CHURCHES.
In 1066 a priest held ½ hide freely in
Rainham. (fn. 1) This suggests the existence of a church
there before the Conquest, though the present building dates only from the later 12th century. Warin
de la Haule, who held Rainham jure uxoris, presented
to the rectory c. 1170. (fn. 2) When Rainham was in the
king's hand, c. 1178, Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, presented. (fn. 3) About the same time the king gave
the advowson of Rainham to Lesnes abbey (Kent)
at the request of the abbey's founder, the justiciar
Richard de Lucy (d. 1179), and the bishop instituted
the abbot as rector. (fn. 4) The abbey's right to the advowson of the vicarage was acknowledged in 1204 by
Fulk Paynel, formerly lord of Rainham manor, and
in 1219 by the Knights Hospitallers, who then held
the manor. (fn. 5)
The advowson remained in the abbey's possession
until its dissolution in 1525; it was then granted to
Wolsey, who settled it upon Cardinal College,
Oxford. (fn. 6) On Wolsey's fall the advowson reverted
to the Crown and in 1531 was granted to the
Hospitallers. (fn. 7) It subsequently descended with
Berwick manor until 1920. Hector G. G. Crosse, who
in that year sold the last of his Rainham estates,
retained the advowson until c. 1930. (fn. 8) By 1933 it had
come into possession of the Martyrs Memorial
Trust. (fn. 9) Rainham was united as a single benefice
with Wennington in 1954. (fn. 10) In that year South
Hornchurch was transferred to Rainham parish. (fn. 11)
In 1274 the abbot of Lesnes held the church of
Rainham and 20 a. of land which presumably formed
the nucleus of Rectory manor, the history of which
is traced above. (fn. 12)
The demesne of the Hospitallers' Rainham manor
was freed of tithes in 1219, but those of their Rainham lands which were tithable were named in 1315. (fn. 13)
An undated modus, probably of the early 14th century, unequally divided the tithes from the Hospitallers' manor of Moorhall between Aveley church
and the chapel of the Hospitallers' Berwick manor
in Rainham. (fn. 14)
The vicarage was worth £5 gross in 1254 and £10
net in 1535. (fn. 15) The vicarial tithes were worth £60 in
1650, and about £90 in the 18th century. (fn. 16) About
1800 they began to rise in value, and by 1810 were
valued at over £400. (fn. 17) In 1838 the tithes were commuted: 166 a. of Berwick House farm were then
tithe free; Moorhall (401 a.) paid a modus of £3
10s.; Berwick House farm (312 a.) and Berwick
Ponds farm (353 a.) a modus of 15s. each; and Rainham Lodge (180 a.) one of 10s. The rectorial tithes
were commuted for £230, the vicarial for £431 10s. (fn. 18)
The vicar's glebe contained 4 a. in 1610 and 1851. (fn. 19)
The vicarage house was 'utterly decayed' in 1610,
and had vanished by 1650. (fn. 20) In 1701 the vicar,
Samuel Kekewich, bought a house and garden in
the Broadway opposite the church; in 1709, three
years after his death, his son formally transferred it
to the churchwarden for perpetual use as the vicarage. (fn. 21) It was a traditional 17th-century house of
three-roomed plan with an internal chimney-stack.
In 1710 George Finch, lord of Berwick manor, encased it in purple brick, partly refitted it, and gave it
a new staircase in a rear projection. (fn. 22) There was
some internal remodelling in the early 19th century,
and later a wing was added to the SW. (fn. 23)
In the 1170s three rectors are known by name. (fn. 24)
The names of vicars are known from the early 14th
century. (fn. 25) Twenty can be identified in the 14th and
15th centuries; 4 died while holding the vicarage,
but at least 10 resigned it. (fn. 26) John Lawrence, vicar c.
