A Memorial to the Founder

Andrew Reed was the minister of a Congregational church in London’s East End from 1811 to 1861 (the Wycliffe Chapel). He retired from the church after 50 years and the congregation placed a stone wall-tablet in the church inscribed with an appreciation of his work and service. In 1901 the church moved to Ilford and had the tablet mounted there. That church closed in the 1950s. The building was then demolished and the tablet’s whereabouts became unknown.

However, in 2011 an inscribed stone tablet was discovered in the basement of the Reedham Lodge. It was in a neglected condition but was identified as the one in question.

Although the inscription refers principally to his service at the Wycliffe Chapel, it makes a very fitting memorial to Andrew Reed and your committee considered it should be preserved and a suitable site for it be sought (the only existing memorial being an obelisk on his grave in the Abney Park Cemetery.

Enquiries were made among the other institutions founded by Reed that are still active in some form or other (the Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation, the Royal Earlswood Hospital, the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, and Reed’s School at Cobham). Of these Reed’s School at Cobham was considered the most suitable (Reed’s is now a very good private school but was Andrew Reed’s first foundation as The London Orphan Asylum and it still has places for about 65 foundationers). The school is very willing to have the tablet mounted in their school chapel where it would be permanently on view together with a small notice mentioning its history. 

The ROSA Committee believe this to be a good plan. The question of cost is now being considered and an estimated for the appropriate renovation and installation of the tablet has been obtained from the firm that handled the mounting of the Reedham Chapel foundation stone on the Reedham site. 

The other surviving institutions already mentioned are being invited to share in the cost and we hope soon to see a successful conclusion to the project.

Watch this space!