Workers at All Souls Clubhouse were part of the 1950s movement of evangelicals who sought to develop more appropriate church responses to young people in urban areas (see Ward 1996: 63 - 79). (John Stott, the influential evangelical and writer was Rector of All Souls, Langham Place from 1950 - see, for example, Stott 1958). The approach emphasized open club work, building relationships and a ‘desire to see teenagers coming to a faith in Jesus Christ’ (Burton 1965: 50) and was, perhaps, best known in the work of the Mayflower Family Centre, Canning Town. (Burton had joined David and Grace Sheppard there in 1958 as the youth worker (David Sheppard later became the Bishop of Liverpool). Pip Wilson joined the Mayflower in 1975 and account of his development of the approach can be found in Wilson1985). Out of the efforts of workers such as these the Frontier Youth Trust was formed in 1964.
The Clubhouse is based in a house formally inhabited from 1812 - 1815 by Samuel F. B. Morse (1791 - 1872), the geographer, painter and scientist. He was in London to study painting and was later to devise ‘Morse code’ as a means of communicating via telegraph lines (first used in May 1844.
References
Burton, G. (1965) People Matter More Than Things, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Stott, J. (1958) Basic Christianity, London: Inter-Varsity Press.
Ward, P. (1996) Growing Up Evangelical. Youthwork and the making of a subculture, London: SPCK.
Watherston, P. (1994) A Different Kind of Church. The Mayflower Family Centre Story, London: Marshall Pickering.
Wilson, P. (1985) Gutter Feelings, Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering.
© Mark K. Smith. First published August 7, 1997.
