St Thomas the Martyr's is an Anglo-Catholic church in Oxford, England, near Oxford railway station in Osney. It was founded in the 12th century, dedicated to Saint Thomas à Becket, and still retains some of its original architecture. It played a significant role in the early stages of the Oxford Movement.
History
It is traditionally stated that the church was founded in the reign of Stephen, but this is unlikely to be true; for one thing, Becket was not martyred until some fifteen years after Stephen's death. In the 1180s, the site was granted to the canons of the nearby Osney Abbey, and a chapel was erected on the site around 1190. From the mid-13th century the Osney area was referred to as the parish of St Thomas's, but it remained nominally a chapel of the Abbey until the dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, when it was placed under Christ Church, Oxford. Christ Church treated it as a conventional parish church with a curate, and from the mid-19th century the incumbent was styled a vicar.[1]
After the curacy was placed under the patronage of Christ Church, the incumbents were mostly scholars or members of the college; from 1616 to 1640 the curacy was held by Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, who enlarged the church. During the Civil War the medieval stained glass in the church was destroyed, partly due to the vandalism of Parliamentary troops captured at Cirencester in 1642 and imprisoned in the church.[2]
Following the Restoration, the holders of the curacy changed rapidly, often remaining in the position for only a few years at a time,[1] and by the early 19th century the church and its parish were showing signs of neglect. In 1802 only ten communicants are recorded, and in 1814 some 90% of the parish was thought to be non-churchgoing.[1] The curate from 1823 to 1842, one John Jones, brought a significant turnaround in attendance; perhaps the most unusual innovation was a houseboat - the "Boatman's Floating Chapel" - acquired in 1839, for use as a chapel serving the families working on the river and the canals.[2]
The vicar from 1842 to 1892 was Thomas Chamberlain (later founder of St Edward's School), a firm believer in the Tractarian movement, who introduced daily services as well as such ritualist practices as altar candles and the wearing of Eucharistic vestments - the latter causing him to be rebuked by Bishop Wilberforce in 1855.[1] Many of the leaders of the Oxford Movement preached at the church, and in the early days of that movement it was closely associated with St Thomas's.[3] The vicar from 1896 to 1908 was T. H. Birley, later Bishop of Zanzibar.[2]
Subsidiary foundations
The first chapel of ease established to handle growing numbers of parishoners was the Boatman's Floating Chapel, mentioned above, in 1838; it was donated by H. Ward, a local coal merchant, and used until it sank in 1868. It was replaced by a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas, which remained in use until 1892. A second chapel was constructed in 1860, dedicated to St Frideswide, later replaced by the new parish church of St Frideswide's, which took on the parish of New Osney in 1873. In 1847 Chamberlain founded the Community of St Thomas Martyr, which was devoted to the assistance of the poor of the parish, by now heavily slumland; this sisterhood would remain active until 1958. The convent buildings constructed for it were built in 1886, but have since been demolished.[2]
Architecture
The church has a nave with a north aisle and vestry, a west tower, a chancel and a south porch. The nave was rebuilt in the late 15th or early 16th century to meet a tower of approximately the same age; it is often dated to 1521, but appears to be built on older foundations. The north aisle was originally built in the 13th century, and the vestry in the 17th; they were demolished and rebuilt in 1846 by Chamberlain, through the generosity of the curate, Alexander Penrose Forbes. The church has been reroofed at least twice, in 1825 and 1897.[1]
The chancel contains three late 12th-century windows, and a priest's door built into the south side circa 1250. A southern porch was built in 1621 by Dr. Robert Burton, whose arms are carved in the gable above the date.[3]