1523–41, was accused of plotting against the king in
1536. (fn. 27) William Talbot, vicar 1544–68, was also
rector of Wennington and non-resident in 1560. (fn. 28)
Leonard Barker, vicar 1569–75 and Samuel Hilliard,
1718–42, were also rectors of Stifford. Hilliard was
resident in both parishes. (fn. 29) From 1742 to 1897
vicars were usually non-resident and employed
assistant curates, the best known being Charles
Churchill (1732–64) poet and rake, who assisted his
father, 1756–8. (fn. 30) In the later 18th century the curate
received £30 a year, increased in 1814 to £50 and in
1826 to £120. (fn. 31) In 1612 Thomas Frith established
an Ascension Day sermon. (fn. 32)
The church of ST. HELEN AND ST. GILES, a
dedication unique in England, consists of chancel,
nave with north and south aisles and south porch,
and a west tower. (fn. 33) The whole church, with the
exception of the south porch, was built of septaria
and flint-rubble, with ashlar dressings, probably c.
1178 when Richard de Lucy the justiciar arranged
the grant of the advowson to the abbey of Lesnes
(Kent). (fn. 34)
The church retains its original dimensions, but
has undergone many minor alterations. The 12th-century arcades of three bays north and south of the
aisle retain their original round arches and square
piers with attached shafts, but 13th-century alterations affected all parts of the church. The upper
stage of the tower was built, the clerestory windowsplays were recut, and the chancel arch with its
chevron decoration was widened. In the chancel the
north wall was rebuilt, and three lancet windows
were inserted in the south wall. Later in the 13th
century blind arches were inserted in the NE. corner
of the nave, presumably as a reredos for a side altar.
In the 14th century east windows were inserted in
both aisles. The nave and chancel roofs were renewed in the 15th century, and the chancel roof with
its king-posts survives. Other 15th-century alterations included the building of a north vestry, destroyed at an unknown date, (fn. 35) a squint cut in the
south wall of the chancel arch, and a large central
east window inserted in the chancel below the circular window. About 1500 the upper and lower
doorways of the rood-stair were renewed, and it was
perhaps then that a ketch at anchor was scratched on
the stairway wall. (fn. 36) In the 16th century the tower
was given buttresses and an embattled parapet of
brick, and two narrow brick windows were inserted
in each wall of the bellchamber. (fn. 37)
Thereafter little work was done on the church for
over 300 years. In 1719 there was a choir gallery at
the west end of the nave. (fn. 38) The porch was built after
orders given by the vestry in 1738. (fn. 39) In 1767 a 1s.
rate was levied for repairing and beautifying the
church, and the repairs probably included the extension of the roof to shelter both aisles as well as
the nave. (fn. 40) In 1856 the condition of the church was
said to be disgraceful, but it was not until 1897 that
a major restoration was undertaken. (fn. 41) The Revd.
Ernest Geldart was appointed architect, and between
1897 and 1910 over £2,600 was raised and spent on
the church. The intention was to restore its medieval
appearance; the chancel regained its 13th-century
fenestration, the clerestory windows were reopened,
and the aisles once more had individual roofs. (fn. 42)
The font has a 12th-century bowl with a 15th-century octagonal stem. (fn. 43) The north door still has an
ornamental hinge of c. 1200, and the foliated head of
a pillar-piscina in the south aisle is of the same date.
The south wall of the chancel contains a locker of
unknown date, with rebated jambs and triangular
head. At the restoration of the church a modern
chancel screen made in Antwerp was set upon woodwork incorporating elements of the 15th or early 16th
century. In the 1930s the screen was transferred to
a Yorkshire church, leaving only the ancient woodwork. (fn. 44) The modern oak pews replaced the box-pews
of the 18th and 19th centuries; they had replaced
15th-century pews, of which elements are preserved
in a chair now in the chancel. The church chest, of
oak covered with leather and iron-banded, is probably of the 15th century. (fn. 45) The removal of the west
gallery during the restoration of 1897–1910 revealed
considerable remains of 13th- and 14th-century red
wall-designs, similar to traces in the rest of the
church. A clock existed in 1687; it often needed
repair in the 18th century. It was last mentioned in
1815: the sale of 225 lb. of old iron in 1821 may
represent its end. (fn. 46)
The church has 3 bells: (i) 1618, Thomas Bartlet;
(ii, iii) 1670, John Hodson. (fn. 47) The plate includes a cup
of 1652 and patens of 1563 and 1713. The earlier
paten serves as a cover to the cup of 1652, which may
have been made from the Elizabethan one. (fn. 48)
The monuments include 2 mutilated brasses with
figures, of the late 15th and early 16th century. (fn. 49)
There are brasses to Kathleen (d. 1612), widow of
George Frith and Robert Holden, Mary (d. 1630),
wife of Anthony Radcliffe, and John T. G. Crosse
(d. 1870).
