Our Vision
CREATIVE
St. Bride’s is a place where people, the visual arts, music, and faith mix together
PROGRESSIVE
St. Bride’s is a church where the Christian story is lived and explored in a way that respects questions as much as answers with an openness to the insights of science and the ways of other faiths.
INCLUSIVE
St. Bride’s is a community where everyone can feel respected and at home, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, disability, class, or creed.
Our History
1829-present
Our Space
The foundation stone of St Bride's was laid on 25th August 1829.The architect was Samuel Rowland and it was built in the fashionable Classical style. Notable features are the six massive Ionic columns and Egyptianate windows and doorways. The Church was first consecrated for use on December 29th 1830 by the Bishop of Chester and was completed and opened in February 1831. The 1820's and 30's were a time of considerable church building in the city. Several churches were sponsored by the Corporation who also paid for the subsequent running costs (e.g. St Michael in the City). St Bride's was different in that its building and running costs were financed by the congregation.
The building costs (£6,000) were met through the sale of shares (bearing a dividend) to the congregation and an interest bearing loan. Church running costs, mainly the minister and curate's stipends, were paid through pew rents. About a quarter of the pews were designated 'free' for the poor of the area. By the 1850's the income from pews was insufficient to meet the dividend on the original stock which was suspended. The first minister was the Revd. James Haldane Stewart. After the closure of his Percy Chapel in the St Pancras area of London, he was invited to Liverpool. It was at Mr. Haldane's suggestion that Percy Street was named.
The church founded the St Bride's National School, off Upper Stanhope Street, in the late 1830's. Around 600 of the area's poor children attended. The school was eventually closed in the late 1940's. The church also operated a hall (1878) in Percy Street (used for Sunday School, Band of Hope, uniformed groups etc.) which was closed in the 1960's, and a Mission Room in Rathbone Street.
In 1894, the interior of the Church was remodelled by the Rev Henry Rhodes at a cost of £1,175. By the late 1890's, the financial position of the church was worsening. The majority of the original founders had died and the population of the area was less able to provide income. By 1904 only 101 members paid pew rents and by 1911, the amount raised was insufficient even to meet the vicar's stipend which remained at £300, unchanged from 1831.
In 1904 the Liverpool and Wigan Churches Act allocated a parish to St Bride's which had up to that point been a district church within the parish of Liverpool.
In the late 1920's there was a move to close St Bride's and for the congregation to merge with nearby St Saviour's. Eventually with the compulsory purchase of St Saviour's in 1974, the two congregations did merge in the new parish of St Bride with St Saviour.
St Bride’s underwent something of a revival in the 1950’s under the ministry of the Revd. Alfred William Anderson-Brown, an evangelical who attracted a congregation of 60 to the morning service. He also ran a weekday Adult Fellowship Group with more than 100 members. The strength of the church at that time was probably also a reflection also of the strength of the community. In the 1950's, Toxteth was a tight-knit, poor but self-supporting community. Most of the residents had come through the war together and helped one another through times of hardship and poverty. Contemporary photographs show the multi-ethnic nature of the congregation at that time. Extensive demolition in the area in the early 1970's ripped the heart out of the community and churches like St Bride's began to struggle to hold on to their congregations and a sense of rootedness in the community.
In 1981 there was further consolidation with the formation of the Team Parish of St Luke in the City (including St Michael in the City Upper Pitt Street, St Bride's, St Stephen's Grove Street and later St Dunstan's Earle Road) with Canon Neville Black as the first Rector. In 1983 the interior of the Church was modified to incorporate a community room, meeting room, kitchen and several offices and the Church became a combined church and Christian community centre.
Through the 1990’s the church became home to many community and arts projects and while thriving as a centre of community, St Bride’s struggled to maintain a worshipping congregation in the context of the fast changing population in the local area. By 2006, the congregation of St Bride’s had fallen to just four and the Church faced bills of £500,000 to repair and restore the building. At that point a decision was taken to relaunch St Bride’s Liverpool with a vision of creating a place of worship for the city which is 'creative, progressive and inclusive'. Innovative morning and evening services have attracted new congregations to St Bride’s and together with our partners, St Bride’s is a hive of activity every day of the week.
From an original article by P.A. Young, with thanks
Our first vicar: Revd James Haldane Stewart
Summary of an Inspired and Inspiring Life
by J.J. Vandenheede
James Haldane Stewart was born on 23rd December 1776 in Boston, Massachusetts, as the seventh child of Duncan Stewart and Ann Erving. After American independence, the family, of Scottish ancestry, returned to Britain in 1777. James would visit the USA himself as a young man in 1795, establishing contacts that would last all through his life and would influence and strengthen his own religious expression.
In 1802, James underwent a 'conversion experience', an event that would stimulate and sustain his belief in the need for the direct workings of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians. It is this ‘pneumatic faith’ that would energise his tireless ministry and inspire his lecture series, publications and vast correspondence.
In order to be ordained and fulfil what he thought to be his calling, James, a former Etonian, first needed to obtain a university degree. He therefore enrolled in Law studies at Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1806. Later, in 1810, he would add to this a MA degree from the same university. Ordination followed on 20th December 1806 and soon after James was sent to minister to his first parish in Ashampstead-Basildon (Berkshire). He would remain there until 1812, when he transferred to Percy Chapel (Saint Pancras’ parish) in London. Important placements like these were not easily obtained by clergy of James’s ‘conversion piety’, who were not all that favoured by the old-school hierarchy of the Church of England. Luckily, James had very good connections with the missionary societies - another lifelong passion - and a wealthy Maecenas in the persons of the Marquis of Bute and the Earl of Dumfries, the latter’s son. Throughout his life Stewart would be well-connected and foster very good relations with bishops and others in the Church’s upper ranks.
