Winston Churchill Memorial and Library - Churchill's Living Memorial: St. Mary, Aldermanbury

Churchill's Living Memorial: St. Mary, Aldermanbury

As early as 1961, Westminster College President Dr. Robert L. D. Davidson began formulating a plan to commemorate both Winston Churchill's life and the "Sinews of Peace." A LIFE magazine feature on war-ravaged, soon-to-be-demolished Christopher Wren churches in London prompted the suggestion to import one of the churches to serve as both a memorial and the College chapel. After further investigation, college officials selected St. Mary, Aldermanbury as the church to be saved.

St. Mary, Aldermanbury was not only an ideal choice because of its relatively small size, but also because of its unique and nearly 1,000 year history. St. Mary's was a focal-point of religious life in the Old City of London, serving as a place of worship for literary greats William Shakespeare and John Milton. Founded in the late 12th century, the church shared in the rich history of London, surviving both the English Reformation, Restoration, and numerous civil wars. However, on September 2, 1666, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, which swept through St. Mary's parish, burning for five days. When the fire was finally subdued, almost the entire City of London north of the River Thames—including St. Mary, Aldermanbury—lay in ruins.

With so much of London in ruins, reconstruction of the many churches destroyed in the fire was of secondary importance—many would never be rebuilt. However, St. Mary, Aldermanbury became the ninth church restored, placing it among the earliest. With approval for rebuilding granted in 1670, famed architect Christopher Wren began renovating the church in 1672 with the removal of 1,068 cubic yards (817 m3) of rubble. Wren rebuilt the church on part of the old foundation with as much original stones as could be salvaged—saving both time and money. By 1677, the work was essentially complete; the cupola was added to the tower in 1679.

St. Mary, Aldermanbury's location near the heart of London again proved dangerous during World War II at the height of the Blitz. On Sunday evening, December 19, 1940, the German Luftwaffe mounted a massive air raid, dropping 20,000 incendiary bombs on London. Luftwaffe command planned the raid to coincide with low tide to impede fire fighting. It worked. The shortage of water and the scale of the attack forced firemen to let parts of the city burn. At 6:45 pm, St. Mary's suffered a direct hit by an incendiary bomb, quickly setting the church ablaze. Noel Mander, a young fire warden, later recorded his observations:

"We couldn’t do anything because the water mains had all been fractured, and the river was so low, record low, they couldn’t suck water up from there. They could do little, very little…. I saw that night St. Mary, Aldermanbury; St. Vedast-alias-Foster, my own church—I saw them all burn, and it was a sensation that I will never forget—hearing the bells fall down the tower, hearing the organs burn, because the hot air blowing through the organ pipes almost sounded as if the poor old organs were shrieking in agony in their destruction."

That night, thirteen Christopher Wren churches shared St. Mary's fate. By morning, only its blackened shell and tower stood—the roof, the interior, and all furnishings destroyed. In the war's aftermath, there were neither the funds nor the need to rebuild all of London's destroyed churches. After standing as a ruin for twenty years, St. Mary, Aldermanbury joined the list of parish churches slated for demolition.

It was at this point that Westminster College stepped in to save the church from destruction and to reconstruct it in order to honor one of Britain's most famous citizens—Winston Churchill. Churchill's inspiration for the British people during the Blitz made the reconstruction of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, itself a victim of the Blitz, a fitting memorial to the man. "I am honored…," Churchill said.…." "The removal of a ruined Christopher Wren Church, largely destroyed by enemy action in London in 1941, and its reconstruction and re-dedication at Fulton, is an imaginative concept…." "It may symbolize in the eyes of the English-speaking peoples," he continued, "the ideals of Anglo-American association on which rest, now as before, so many of our hopes for peace and the future of mankind."

It took four years to finalize preparations for the project, and to raise the necessary $2 million (more than $10 million today) to make the move a reality. Actor Richard Burton was a major promoter and donor, appearing on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar on NBC, who made a direct appeal. In 1965, the removal process began. Workers carefully labeled each of the 7,000 stones, noting their location in the church. More than 700 tons of blocks were shipped to Fulton via boat and rail. In the moving process, the carefully ordered stones became scrambled. Builders in Fulton faced a jigsaw puzzle that spread over an acre.

With a collection of the church's outer stones piled beside him, President Truman arrived in Fulton to turn the symbolic first shovel for the reconstruction on April 19, 1964, before a crowd of 10,000 on-lookers. Fittingly, former Westminster President Franc McCluer and the other living members of the 1946 platform party joined in the ceremonies. Other attendees included former British Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Mary Soames (Churchill's youngest daughter), British Ambassador John Freeman, and former Missouri Governor John M. Dalton, who headed the committee responsible for raising funds for the Memorial.

The foundation stone was laid in October 1966, 300 years after the Great Fire of London, and by May 1967, the last stone was in place. However, the project was far from complete. A meticulous re-creation of the church's interior required another two years of work. English woodcarvers, working from pre-war photographs, created carvings for the pulpit, baptismal font, and balcony. Blenko Glass Company, an American firm, manufactured the glass for the windows and a Dutch firm cast five new bronze bells for the tower. Noel Mander, the fire warden who watched St. Mary's burn in 1940, built the organ and helped assure authenticity of the interior details. There are only two departures from the Wren design: an organ gallery in the west wall and a window in the tower to illuminate the stairway.

After nearly five years of work on what The Times called "perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture," dedication ceremonies for St. Mary's and the National Churchill Museum were held on May 7, 1969. During the course of the ceremonies, the Rev. Anthony Tremlett, the Bishop of Dover, England, re-hallowed St. Mary's as a place of worship. In 1992, the Eagle Squadrons Association named St. Mary's as its official chapel. Since that time, St. Mary, Aldermanbury has continued to serve as a focus of religious life and history.