The names of various fields in the parish appear
to indicate lost church endowments: Holy Bread
Land, named in 1315, and said in 1499 and 1838 to
comprise 26 a.; (fn. 50) Goddescroft (1315), Church field
(1729), and Giles field (1838). (fn. 51) In 1925 Dr. E. H. T.
Danaher gave £100 in memory of Mrs. Emily Stoker,
the interest to be used for some religious purpose. (fn. 52)
The chapel of ALL SAINTS stood in Rainham
churchyard in 1348. (fn. 53) In that year Sir John de
Staunton was licensed to found a chantry there with
two chaplains. (fn. 54) It was endowed with a house, 40½ a.,
and 20s. 10d. of Rainham rents. (fn. 55) A further 22 a.
were settled on the chantry in 1392, but by 1521 the
lands had so diminished that the endowment was
only 33s. 4d. a year, and no one would accept the
chaplaincy. (fn. 56) The right of presentation belonged to
the lord of South Hall manor, (fn. 57) and with the lord's
consent the bishop of London dissolved the chantry
in 1521 and reconstituted it as a free chapel to be
held by a literate unmarried layman. The right of
presentation remained with the lord of South Hall
manor, but it was Cardinal Wolsey who appointed
Nicholas Lenthall, the only holder of this lay benefice
until its dissolution in 1548. (fn. 58) Its yearly revenue was
then 50s., derived from about 40 a. in the parish. (fn. 59)
Sir Robert Southwell held half the land as part of
Berwick manor, and it was to him that the chantry
was sold upon its dissolution. (fn. 60)
ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
Edward Drury was
charged with recusancy in 1641 (fn. 61) but no papists were
found in the parish in reports of 1676 (fn. 62) and c. 1770–c. 1812. (fn. 63) A temporary iron church was built in
Cowper Road, opposite the mission hall, about 1902.
It was served at first from Grays Thurrock and after
c. 1910 from Barking. It closed c. 1938 when a parish
was founded in South Hornchurch. (fn. 64)
OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE, Rainham,
Dovers Corner, New Road, was registered for public
worship in 1939. (fn. 65) A brick barn formerly belonging
to Dovers farm served as a temporary church until
1967, when a permanent building, with a steeply
pitched roof and a north entrance front mainly of
glass, was opened on an adjoining site. (fn. 66)
PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
Six nonconformists were enumerated in 1676. (fn. 67) They may
have been Baptists, for there was a General Baptist
church in Rainham by 1697; it was a sister church of
the one at Pilgrim's Hatch, in South Weald. Thomas
Fowle was its elder. (fn. 68) In 1701 some church members
were being drawn away by Presbyterian teaching,
and there is no record of the church after 1704. (fn. 69)
Wesleyan Methodism was introduced c. 1767 by
John Valton, with the support of John Harle and his
wife of Rainham Hall, where meetings were held. (fn. 70)
Local opposition was violent, led by Harle's fatherin-law, who broke into a meeting with a horse-whip,
but Valton continued to preach at Rainham until he
left Essex in 1775. (fn. 71) The society survived his departure. John Wesley visited Rainham in 1784 and
1785, and preached to large congregations there in
1787. (fn. 72) Wesleyan preachers from London visited
Rainham regularly for some years after Wesley's
death in 1791, but eventually gave up. (fn. 73) The congregation may have survived a little longer under
Independent leadership. In 1798 Henry Attely,
minister of Bethel chapel, Romford, registered a
building at Rainham for Independent worship. (fn. 74)
There is no later record of that meeting-house, but
private baptisms at Berwick manor were recorded in
1815 by Edward Andrews, Attely's successor at
Bethel, and at Moorhall, 1825–9, by Anthony
Brown, minister of South Ockendon Independent
chapel. (fn. 75)
Wesleyan Methodism was revived from c. 1831 by
preachers of the Spitalfields and Romford circuits. (fn. 76)
A cottage was rented, probably Joseph Geach's,
which was registered in 1831, until local hostility
forced the landlord to repossess it. (fn. 77) Preaching continued, however, and in 1834 a small chapel was
built, in the Romford circuit, probably the one
registered that year by William Otter of Romford. (fn. 78) It
stood in the Broadway opposite Station Approach. (fn. 79)
Again local hostility led to closure, between 1848
and 1851. (fn. 80) The chapel may have been taken over
briefly by the Brentwood Primitive Methodist
mission in 1847, when Robert Eaglen registered a
house. (fn. 81) The chapel was converted into 2 cottages
which were demolished c. 1939. (fn. 82)
Methodism was re-established in the late 1920s.
