Plaque: Church House WC1 - names
Erection date: 11/2/1957
In memory of those who died in the destruction of Church House 9th February 1945.
{List of 10 names - see Subjects commemorated.}
11th February 1957
Our colleague Andrew Behan has done some detailed research on these names and also found a newspaper report of the incident at Trove (The Advertiser, Adelaide, South Australia, dated 13/2/1945). We did our bit for the on-line community by “fixing the text” (that’s removing OCR errors) and give here the relevant section:
"The Presbyterian Church in England lost some of its leading figures recently, when a V bomb fell in front of a hall in southern England in which a conference was being held. Ministers and laymen from all parts of Britain were attending the conference, and the total number killed is unknown. The authorities are still trying to find out how many delegates were actually in conference when the bomb fell. The officials killed were the general secretary (Rev. W. T. Elmslie) the financial secretary (Mr. W. H. Wright), the foreign missions secretary (Rev. T. W. Douglas James), and the assistant general secretary (Mr. W. T. Stubbs). Several members of the head office staff were also killed.
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (Rev. A. P. Harcus) escaped because he was late for the conference.
A meeting of the Faith and Order Department of the British Council of Churches had just concluded in the same block of buildings. One member, the Rev. Reginald Tribe, former director of the Anglican Society of the Sacred Mission, was killed, and others were injured."
Site: United Reformed Church Trust (3 memorials)
WC1, Wakefield Street, United Reformed Church Trust
The blue plaque is on the site of number 13, now the United Reformed Church Trust’s UK headquarters. The other two plaques are inside, in the reception area on the ground floor.
