottoman Empire. Above all a vocal music, Ottoman music traditionally accompanies a solo singer with a small instrumental ensemble...
. (Newington Green has a strong Turkish population.) The following year it commemorated the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mary Wollstonecraft, attaching a large banner to the railings outside the building, proclaiming it the "birthplace of feminism", in a nod to the formative years that she spent worshipping there. NGUC sponsored a series of events, including a return visit and lecture by biographer Barbara Taylor; a panel discussion about women and power, between female politicians Diane Abbott
Diane Abbott
Diane Julie Abbott is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she became the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons...
MP, Jean Lambert
Jean Lambert
Jean Denise Lambert is an English politician, and Member of the European Parliament for the London Region. A member of the Green Party of England and Wales, she has been an MEP since 1999...
MEP, and Emily Thornberry
Emily Thornberry
Emily Anne Thornberry is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005.-Before Parliament:...
MP; an art exhibition entitled Mother of Feminism; a concert featuring Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes
Carol Grimes is a smooth jazz and world music singer.Grimes came to prominence in 1969 as a member of Delivery, associated with the Canterbury Scene. During the 1970s she performed regularly on the London blues circuit with her band The London Boogie Band...
and Adey Grummet to raise money for Stop the Traffik
Stop the Traffik
STOP THE TRAFFIK was founded in 2006 by Steve Chalke MBE as a campaign coalition which aims to bring an end to human trafficking worldwide. Initially STOP THE TRAFFIK was set up as a two year campaign to coincide with the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade...
, an anti-trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
charity; a tombstone tribute at St Pancras Old Church
St Pancras Old Church
St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church in central London. It is believed to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, and is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Pancras, although the building itself is largely Victorian...
; a birthday cake baked by men; and other activities.
Weekly poetry readings are held at NGUC. It participates in the annual festival of architecture, Open House London
Open House London
Open House London is an organisation which promotes appreciation of architecture by the general public. It organises tours, lectures, educational projects for children and so on, but it is best known for Open House Weekend, a two-day event which takes place on one weekend each September throughout...
. It hosts occasional concerts, such as that given by the London Gallery Quire, and the Psallite Women's Choir.
Listed buildings
Terraced house
In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
, which is, unsurprisingly, Grade I listed. These were built in 1658, and 100 years later were home to Price and Rogers. Shop fronts were added to all of them in the 1880s, but have now been removed on three of the houses, presumably restoring something like their original appearance. Residential London, particularly outside Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
and the City, is essentially a 19th century city. Even in the centre, there are no brick houses this old, pre-dating the Great Fire
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
of 1666. Two of the properties have been extensively renovated under the guidance of Bere Architects (Islington).
The Green also has two Grade II listed buildings. To the north is the Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church
Newington Green Unitarian Church in north London is one of England's oldest Unitarian churches. It has had strong ties to political radicalism for over 300 years, and is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use...
, which celebrated its tercentenary in 2008. The original 1708 building was financed with £300 from goldsmith Edward Harrison. It was a "substantial brick building, of nearly square form, with the high, tiled, projecting roof, common at its era". "Historic views show that the original façade had a small pediment against a large hipped roof, with a central oval window below." This building was substantially extended and improved in the mid-19th century. An internal gallery was built to increase the seating available, and a few years later the roof and apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
were renewed, and a "stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
ed frontage" was built, "mirrroring the original façade with a three-bay front with two round-headed windows, but with added Tuscan pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and a large pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
". In the mid-20th century, the building was damaged by enemy action. In 1953 its architectural importance was recognised as a Grade II listed building.
On the west is its neighbour, the China Inland Mission
China Inland Mission
OMF International is an interdenominational Protestant Christian missionary society, founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.-Overview:...
headquarters, an organisation responsible for 18,000 converts to Christianity that had been founded by James Hudson Taylor at the height of the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
.
Further reading
- 'The Village that Changed the World: A History of Newington Green London N16 by Alex Allardyce.
- Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon. Little, Brown: 2005.
- Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Diane Jacobs. Simon & Schuster: 2001.
- Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination by Barbara Taylor. CUP: 2003.
- Trust in Freedom: The Story of Newington Green Unitarian Church 1708 - 1958 by Michael Thorncroft. Privately printed for church trustees, 1958.
- Chapter titles: The Fertile Soil; The Church is Built; The Early Years (1714–1758); The Age of Richard Price; New Causes for Old; The Ideal of Service; The Lights Go Out; The Present Day.
- The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 1974.
- "Gentrification: how was it for you?" Mandy Richards, The Guardian, 20 April 2005.
External links
- http://www.newingtongreen-nowandthen.org.uk