Church Heritage Record 823012

Lincoln's Inn Chapel is afforded a special status thanks to the fact that (like all other chapels of the Inns of Court) it is not strictly under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and therefore does not have an attached parish. It is known as a ‘peculiar’, similar to the royal peculiars that are owned by the monarchy. The Inn itself was established on a technicality to avoid falling foul of the law: in 1234 Henry III decreed that no institutions of legal education were to exist in the City of London, and so members of the legal profession moved to Holborn – the closest place to the courts at Westminster that was outside the City. However, the earliest reference to Lincoln’s Inn itself does not appear until 1422. In a similar situation, Lincoln’s Inn was founded on the site of the town house of the Bishops of Chichester, which, being the residence of a bishop of a different diocese, could not technically fall under the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London. Thus the Inn and the attached chapel were not part of any parish.

This somewhat complicated medieval system had repercussions in the eighteenth century, but perhaps not in an entirely expected way. As the centuries passed, the parish as an ecclesiastical unit took on civic and social duties, such as care for the poor and the maintenance of infrastructure. The Act for the Relief of the Poor in 1601 placed the duty of care of the poor and needy on the parish, and made stipulations that they were to reside in workhouses in order to make a contribution to society. This was further enforced by the Workhouse Test Act of 1723. Workhouses soon gained a reputation for being horrid and unhealthy places to live, especially for children.

William Hogarth, the great satirist of the age, also a great patron for the Foundling Hospital, which was established in 1739, created an engraving named Study for the Foundlings which was designed with the intention to shock. It depicts unwanted children, born out of wedlock, being disposed of in gruesome and unethical ways. It summed up what was a genuine problem in eighteenth century England. The least horrifying method, but still unimaginably cruel today, depicted by Hogarth is the abandonment of babies in the hope that someone else would take care of them.

How, then, does this relate to the extra-parochial status of the chapel at Lincoln’s Inn? In 1732, the accounts of the Inn record that 2s 6d was given to ‘a woman that keept a child that was dropt under the Chapell’, and such references crop up intermittently for the next 20 years. There are also mentions that are testament to the tragic rate of infant mortality among those who were abandoned at in the chapel of the Inn. It has been suggested that parents (usually unmarried young mothers) would leave their children at Lincoln’s Inn specifically because it did not fall under parochial jurisdiction. As such, they hoped that their children would not be sent to live in harsh and squalid conditions of the parish workhouse.

In most cases, the Inn did hand over care of the children to a local parish, but there are some noticeable examples of children being raised by the Inn itself. A total of three foundling children were given the name ‘Lincoln’, suggesting a closer association, and one, named George Lincoln, can be traced in the records as being brought up, cared for and sent off to boarding school in County Durham by the Inn in the 1770s.

Such stories are a poignant reminder of the role that chapels have played, and still play to this day, in society, in terms of support and care for those in need. Their job as a place of worship is augmented by the works of charity that they carry out, giving them a far wider reach than just those who rely on them for spiritual purposes.

The medieval chapel was replaced in the seventeenth century, with the foundation stone being laid by John Donne, the preacher, in 1620. It was consecrated in 1623. Towards the end of the century, however, the chapel was falling into disrepair and Christopher Wren, who was a member of the Inn, was consulted. The chapel served in this state for two centuries, when major alterations were made. The roof was replaced and a third aisle was added, as well as a vestibule and two vestries.

Canon Clarke’s verdict was that the chapel was ‘delightful: quite unmodernised, & with a staid, rather musty atmosphere’. Underneath the chapel lied the crypt, with a vaulted gothic roof which is intersected with bosses displaying foliage, blank shields, and the coats of arms of England and of Lincoln’s Inn.