At Percy Chapel, he introduced a hymn-book which he himself had compiled, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns. Hymn-singing was not all that common then as it is now, and the hymnal symbolises the personal worship and renewal by the Spirit indicative of the Revival Movement. A year later, Reverend Stewart was also voted in as Chaplain to the Middlesex Hospital nearby, and in 1815 he became a member of the Eclectic Society, a social and spiritual group for clergymen. A year later, Reverend Stewart was also voted in as Chaplain to the Middlesex Hospital nearby, and in 1815 he became a member of the Eclectic Society, a social and spiritual group for clergymen.
On 20th August 1816, he married Mary Dale, but unfortunately ill health meant that James was unable to fulfil his pastoral duties in London. He travelled to France, Italy and Switzerland to convalesce, organising local British English-speaking congregations en route, notably in Nice. His time away from London, gave him the opportunity to discuss his beliefs and theology with others and lecture in places like Bath, Bristol, Glasgow and Dublin. In 1821 James Stewart published his most influential work, Hints for a General Union of Christians for Prayer for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This strong conviction for the need of the 'office of the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity' also ran through his private prayers and family devotions. These personal prayers would connect confession and supplications for the gifts of the Spirit; James would always advise other clergy to follow that same pattern.
After returning to Percy Chapel full-time in 1823, he was involved in various conferences on the topic of the Spirit and prophecy, like the Albury Meeting. James seems to have held pre-millenarian beliefs, though he seldom preached on the subject, and would help establish The Society for the Investigation of Prophecy many years later (1841). He also co-founded The Society for Promoting the Religious Principles of the Reformation and opposed the admission of Roman Catholics to Parliament, though he was averse to the open and vitriolic denominational confrontations of the time. Meanwhile he kept travelling all over the country on behalf of the Church Missionary Society and the Jewish Society, and attending their AGMs, health permitting.
When Percy Chapel was closed in 1828, James started work on his ‘pet-project’, a parish-church of his own in Liverpool, and on 2nd January 1831 Saint Bride’s Church opened its doors, having been consecrated the previous Sunday. The building was designed by Samuel Rowland in a neo-Classical style and situated in a rich middle-class Georgian neighbourhood. Our charismatic vicar even managed to convince the gentry owners of the surrounding houses to name the street in front of the church ‘Percy Street’, after his former chapel. Reverend Stewart stuck to the same routine as he had in London, founding a local Missionary Association, using the same hymnal, and putting a lot of time and energy in his Confirmation classes. These classes had always been, and would always remain, very close to his heart, not surprising seeing as Confirmation is a celebration of the marking of an adult believer with the sign of the Holy Spirit. Then followed a few years of national and personal tragedy and illness, during which associate ministers took over his work. By 1836 however, Stewart seems to have been back on his feet, helping with the Liverpool Church of England Schools and the new school near Saint Bride’s.
Pastoral and practical thinking ran through his theology and preaching, and he was a hands-on President of The Liverpool Charitable Society for Visiting and Relieving the Sick and Distressed Poor at their Habitations. His letters too were a means to encourage and help people in need, and he avidly wrote to members of his congregation and even MPs and Royalty. The church had become a favourite for weddings and through his correspondence James would keep in close touch with engaged couples and newly-weds. On 2nd of January 1837 James Stewart also put his energy in publicising Invitation to United Prayer for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was to become an annual event, very much in tandem with the Revival Meetings across the USA. At the same time, he kept busy supporting the Protestant cause, with lectures on ‘Romanism’, the Unitarian Controversy –(which uncharacteristically seems to have really angered our docile pastor), the auxiliary branch of The Society for Promoting the better Observance of the Lord’s Day, and the establishment of the Protestant Bishopric in Jerusalem, whose first bishop was a Jewish convert and a personal friend. In 1845 Stewart also joined the Evangelical Alliance, though he would cancel his membership in later years.
A new chapter in James’s life began in 1846 when he became Rector at Limpsfield. Though he had left Liverpool, he maintained the same routine of missionary building and practical ministry in his new post. James Haldane Stewart died at Limpsfield on 22nd October 1854. A remembrance plaque in his honour can be found at Saint Bride’s Church in Liverpool. His son, The Reverend David D. Stewart, first published a glowing bibliography of his father in 1857. In it we encounter a man with a great love for God and people, full of energy though plagued by times of sickness, and a archetype of the 19th century British Evangelical in passion, missionary drive and optimism. His son, The Reverend David D. Stewart, first published a glowing bibliography of his father in 1857. In it we encounter a man with a great love for God and people, full of energy though plagued by times of sickness, and a archetype of the 19th century British Evangelical in passion, missionary drive and optimism. Thanks to the copious amount of letters written by Stewart himself, and documents collected by his family and supplied by his many friends his son was able to paint a picture of a very spiritual yet practical man typified by one of his own expressions: “Slow to promise – quick to perform”.
Saint Bride’s Church itself, now a Grade II* listed building, is still a place where the Spirit inspires and renews people.