Meetings were held in an army hut in Upminister
Road until a school-chapel was opened in Wennington Road in 1930, in the East Ham Wesleyan
mission circuit. In 1959 a larger church was built
beside it. (fn. 83)
The Gospel Hall, Cowper Road, originated in
1884 in a small gospel mission in Cowper Road which
may have been Providence chapel, attributed that
year to Strict Baptists. (fn. 84) In 1888 William Spear, of
East Hall, Wennington, set up a small iron hall
formerly used by Brethren in West Thurrock. (fn. 85) The
mission was supported by Spear's agricultural
partners, the Vellacotts, who were still among its
leaders in 1976. (fn. 86) The present gospel hall was built
later alongside the iron hall. (fn. 87)
South View mission hall, Wennington Road, was
registered by Brethren in 1902. (fn. 88) As it was later
known as Maskell's chapel, it may have been founded
by Jeremiah Maskell, a village shopkeeper c. 1882–1912. (fn. 89) It still existed in 1930–5, when the members
were described as Exclusive Brethren, but had
ceased by 1954. (fn. 90)
The Hacton mission at Smokeholes in Rainham,
just over the Upminster boundary, is treated under
Upminster.
EDUCATION.
Rainham junior and infants schools,
Upminster Road South, originated in a bequest of
£50 by Dr. Lewis Bruce, vicar of Rainham (d. 1779),
for teaching children to read. The money was used
to establish a day-school (fn. 91) which existed by 1785,
when John G. Crosse leased to the parish the site in
Gravel Pit (or Coney) field, where the school had
recently been built. (fn. 92) By 1833, when there were also
three dame schools in Rainham, the school had 34
pupils and was said to have an endowment for the
free education of 6 boys. (fn. 93) It was closed from c. 1838
to 1846, the building being let to provide alms for the
poor. In 1845–6 the vestry used the rent from it to
pay for the teaching of 15 children at an infants
school which may have been held at the Methodist
chapel in the Broadway.
