In 1873, the Millwall Dock Company built the Millwall Dock Club for its permanent employees (around 800 men at the time – most dock workers having to put up with the insecurity of the call-on system). The company built the club partially behind St. Paul’s Church – on dock land, but with its main entrance facing Westferry Road.
1880s
The club wasn’t a long-term success, and it closed in 1892. The building had two main sections, a three-storey building and a single-storey hall. Some time after the closure of the club, the hall was taken over by St. Paul’s church, and the three-storey building by an institute for poor women, known as St. Mildred’s House (Mildred, was an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon abbess of the Abbey at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent.).
Photo: Island History Trust
The institute – set up by Miss Hilda Barry and formally opened in October 1897 – was opened as:
…a centre in the Isle of Dogs at which ladies could reside for religious, social, and eductional work among women and girls in that isolated district. The Settlement would accommodate seven residents … The district was populated by over twenty thousand persons who were practically cut off from the rest of the world. (The Morning Post, Thursday March 15th, 1900)
The quote from ‘The Morning Post’ is part of an article about a so-called ‘drawing room meeting’, a meeting held by well-to-do Londoners in an attempt to raise interest in, and funds for, their philanthropic endeavours. For, as ‘The Guardian’ reported at the time:
…difficulty was experienced finding lades who would go there [to St. Mildred’s] not only casually and at intervals, but would reside there for a certain specified period and assist in much needed work on behalf of the very large number of women and girls employed in the various factories of the district.
And further:
Mrs. Creighton spoke of the progress which had been made in the matter of women’s settlements of late years and of the need which existed for more workers. They did not want to make their settlements hospitals for moral invalids, but wished to secure the best and the brightest workers.
1926
“Off the track in London” by George R. Sims, published by Jarrold & Sons, 1911. Originally published in “The Strand” magazine, July 1905. Chapter XI – In Limehouse and the Isle of Dogs:
There is a Ladies’ Settlement, St. Mildred’s House, in Millwall, which suggests the refining influence of gentle womanhood. The conditions of life among the women workers of the place are affected by the nature of their employment. The dirt of their drudgery, the odour of their occupation, are brought into the home by the men and women alike. There is no escape from either.
Three boys in front of St. Mildred’s. Photo donated to Island History Trust by St. Mildred’s.
Children at play at St. Mildred’s. Photo donated to Island History Trust by St. Mildred’s
Residents at St.Mildred’s House, Millwall, in 1932. They are, at the back, Marjorie Hartley, Joan Duff, Barbara Blackwell. In front, Anne Tetley, Margaret Balfour, Ursula Robbins and Kay Knights-Smith (later Kay Leonard). Photo donated to Island History Trust by St. Mildred’s.
In the evening of 7th September 1940 – the first night of the Blitz – the nearby St. Cuthbert’s church (on the corner of Cahir Street and Westferry Road) was destroyed by bombing.
St. Cuthbert’s after the night of 7th September 1940, with Harbinger School in the background. Photo: George Hardy.
Subsequently, St. Cuthbert’s congregation began to meet in the chapel at St. Mildred’s. However, St. Mildred’s was itself also seriously damaged, as the Church Times would report:
When a bomb hit the warehouse opposite, the street became a hot stream of peanut butter and for weeks, boots and carpets were saturated with the strong-smelling substance. Finally, a flying bomb fell within the dock gates and St. Mildred’s walls were split from top to bottom.
St. Mildred’s stained-glass windows were rescued and stored for safe keeping in McDougall’s flour mill (considered a safe storage place, with its thick concrete silo walls), after which all memory and trace of them was lost.
McDougall’s
The London County Council bomb damage maps do not indicate any damage to St. Mildred’s – while all the buildings around have some level of damage, as indicated by their colours. However, the lack of colour may have been because the building was on dock property; the considerable damage to dock buildings was not always marked on the LCC bomb damage maps, possibly due to the PLA not giving full access to their land.
LCC Bomb Damage Map
A 1950 map shows that the three-storey building was no longer present at that time.
1950
This is borne out by a 1963 aerial photo which shows that the building had been demolished, and the land used for storage of timber (almost certainly belonging to Montague Meyer, whose sheds can also be seen in the photo).
