Who Do You Think You Are? at Lambeth Palace Library
Patsy Kensit’s visit to the Library in search of her
clerical ancestor James Mayne featured in the television programme Who Do You
Think You Are? (BBC 1, 13 August 2008).
From 1823 to 1842 James Mayne was the hard-working curate of Bethnal Green, one
of the most populous and socially deprived parishes in England. Working for an
absentee rector, Mayne was responsible for a parish of over 62,000 souls,
officiating at some 800 christenings, 180 marriages and 670 funerals each year,
and taking a leading part in efforts to relieve destitution.
At Bethnal Green Mayne witnessed the collapse of the Spitalfields silk industry
on which the parish depended. In 1832 mass unemployment, the arrival of cholera
and agitation for the Reform Bill made Bethnal Green a powder keg, focusing
attention on Mayne as the local representative of the Church of England.
Archbishop William Howley chose this moment to affirm Mayne’s ministry at
Bethnal Green with the award of a Lambeth degree, Master of Arts.
The Library has produced a subject guide to
biographical sources for Anglican clergy. An article on ‘James Mayne, Curate
of Bethnal Green’, by Richard Palmer, the Lambeth Librarian, has been published
in the online journal of the
Clergy of the
Church of England database.