Anglican Churches in Chatham, Ontario

There are 3 Anglican Churches in the former City of Chatham, Ontario.   In 1998, Chatham and the County of Kent were amalgamated to form the Municipality of Chatham-Kent.   The Municipality had a population of 108,177 in the 2006 census and contains most of the parishes in the Deanery of Kent.

Christ Church website

There has been an Anglican Church in Chatham since 1819. When the current building was opened in 1861 it was renamed Christ Church from St Paul's.

Originally, box pews filled the nave. Each family paid an annual rent for their pew. In 1911, the box pews were removed and the present black ash and oak benches were installed. The parishioners could still rent their pew until 1931.

Holy Trinity website

The parish was established in 1875 under the second Bishop of Huron, Isaac Hellmuth. Hellmuth was born and educated in Poland, lived briefly in England before coming to Canada in 1844 where he was ordained in the Church of England. He was instrumental in founding the University of Western Ontario in 1878 and served as that institution's first chancellor.

Emily Murphy, the wife of one of the first Rectors, Arthur Murphy, after moving to Alberta became prominent in the suffrage movement and in 1916 became the first woman magistrate in the British Empire. Sylvia Fricker Tyson of 'Ian and Sylvia' born in Chatham in 1940 was a member of the junior choir.

Shown is the Pipe Organ which consists of 1700 pipes in 30 ranks and features a brass Festival Trumpet, seen on the right of the photo.

St. Paul's Anglican, Chatham was formed when a few parishioners from Christ Church started a Sunday School for children in south Chatham.   St. Paul's Sunday School soon developed into a newly formed church community who gathered at Queen Elizabeth School for worship.   The first worship service was held on June 17, 1956. A year and a half later, the ground was broken and the cornerstone laid for a new church building. Today St. Paul's continues to thrive and serve the spiritual needs of Anglicans in south Chatham.

St. Paul's was named after the first church to be built in Chatham (1819), a small wooden structure on the south banks of the Thames River, which later became a cemetery chapel after the much larger Christ Church was built (1861) to meet the needs of Chatham’s growing population.   The original St. Paul’s Church burned down in 1864.

St Paul's is part of a 2-point parish with St. Thomas Church, Dover Twp.
Rector is Rev. Karen Nelles.