The Old Jewry Meeting-house was a

meeting-house A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a * church (congregation) ...

for an English Presbyterian congregation, built around 1701, in the

Old Jewry Old Jewry is a one-way street in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It is located within Coleman Street ward and links Poultry to Gresham Street. The street now contains mainly offices for financial companies. The ...

, a small street in the centre of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

. Its first minister was

John Shower John Shower (1657–1715) was a prominent English nonconformist minister. Life The elder brother of Sir Bartholomew Shower, he was born at Exeter, and baptised on 18 May 1657. His father, William, a wealthy merchant, died about 1661, leaving a wid ...

. In 1808 new premises were built in Jewin Street.

Origin

Edmund Calamy the Younger Edmund Calamy the Younger (c. 1635–1685) was an ejected minister. Early life Edmund was the eldest son of Edmund Calamy the Elder, by his first wife, Mary Snelling. He was born at Bury St. Edmunds about 1636. His early training he got from his f ...

, an

ejected minister The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England, following Stuart Restoration, The Restoration of Charles II of England, Charles I ...

, gathered a congregation from 1672 at Curriers' Hall. After his death in 1685, it moved to Jewin Street in 1692, and, expanding, under John Shower, had a purpose-built meeting-house constructed nearby in Old Jewry. This structure, opened in around 1701, gave the congregation its name for over a century.

New building

In 1808 the meeting-house was rebuilt in Jewin Street, on a site almost opposite the one it had occupied between 1692 and 1701, for

Abraham Rees Abraham Rees (1743 – 9 June 1825) was a Welsh nonconformist minister, and compiler of ''Rees's Cyclopædia'' (in 45 volumes). Life He was the second son of Esther, daughter of Abraham Penry, and her husband Lewis Rees, and was born in L ...

as minister. (It was distinct from the Jewin Street Chapel, an Independent congregation, also known as "Woodgate's Meeting-House" after the previous minister; at the time the minister there was

Timothy Priestley Timothy Priestley (19 June 1734 – 23 April 1814) was an English Independent minister. The younger brother of Joseph Priestley, he was a collaborator in making electrical apparatus. Life The second child of Jonas and Mary Priestley, was born at ...

John James Baddeley Sir John James Baddeley, 1st Baronet, (22 December 1842 – 28 June 1926) was a Lord Mayor of London. Background He was the eldest son of John Baddeley and his wife Frances Beresford, fifth daughter of James Beresford. Baddeley was educated ...

, ''Cripplegate, one of the twenty-six wards of the City of London'' (1921) pp. 278–9
archive.org.
/ref> See also the

Jewin Welsh Presbyterian Chapel The Jewin Welsh Presbyterian Chapel (Welsh: ''Eglwys Gymraeg Jewin'') is a Presbyterian Church of Wales church in Clerkenwell, London, England. The current building was opened in 1960 on a site adjoining the Golden Lane Estate. It replaced a ch ...

, which had premises on that street.) The move came about because of the imminent end of the lease in Old Jewry, in 1810. The architect of the new chapel was

Edmund Aikin Edmund Aikin (2 October 1780 – 11 March 1820) was an English architect and writer on architecture. He spent the last years of his life in Liverpool, where he designed the Wellington Rooms, Liverpool, Wellington Rooms. Life Aikin came from a U ...

. The old brick meeting-house was knocked down, to make way for the " New Bank Buildings", designed by Sir John Soane. A decline in the congregation caused the closure of the chapel in 1840. It passed from Presbyterian control in 1841. The new Methodist tenants demolished the chapel in 1846, rebuilding it in a

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

in 1847.

Ministers

*John Shower *

Timothy Rogers Timothy Rogers (1658–1728) was an English nonconformist minister, known as an author on depression as a sufferer. Life The son of John Rogers (1610–1680), he was born at Barnard Castle, County Durham on 24 May 1658. He was educated at Glas ...

as assistant *Joseph Bennett as assistant *

Simon Browne Simon Browne was a English Dissenters, dissenting Minister (Christianity), minister and theologian. He was born in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England, in 1680. Early life Browne was preaching by the age of 20, and first became a minister at an Ind ...

*Thomas Leavesley * Samuel Chandler * Henry Miles * Richard Price * Thomas Amory *Nathaniel White *

*1825–1840 David Davison, resigned 1840, was the last pastor. The building became a

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

chapel.

Notes

{{coord, 51.5143, -0.0909, type:landmark_region:GB-LND, display=title Former churches in London Former Presbyterian churches 1701 establishments in England