page_title: St Peter's Collegiate Church
section_title: 1660–1848: Decline and demise of the old order
hierarchical_section_title: St Peter's Collegiate Church / History / 1660–1848: Decline and demise of the old order
caption_attribution_description: English: The Church of St. John in the Square, Wolverhampton The church was completed in about 1760. Excellent historical information by Peter Hickman, and some superb old engravings and photographs can be found at http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/listed/StJohns/johns01.htm
context_page_description: St Peter's Collegiate Church is located on the northern side of central Wolverhampton, England. For many centuries it was a chapel royal, and from 1480 a royal peculiar, independent of the Diocese of Lichfield and even the Province of Canterbury. The collegiate church was central to the development of the town of Wolverhampton, much of which belonged to its dean. Until the 18th century, it was the only church in Wolverhampton and the control of the college extended far into the surrounding area, with dependent chapels in several towns and villages of southern Staffordshire.
  Fully integrated into the diocesan structure since 1848, today St Peter's is part of the Anglican Parish of Central Wolverhampton. The Grade I listed building, much of which is Perpendicular in style, dating from the 15th century, is of significant architectural and historical interest. Although it is not a cathedral, it has a strong choral foundation in keeping with English Cathedral tradition. The Father Willis organ is of particular note: a campaign to raise £300,000 for its restoration was launched in 2008. Restoration began in 2018.
context_section_description: The Restoration of Charles II automatically brought the restoration of the college at St. Peter's, as the legislation abolishing it was regarded as invalid. Everything was restored very quickly. However, the loss of the records at the hands of Leveson, whose family coincidentally had important claims on college property, was a serious problem for the restored institution and its financial position continued to be weak. Cesar Callendrine and Thomas Wren, son of Matthew Wren and prebendary of Willenhall, mounted a legal challenge to Leveson dominance in 1661. It quickly ran into problems and Joseph Hall's gains were lost. Callendrine was dead by the time the case was finally decided in 1667, with the Court of Chancery dismissing their claim and awarding Robert Leveson costs.
  Leveson sold his Wolverhampton estates to the Earl of Bradford, his nephew, in 1705 and the college went to court again to recover its alienated lands. This time the case was dismissed immediately. Not until 1811 did the college finally abandon its attempts to recover its property - more than two and a half centuries after its loss. Meanwhile, Samuel de l'Angle, a Huguenot who was prebendary of Kinvaston 1684–93, had initiated a Chancery suit to recover his prebendal lands. After his death the claim was pursued to a successful conclusion by his son and executor. However, all the dependent chapels but Kinvaston were now very poorly funded and unable to attract able or dedicated ministers. They were still expected to contribute to the upkeep of St. Peter's and to the expenses of the sacrist, who doggedly defended his income from burials and other rites. They were now starting to chafe at the bit. Bilston revolted against the dean's attempts to impose a curate twice — in 1730 and 1735 — and the congregation elected their own.
  The population of Wolverhampton itself and of the towns to the east was growing rapidly as manufacturing took hold. Peniston Booth, a dean who actually spent some of his time at the deanery house in Wolverhampton, was sufficiently in touch with opinion to authorise the building of new chapels of ease at Wednesfield, Willenhall and Bilston. With considerably more persuasion, and after a major public campaign fronted by Lord Grey, he acquiesced in the building of a new chapel of ease in Wolverhampton itself. It was authorised by a private Act of Parliament in 1755, and the fine Neo-Classical St John's Church, Wolverhampton quickly rose on a site enclosed in a square to the south of St. Peter's.
  The college, with its deanery and prebends, was increasingly proving a straitjacket for the Anglican Church in Wolverhampton. The increasing population was a challenge in itself, but it also brought social misery and discontent as the crowded housing of the Wolverhampton and the Black Country failed to keep up with demand. Increasing religious diversity was another consequence. There had been Protestant Dissenters since the Civil War, but their numbers were greatly increased by the preaching of Methodism: in 1761 John Wesley himself preached at an inn-yard in what he called "this furious town" of Wolverhampton. Catholic recusancy was strong in the surrounding countryside. Despite the Penal laws, in the 1730s the Giffard family of Brewood succeeded in building a Catholic chapel in the guise of a private house, just to the west of St. Peter's. As Catholic Emancipation approached, this was rapidly expanded into a functioning Roman Catholic church. Already, distress in Ireland was bringing immigration and a large working class, Irish Catholic community, concentrated to the north of St. Peter's in the slums of an area known as "Caribee Island".
  In 1811 a special Act was passed to reform St. Peter's church itself. The post of sacrist was replaced by that of perpetual curate. Three readerships were abolished and their income signed over to the curate. A fund was established from proceeds of mining on the deanery land to improve the income of the curate. This did not go far enough. The curate was still heavily dependent on fees from the dependent chapel
caption: The Church of St. John in the Square was originally built as a chapel-of-ease to relieve overcrowding at St. Peter's in the 1750s.
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