In 1846 the parochial school was reopened and a
master and mistress were appointed. (fn. 94) A new
school for 245 children was built in 1872 next to the
old one, which was later demolished. (fn. 95) In the 1870s
an evening-school was held there. The school received annual government grants from 1875. (fn. 96) In
1893 a school board was formed, which took over
the school. (fn. 97) In 1897 a new school for 300 was built
behind the 1872 building, which became the infants
department. (fn. 98) The school was enlarged by Essex
county council in 1926. In 1934 it was reorganized
for mixed juniors and infants. (fn. 99) The 1897 building
was destroyed by bombs in 1944 and was not replaced. (fn. 100) After the bombing the children were taught
in shifts because of lack of accommodation; some
went to Arnold Road school, Dagenham. In 1947
four huts were leased and in 1948 the church hall
was hired for temporary accommodation. In 1953
the school was reorganized in separate infant and
junior departments. (fn. 101)
Parsonage Farm junior and infants schools, Allen
Road, were planned by Essex county council. The
infants school for 240 was opened in 1964 and the
junior school for 320 in 1966. The infants school was
enlarged in 1967 and again in 1972 and 1973. The
junior school was gradually enlarged between 1968
and 1974. (fn. 102)
Brady junior mixed and infants school, Wennington Road, was opened in 1969 for 320 children by the
London borough of Havering. (fn. 103)
The Chafford school, Lambs Lane, was opened
in 1934 by Essex county council as Rainham senior,
later secondary (modern), school, Upminster Road,
for 360 boys and girls. (fn. 104) It moved in 1950 to new
buildings in Lambs Lane for 450 children. (fn. 105) It was
enlarged in 1962 and 1971 and was renamed in
1973. (fn. 106)
La Salette Roman Catholic junior mixed and
infant school, Dover's Corner, New Road, was
opened in 1957 as an Aided school for 200. It was
enlarged in 1969–70. (fn. 107)
In 1965 the administration of the above schools
was transferred from Essex county council to the
London borough of Havering.
Private schools perhaps included one taught by
Wriothesley Danvers, licensed in 1612 to teach in
Rainham. (fn. 108) The school which Charles Churchill
(1731–64) conducted while he was curate at Rainham
in 1756–8, may have been at Rainham. (fn. 109) In 1823
there was an academy for girls probably at Rainham
Hall. (fn. 110) Miss M. Swann kept a private school for
children aged 5–8½ years for over thirty years until
1958. (fn. 111)
CHARITIES FOR THE POOR. (fn. 112)
John Adgoe (or
Adge), waterman, by his will dated 1608, gave a rentcharge of 6d. a week from land at Crayford (Kent) to
provide bread for the 6 poorest people in Rainham.
The rent-charge was redeemed in 1929 for £52 stock.
Thomas Frith of London, scrivener, by deed
dated 1612, gave a rent-charge of £5 17s. from his
estate in South Weald to pay 10s. for an annual
sermon in Rainham church on Ascension Day, 2s. to
the minister, 12d. to the clerk or sexton, and 2s. a
week in bread for Rainham poor. In 1966 when it
was said that the sermon payment had not been
claimed for over 20 years, the vicar agreed to accept
it for his discretionary fund.
John Lowen, by will proved 1678, left a rentcharge of £2 12s. from his manor of Gerpins to
provide six 2d. loaves weekly to Rainham poor. In
1938 the rent-charge was redeemed for £104 stock.
Since the 18th century the three bread charities
described above have been jointly administered. In c.
1750 24 loaves were being distributed each week. (fn. 113)
During the years 1791–4 only 9 loaves were being
given, but from 1795 the number was again 24. In
1811 the income from the three charities was being
used to relieve the rates. By 1837, however, it was
again being supplied according to the donor's wishes.
Bread was still being distributed in 1969.
William Heard, by will proved 1593, gave a rentcharge of 30s. from land in Rainham to be distributed at Easter to 15 poor and honest parishioners.
By 1620 the charge seems to have been transferred to
land in Wennington. (fn. 114) It was still being received and
distributed in 1818, but had been lost by 1837. John
Spicer, by will dated 1598, gave a rent-charge of 6s.
8d. for the poor. In 1690 the charity was said to be
'abused'. About 1721 an attempt was made to revive
it, but there is no later record of payments, which
had certainly ceased by 1804. Henry Gabbott, by
will dated 1610, gave £5 in trust for the poor. It was
in the hands of the vicar in 1613, but nothing further
is known about it. (fn. 115) Martin Spicer, by will dated
1614, gave 40s. stock in trust for the poor. It had
been lost by 1690. John Elkin c. 1680 gave £20 to the
poor. In 1715 this money, with £25 provided by the
vestry, was used to build a parish house. In 1721
Mary Johnson, lady of the manor of South Hall,
seized the house and evicted the two inmates. There is
no evidence that the vestry ever recovered the house.