St George's Church, Brighton

St George's Church, Brighton
The church from the southwest
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Broad Church
Website	www.stgeorgesbrighton.org
History
Dedication	St George the Martyr
Administration
Parish	Brighton, St George with St Anne and St Mark
Deanery	Rural Deanery of Brighton
Archdeaconry	Chichester
Diocese	Chichester
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s)	Revd Andrew Manson-Brailsford

St George's Church is an Anglican church in the Kemptown area of Brighton, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was built at the request of Thomas Read Kemp, who had created and financed the Kemp Town estate on the cliffs east of Brighton in the early 19th century, and is now regarded as the parish church of the wider Kemptown area. It is a Grade II listed building.

Thomas Read Kemp, born in 1782 in Lewes, East Sussex, returned to the Church of England in 1823, seven years after founding his own independent sect. Turning his attention to architecture and town planning, he decided to create a residential estate on land beyond the existing eastern boundary of Brighton, with large houses for affluent people. Designed by Charles Busby and Amon Wilds and built by Thomas Cubitt, this estate became Kemp Town, although Kemp had fled the country to escape debts by the time construction finished.

The Busby–Wilds partnership had also been responsible for building the Holy Trinity chapel (in Ship Street in central Brighton) for Kemp's sect, and in 1824 Kemp enlisted Busby to build a church to serve the new estate. He obtained a private Act of Parliament on 3 June 1824, which allowed him to appoint a perpetual curate and derive income from the rental or sale of pews. This was a common procedure at the time: it allowed churches to be built as an investment, and pew rental could be quite profitable.

Construction work continued throughout 1824 and 1825. The church opened on 1 January 1826, two days after it was consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester. The final cost was £11,000.