The British Empire and its effect on Plymouth

Laying the Foundation Stone of St Mary's Church in Laira in 1911

In September 1911, the Foundation Stone of St Mary’s Church in Laira was laid by Mrs Lucy Clark of Efford Manor. The Bishop of Exeter, Archibald Robertson, conducted the ceremony and service. The Clarks of Efford Manor had attended church at St. Edward’s in Eggbuckland since the Eighteenth Century at least given that the parish stretched all way to the River Plym. There had been a small mission hall built at Crabtree as the population around Marsh Mills slowly grew but with the opening of the GWR works in 1901 the population of Laira started to explode. It was for this reason that Lucy Clark donated some of her land and a donation of money towards the building of St. Mary’s Church. More money was provided from the Three Towns' Church Extension Committee which had been set up by the Exeter Diocese in anticipation of the amalgamation and growth of the three towns. Mrs Clark was very much a High Anglican and requested that the church be built in an Anglo-Catholic Gothic style. A fellow Eggbuckland parishioner by the name of Mr Kitsell who was an architect set about designing the church to her proclivities. His design was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1910.
Lucy Clark had been a widow since her husband died in 1900. Henry Clark had been a barrister and Justice of the Peace. He had been active in the Liberal movement until the subject of Home Rule for Ireland divided the party irrevocably in the 1890s and he left alongside other Liberal Unionists. He is commemorated in St Edward’s Church in Eggbuckland (as is his wife Lucy who died in 1916). The Clarks had been the landowners who had sold land to the War Department to allow for the building of the Palmerston Fortifications in this area such as at Fort Austin, Fort Efford and Eggbuckland Keep. And in keeping with this military connection their second son (Paul Treby Clark) joined the army to become ultimately Lieutenant Colonel of the 43rd Oxfordshire Light Infantry. The Clarks had four sons who survived; Erving, Paul Treby, Henry and Arthur John and two daughters who died in childhood; Ethel Mildred and Lucy Henrietta.
The Bishop of Exeter Archibald Robertson also had an intriguing family history in that his son, also called Archibald Robertson, was becoming involved in Left Wing politics at this point in time. He was to become a Civil Servant assigned to work in the Admiralty during World War One but became disillusioned with the war and turned against religion becaming a devout Atheist who penned many books criticising religious dogma. Furthermore he was encouraged by the Revolution in Russia in 1917 and would become an ardent Communist frequently travelling to the Soviet Union in the interwar period becoming something of an apologist for the Bolshevik regime. This must have made for some interesting conversations with his Bishop father.
Included below is the order of service for that ceremony on September 16th 1911 when this was still a relatively empty hill. Laira Green School had been built in the 1890s and the houses on Federation Road were also still relatively new. They had been completed in 1902 by the Plymouth Cooperative Society who wished to provide affordable housing for local workers. But behind the site where the ceremony was conducted was nothing but fields and hedgerows. Laira was not yet within the borough limits of Plymouth. It was very much on the outskirts, the building of St. Mary’s was in anticipation of the three towns amalgamating and growing and that any new population needed a place for worship, christenings, marriages and funerals although interestingly there was never a plan for a graveyard at St Mary’s as Plymouth had opened a brand new municipal cemetery at the top of the hill just four years earlier at Efford Cemetery. On the map shown, the service took place where the double ‘ee’ of Laira Green is labelled. The construction would take three years before it could open to the public.

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