During the 18th century Britain’s population grew rapidly, from around 5 million people in 1700 to nearly 9 million in 1801. This was down to many factors including the industrial revolution, which in turn provided an impetus for population migration from rural to urban living where there was regular paid employment in the new factories and businesses springing up, in domestic service or in the inns and shops that served these new or larger markets.

The governing classes, fearing this urban shift could be a hotbed for dissent, prompting a revolution similar to that in France, turned to the Church of England. With its religious and moral teaching surely it could educate the new urban masses, but where were the churches? The churches were mostly in rural parishes, built thanks to wealthy landowners or with links to Abbeys, with their incumbents paid for by tithes from the surrounding farms. How could new churches be built and the incumbent obtain a living?

The answer was to be found in the “Commissioner Churches”.

That fear of dissent, and a feeling of gratitude for the defeat of Napolean in 1815 eventually led to the Church Building Act of 1818, which established the Church Building Commission and provided a Parliamentary Grant of £1million for building new churches in these expanded or new towns. Eventually 612 new Commissioner churches, sometimes referred to as Waterloo or Million Pound Churches, were built to help promote public worship for the middle and lower classes. Not all the churches were fully funded from Parliamentary grants; many received an initial sum then benefactors or public subscription made up the rest.

History:

The ancient Borough of Croydon extended from Lambeth in the north, to Coulsdon in the south. As the population expanded rapidly in Victorian times it became necessary to subdivide the Parish of Croydon and build new churches to serve all the community.

St. Peter’s Church is a Commissioner’s Church. Work started in 1849 with the church consecrated in 1851, though the tower and spire were not completed till 1864. Sadly, on completion the spire was set alight by a lantern left by a workman, meaning it took another year for the church to be completed. The Parish of St. Peter’s was carved out from the Parish Church of Croydon (now Croydon Minster) in 1853, with four further parishes carved out of the area originally allotted to St. Peter’s; St. Andrew’s (1857), St. Augustine’s (1885), Emmanuel (1899) and St. John the Divine, Selsdon (1936).

The cost of £6,600 was partly funded by a grant from the Commission as well as by a major benefactor, Mr John Russell who gave the ground on which the church stands and whose striking memorial and grave can be found in the churchyard.