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Decision-making under duress: the treatment of churches in the City of London during and after World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2012

PETER J. LARKHAM  and
JOE L. NASR
PETER J. LARKHAM
Affiliation:
Birmingham School of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University, Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG, UK
JOE L. NASR
Affiliation:
Birmingham School of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University, Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG, UK
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Abstract:

The process of making decisions about cities during the bombing of World War II, in its immediate aftermath and in the early post-war years remains a phenomenon that is only partly understood. The bombing left many church buildings damaged or destroyed across the UK. The Church of England's churches within the City of London, subject to a complex progression of deliberations, debates and decisions involving several committees and commissions set up by the bishop of London and others, are used to review the process and product of decision-making in the crisis of war. Church authorities are shown to have responded to the immediate problem of what to do with these sites in order most effectively to provide for the needs of the church as an organization, while simultaneously considering other factors including morale, culture and heritage. The beginnings of processes of consulting multiple experts, if not stakeholders, can be seen in this example of an institution making decisions under the pressures of a major crisis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 285 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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46 Ibid., 17 Feb. 1943. This church was also known as St Swithin, Cannon Street.

47 Ibid., 7 Nov. 1945. In fact, this re-stated advice from the Diocesan War Damage Commission as early as Jan. 1941 (minutes, London Guildhall Library, 3 Jan. 1941).

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58 Ibid., 9, our emphasis. Toc H is a social organization developing from a World War I rest house in Belgium. It was promoted by the Rev. Philip Clayton, who became vicar of All Saints in 1922, when Toc H also gained a Royal Charter. It was not specifically an organization of the Church of England.

59 Ibid., 10.

60 Quoted in Architect and Building News, 25 Oct. 1946.

61 ‘Viator’, letter to the editor, Manchester Guardian, 28 Oct. 1946. A file of press cuttings showing the controversy is in the Fisher papers, 976.1, Lambeth Palace Library.

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71 Ibid., 9 Jul. 1948 (relating to the Diocesan Reorganization Committee, City Churches Subcommittee). The voters are not identified.

72 Ibid., 20 Feb. 1951, 7 Jun. 1951.

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74 Committee minutes, 26 Sep. 1947.

75 Ibid., 21 Jul. 1943. The unsuccessful proposal was from ‘an Australian’ who wished to incorporate its remains in a new church in Sydney ‘as a memorial to London's part in the war’. The Bishop's Committee ‘saw no objection and instructed the Secretary to encourage the project’ (Committee minutes, 19 Oct. 1948). Nothing further is recorded. The successful move is detailed in M. Sisson and F.C. Sternberg, ‘Tale of a church in two cities’, AIA Journal, Jul. 1971, 27–30.

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