History of Saint James

In the year 1873, London, at the junction of the two branches of the Thames River - which was and is the city's principal physical landmark - was a community of some 18,000 souls. Still strongly British in character and allegiance, it was well into the 36th year of the reign of Queen Victoria.

The Diocese of Huron had been in separate existence only 16 years, and London's central church, Saint Paul's, had been a Cathedral for that long. It had earlier produced its first daughter church - Christ Church on Wellington Street, and in 1873 two others appeared: the Memorial Church in East London, later named for Benjamin Cronyn, the first Bishop of Huron, and across the river to the south, Saint James, later to have added to its title the euphonious "Westminster," the township in which it was located.

Lying along the south banks of the Thames, the township was characterized by large estates of people who did their business in the growing town of London and retreated across the river for their domestic living. If there was a centre of this sprawling community, it was in the cluster of buildings in the village of Askin, and the adherents of the Church of England had already been gathering for worship in the schoolhouse of that village. Clergy from Saint Paul's and Christ Church had been responsible for its worship, but 1873 saw a stronger desire for a formal parish life.

The wife of Bishop Benjamin Cronyn had for some months been actively collecting funds for the new church. She lived with her husband, the aging first Bishop of Huron, in the See House, which lay north of Windsor Ave. between Ridout St. and Wortley Road. She was the Bishop's second wife, and her husband had been in failing health for some time. As she did her collecting, she may have nursed the hope that the Bishop might conduct services in this new nearby church in the evening of his days, but it was not to be, for he died in that same See House on September 22, 1872.

But the movement she had assisted carried on. Soon Lot 18 of Westminster Township was purchased for $200.00 from Martha C. Ayers, and on this lot was erected the first church. It opened for worship September 7, 1873.