Victorian Worcester: Story of a miserable existence living in dark alleys

But in its original form as a non-conformist chapel for the followers of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, things were rather different. The church had been built in 1804 – a smaller one erected on the site in 1773 soon proved inadequate – to serve the residents of the city’s Poor Quarter centred around the Dolday, St Andrew’s and St Martin’s districts. Most of those were “cleared” by the city council between the 1920s and 40s.

There’s always someone standing watching with their hands behind their back. This time at demolition in Dolday using a hawser attached to a traction engine

The congregation reflected its location and we are indebted to the writings of a clergyman in Canada to provide a colourful, and rather sad, pen picture of those who occupied the pews.

The Rev TC Boon, whose father was minster at the chapel from 1885 to 1919, later sailed across to live in Winnipeg, but he never forgot the faces that filed into the building each week seeking salvation.

Years later he recorded: “The chief exhibit of the church on Sundays was a choice collection of old ladies, who used to occupy a special seat right under the pulpit. There was attached to  them a peculiar quality of fadedness and they excited both interest and sympathy when they stood up in a long row and swayed gently to the rhythm of the music.

Is this the Mrs H of whom the Rev Boon wrote?

“I recall Mrs C who always wore a kind of rusty black satin cloak trimmed in places with jet beads and an equally rusty black bonnet ornamented with a half-broken spray of them. Which juggled in a curious way as the good lady nodded her head on one side as she talked. Mrs C’s chef asset in life was a singing voice which was wonderfully cracked and she was a  tower of strength when hymns were sung.

One of the local pubs, the Bull and Sun in Bull Entry leading to High Street

“Then there was old Mrs D who was the very double of Queen Victoria in size, shape and features and had, I believe, though not because of this strange resemblance, the privilege of living in an alms house in The Trinity.

“Another was Mrs W, whose unfortunate eye trouble left her in a constant state of tears, even on festive occasions. She maintained an aspect of respectability by the aid of a huge Paisley shawl, which enveloped her from head to toe. Her chief pleasure in life was a glass of good beer and I fear she had many a lecture from the Minister’s wife on the iniquity of taking it.

“A still more wretched specimen was Mrs H, whose cadaverous features and evil smile haunt me still, and yet she must have been good looking in her younger days. She had a son, about my own age, who grew up in rags.

The Waterman’s Church being demolished in  September, 1951

 “There were others in that row, the honourable occupants of that front bench. Their faces rise up before me. Some gaunt and haggard with age, some clean and tidy, some bearing in them the marks of vice and degradation, some of them worthy members of the great unwashed. 

The familiar landmark of St Andrew’s spire still stands alongside Deansway, but the church was pulled down in 1949

“They lived in dark alleys, in remote courts, up backstreet staircases, in single rooms. For most of them life was maintained by a weekly dole from the parish, but it held no hope. At  the end of their miserable existence came the parish doctor, the parish undertaker and the pauper’s funeral.”

All in all, a pretty depressing picture of Victorian Worcester.