This page is a stub.
You can help improve it.
Rev. Henry Charles Douglass was the first Vicar of St Matthew’s Church,
Ealing Common, from 1884 -1916. He was the son of John Douglas
(1814-1874), of The Standard Theatre, London.
Henry Charles Douglass was
admitted pensioner at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1868 and was
ordained priest five years later. After several curacies, the first of
which was at Upper Chelsea, he became incumbent of St. Matthew's,
Ealing, where he remained almost continuously between 1876 and 1916
St Matthew’s was gazetted as a new parish in 1885 and the first
vicar was the Rev’d Henry Douglass,
appointed that year. He served up until his death during a service on
13th August 1916 and was famous for his ‘Picture Services’, when works
of art and hymns would be projected from a Magic Lantern onto a sheet
drawn across the chancel arch.
The Rev. Henry Charles Douglass, moved his family to the newly built
vicarage at 7 North Common Road, Ealing, next door to St Matthew’s
Church in 1887, the walls of which are said to have been used by the
young Dorothea(1) for hitting practice, and where she
is commemorated by a blue plaque. She moved out on her marriage to
Robert Lambert Chambers, a merchant. The ceremony was conducted by her
father at St Matthew’s and the couple spent a further ten years in
Ealing at Bryn-y-Mor, 12 Queen’s Road before moving to central London.
Three further daughters were Isabella Roach, an actress, at the
family's Standard Theatre, in London, where her sister Alice was a
pianist and Agnes a vocalist.
He 'fell dead on Sunday morning
while was about to celebrate the Holy Communion after having
preached. had suffered from heart trouble for some years'.
| Whitehall, April 27, 1885. . THE Queen has been pleased to
direct Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal
nominating the ,Reverend Henry Charles Douglass, M.A., to the
Perpetual Curacy of the Consolidated Chapelry of Saint Matthew,
Ealing Common, in the county of Middlesex, and diocese of
London. |
Notes:
1. The outstanding tennis player of
the decade before the First World War, Dorothea Lambert Chambers remains
the only British woman to have won the Wimbledon Championships seven
times. |
