St John's Downshire Hill

St John's Church, Downshire Hill
St John's Downshire Hill, Hampstead
Coordinates: 51°33′21″N 00°10′11″W / 51.55583°N 0.16972°W / 51.55583; -0.16972
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Evangelical
Website	sjdh.org
History
Dedication	St John
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade I listed
Completed	1823
Administration
Parish	St Stephen with All Hallows
Deanery	North Camden
Archdeaconry	Hampstead
Diocese	Diocese of London

St John's Downshire Hill, Hampstead is a proprietary chapel of the Church of England, located on Downshire Hill, Hampstead, London, in the Parish of St Stephen with All Hallows, and although formally a chapel is now commonly referred to as St John's Church. It should not be confused with St John-at-Hampstead, which is located in Church Row, Hampstead and is the parish church of what is now the neighbouring parish.

During a period in which much of the surrounding area was being developed, a new church was considered as an essential local amenity. The copyhold for the site of the church on Downshire Hill was purchased from the Manor of Belsize in 1812 by a group which passed this in 1817 to a trio comprising Christian minister James Curry, "speculative" builder William Woods and lawyer Edward Carlisle, Woods being involved in other development, both in Hampstead and elsewhere in London. Curry had offered to pay the cost of the building project if he was appointed minister. The dedication of the new church to St John may indicate that it was originally intended as a chapel of ease for the parish church of St John-at-Hampstead

The building was completed in 1823, with the first service held on 26 October 1823. The first minister of the church was William Harness, a lifelong friend of Lord Byron (Curry had fallen ill by the time of the church's opening, and died soon after the opening; Woods also surrendered his interest in the building in January 1824). Harness departed in 1825 and was followed by a group of four ministers who remained for only short period.

In 1832, the copyhold was purchased by John Wilcox, an admirer of George Whitefield, with the aid of a loan from a local dissenter. Wilcox established evangelical ministry at the church, but encountered opposition from Samuel White, perpetual curate of the parish of St John, Hampstead, whose permission was required to conduct services in the parish, since Downshire Hill was at that time located in the same parish. Unlike Wilcox, who was the son of a Gloucester publican, White had effectively inherited his curacy in Hampstead from his father, and a contemporary periodical noted theological differences between White and Wilcox's Calvinist doctrinal position. Wilcox had made known that he would preach as a dissenter if not given permission to as an Anglican minister and, after he ignored a letter from White informing him he did not have White's permission to officiate at services at St John's Downshire Hill, White began proceedings against Wilcox for officiating without the permission of the incumbent