Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for LUKE (ST.)

LUKE (ST.), a parish and a district in Middlesex. The parish forms all a compact portion of the metropolis; lies averagely about 1¼ mile NNE of St. Paul's; is intersected by the line of the Roman road to Old Ford; contains Finsbury-square, Bartholomew-square, Kingsquare, New Artillery Grounds, Bunhill-fields cemetery, and the City basin of Regent's canal; stands, to a considerable extent, on the site of the quondam Moorfields; is divided, for local purposes, into the six liberties of City-road, East Finsbury, West Finsbury, Golden-lane, Old-street, and Whitecross-street; has postal receivingoffices‡ and postal pillar boxes under London E.C; and enjoys facilities of railway communication, by ready access to stations of the Metropolitan railway, and to the railway termini at Finsbury-circus and Liverpool-street. Acres, 220. Real property, £214,425; of which £10,722 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851,54,055; in 1861, 57,073. Houses, 6,356. The parish was originally a part of St. Giles-Cripplegate; and is now ecclesiastically divided into St. Luke-Old-street, St. Barnabas-Kingsquare, St. Matthew-City-road, St. Paul-Bunhill-row, St. Thomas-Charterhouse, St. Mary-Charterhouse, and part of St. Mark-Old-street-road. St. Barnabas and St. Paul were made separate charges in 1841; St. Thomas, in 1842; St. Matthew and St. Mark, in 1848; St. Mary, in 1862. Pop. in 1861, of St. Barnabas, 9,125; of St. Matthew, 3,561; of St. Paul, 5,896; of St. Thomas, 10,840; of the part of St. Mark, 2,392. The rest of St. Mark is in Shoreditch parish; and had, in 1861, a pop. of 3,087. The section for St. Mary was formed out of portions of the previous sections. The living of St. Luke is a rectory, St. Thomas' a p. curacy, the others vicarages, in the dio. of London. Value of St. Lnke, £578;* of St. Barnabas, St. Paul, and St. Mark, each £400;* of St. Thomas, £400; of St. Matthew, £300;* of St. Mary, £200. Patrons of St. Luke, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's; of St. Barnabas and St. Paul, the Rector of St. Luke; of St. Matthew, St. Thomas and St Mark, the Bishop of London; of St. Mary, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. St. Luke's church was one of Queen Anne's fifty churches; and has a front in the Doric style, with a curious pyramidal tower. St. Barnabas' church was built in 1823, at a cost of £12,853; and has an Ionic porch, and a slender spire. St. Matthew's church was of later erection, and has a very good spire. The Tabernacle is an Independent chapel; and was built, in 1735, by the celebrated preacher Whitfield. The Wesleyan chapel, in City-road, was founded in 1777, by John Wesley, who often preached in it; and it contains a tablet to Charles Wesley, "the first who received the name of Methodist. ''The grave of John Wesley is behind the chapel; and a tomb covers the grave, was originally erected in 1791, and was reconstructed and enlarged in 1840. The Roman Catholic chapel in Bloomfield-street was regarded as the Roman Catholic cathedral of London, prior to the erection of St. George's Southwark; and the remains of Weber were buried in it till their removal, in 1844, to Dresden. St. Luke's hospital for lunatics dates from 1732; was built in 175186, at a cost of £55,000; consists of brick, trimmed with stone; comprises centre and wings, aggregately 493 feet long; contains accommodation for about 200 patients; and has an income of about £8,000. The City of London lying-in hospital was founded in 1750 in Aldersgate; and was built on its present site in 1770-3. The French Protestant hospital was founded in 1708, by M. de Gastigny, and has capacity for 54 inmates. The parochial school has an endowed income of £195; Worral's free school has £301; Fuller's school has £60; Amyas's alms houses have £224; and Alleyn's almshouses have £59. The asylum for the houseless poor had 703 inmates at the census of 1861; St. Mark's hospital for fistula had 32; and the militia barracks, in City-road, had 89. The total of endowed charities is about £1,680. A vestry hall was built in 1867; is 50 feet long, 25 wide, and 25 high; and has a neat Italian front.

The district is conterminate with the parish; and is divided into the sub-districts of Old-street, City-road, Whitecross-street, and Finsbury. The Old-street subdistrict is bounded by a line commencing at the "Bull and Ram'' public-house on the N side of Old-street, running along the W side of Brick-lane and York-street, crossing the City-road, taking the W side of North Macclesfield-street to the boundaries of Islington and Clerkenwell parishes, including Goswell-street and kingsquare, and the N side of Old-street from Goswellstreet to the corner of Brick-lane. Acres, 52. Pop. in 1851,10,617; in 1861,11,504. Houses, 1,321. The City-road sub-district is bonded by a line commencing at the SE corner of Brick-lane and York-street, crossing the City-road, running along the E side of North Macclesfield-street to the boundaries of Islington and Shoreditch parishes, down to the City of London lying-in hospital, and proceeding down the N side of Old-street to the SE corner of Brick-lane. Acres, 77. Pop. in 1851,16,840; in 1861,17,860. Houses, 1,925. The Whitecross-street sub-district consists of all the other parts of the parish, excepting East Finsbury and West Finsbury liberties. Acres, 33. Pop. in 1851,13,657; in 1861,14,778. Houses, 1,566. The Finsbury subdistrict consists of East Finsbury and West Finsbury liberties. Acres, 58. Pop. in 1851,12,941; in 1861, 12,931. Houses, 1,544. Poor rates of the district in 1863, £25,182. Marriages, in 1863,304; births, 2,649, -of which 58 were illegitimate; deaths, 1,513,-of which 853 were at ages under 5 years, and 11 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60,3,774; births, 24,436; deaths, 12,822. The places of worship in 1851 were 4 of the Church of England, with 6,500 sittings; 3 of Independents, with 4,427 s.; 8 of Baptists, with 1,296 s.; 4 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 1,948 s.; 1 of Primitive Methodists, with 240 s.; 1 of the Wesleyan Association, with 200 s.; 1 of Wesleyan Reformers with 200 s.; and 2 of Latter Day Saints, with 350 s. The schools were 16 public day schools, with 3,281 scholars; 71 private day schools, with 2,030 s.; 16 Sunday schools, with 5,154 s.; and 2 evening schools for adults, with 14 s. The workhouse is in Shoreditch parish; and, at the census of 1861, had 694 inmates. The poor law affairs are administered under a local act.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a parish and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "countries, 4th order divisions")
Administrative units: St Luke Vest/CP       St Luke RegD/PLPar       Middlesex AncC
Place names: LUKE ST     |     ST LUKE
Place: St Luke

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