1963
In the 1960s, the remaining building was replaced by new premises in Castalia Square. Island House website (https://www.island-house.org/about-us/history/):
The vicarage in Castalia Street had been destroyed by a direct hit in the war, and in 1955 was replaced by a new clergy house on the north side of Roserton Street overlooking the new Square, adjoining the St John’s mission hall and club house. This was called St Mildred’s House to continue the name of the former Anglican settlement in Millwall; St Mildred’s House was used temporarily by Island House as an overflow to provide offices for the Health Trainers project in 2010-11.
St. Mildred’s and Island House, Castalia Square. Island History Trust
As for those stained-glass windows which had been stored in McDougall’s, and then ‘lost’, they were found in 1990 in an organ loft at Christ Church during renovations. They were cleaned and installed in the church (an action that was in part funded by Rank Hovis McDougall), where they can be seen today.
St. Mildred’s stained glass windows, Anunciation 1 & 2. (Photo: John Salmon)
Isle of Dogs - Past Life, Past Lives 
The St. Mildred’s I remember was after WW2 and in the grounds of St. Luke’s Church, probably the vicarage, with Miss Bradford and Bill Simmons the priest. Used to go there for choir practice.
Interesting – thanks for the comment – perhaps St. Mildred’s carried on for a while at St. Luke’s after the war? Found no reference to it, but it would make sense if their own building was damaged.
Interesting that John Betjeman, no less, was impressed by Castalia Square; I wonder if the qualities endure – will have a shufty when next over that way. And good that the missing stained glass windows were rediscovered!
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Hello. I live in the current St Mildred’s with my wife and children. The house is now split into two flats. Typically, the house is for local clergy or locals with church connections.
Some of my friends who live this side of the Island remember the place as “where their mums would get a bit of help, get advice…” or “remember having beans & toast there in the holidays”
I have invited a few of them in on occasion as they are intrigued to what it now looks like – compared to their childhood memories. It’s always interesting to found out, for instance, that the current front room was once used for (e.g., a small reception).
Seems therefore, that over time, the ‘new’ St Mildred’s carried on the traditions of the former. I have also heard it was once a women’s refuge as well as an informal youth club. As I am from the Millwall side of the Island, I have only recently had any historical awareness of St Mildred’s (the old one being well before my time).
I’ll find out a little more about the history of St Mildred’s and update the site if what I find out warrants further inclusion.
Great site by the way.
Thanks for your message. I would be interested to hear about any more that you learn about the history. Cheers!
Can we see photos of the house now ??
Thanks for compiling this history – I suspect that my grandfather’s mother – with the unusual name of Elleel Mary L Word (born in the coastal village of Filey, Yorkshire) , was living at St Mildred’s in 1901. There are no further records of what became of her, she claimed to be a person ‘living on own means’. Too much to hope for that records kept at St Mildred’s have survived
Hello Will, It is not impossible that records have survived. I know that their photos at least ended up with Island History Trust (you could contact the Friends of Island History trust), and some stuff may have ended up at Christ Church or the present-dat St. Mildred’s at Castalia Square. There may be something in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets may have some records. Their catalogue is available online: http://185.121.204.36/CalmView/Default.aspx? (warning – it’s a bit temperamental).
Thanks Mick, I shall certainly research these possible sources. I wonder what ‘living on own means’
meant at that time. It appears that the ‘Ladies Settlement’ didn’t aim to house the destitute. If I find anything, shall report on that.
‘Living on own means’ almost always meant that the person had a bob or two, and didn’t need to work.
It sounds a lot like she was one of the people running the place – not a ‘guest’.
Intriguing, ‘The ladies came from well-to-do middle class families’ yet my grandfather, William F. Word born illegitimate in Filey,1886, was orphaned to poor people in nearby Scarborough and by the age of 15 both his foster parents were dead and he was in the Scarborough workhouse . If Elleel Mary L Word was his mother, then he was born when she was 20. She doesn’t appear to have a registered birth herself, and doesn’t appear to have been married either. At St Mildred’s she is listed as a 35 year old ‘Boarder’ in the 1901 Census. Her Yorkshire accent would then have possibly been unusual in her ‘milieu’.
I lived here as a small child with my mother who was not married and a school teacher ! We lived in the settlement with other people who could not easily find accommodation . I was age 3-4 and remember a Father Freeman who I thought Ed lived there and some one I called Aunty Katy who I think must have been the housekeeper … do you have any I formation about this era?
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Came across a reference to St Mildred’s in East End News 17/01/1941 p 3: the settlement had been entrusted with administering the Lord Mayor’s Fund for relief of air raid victims in the locality. (If the house was eventually destroyed by a flying bomb that couldn’t have been earlier than 1944.)