PASSING OF ST. JUDES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

PASSING OF ST. JUDES

FAMOUS WHITEOHAPEL BENEFICE. >

On 26th November the last service was preached in the Church of St. Jude, Commercial street, Whitechapel, states the London correspondent of the " Manchester Guardian.". The church is to be demolished and the benefice joined with that of the mother church of St. Mary. The rector of the parish said that it had been apparent for years that the church's work was practically over, not through lack of devotion but for the same cause that some other churches suffered in the East End, owing to the Gentiles being outnumbered by the Jews. There were now 8000 Jews and only 200 Gentiles in the parish of St. Jude. ■ . ; St. Jude was the church of Canon Barnett, who made it a centre of faith and culture in Whitechapel. On its outer wall is. a mosaic of Watt's picture, "Time, Death, Judgment," accompanied by an inscription that it was placed there by'friends of Canon Barnett .■" to record the institution oKa yearly exhibition of pictures in Whitechapel and of his endeavours to make the lives of hisv neighbous brighter by bringing within their reach the influence of beauty." St. .Jude's was associated, too, with Toynbee.Hall, the first of the University Settlements in the East End, founded in 1885 by Canon Barnett with the idea of enabling university graduates to share the life of the poor in the East End for their mutual profit.