| Description | The Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales was formally established in 1894, although the Polish Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa had been in existence for much longer thatn that. It was sited in the crypt of the Italian Church, Clerkenwell, from at least 1863, although it closed in 1865 and reopened in 1878.
Initially, the Polish church of St Joseph and St Casimir in Cambridge Road, Bethnal Green, also served the Lithuanian community. The two communities began to diverge in 1903 when the Lithuanian church of St Casimir was established at the corner of Christian Street and Cable Street. By 1905, the Polish Chapel was at Patriot Square, Bethnal Green and in 1907, now known as the church of Our Lady and St Casimir, it was located in Mercers Street, Shadwell. The Polish church was to remain here for the next 36 years, served by the Salesian Fathers, until the lease on the building ran out and a new location had to be found.
In 1930 the Mission purchased a small church in Islington on what today is Devonia Road. The church of Our Lady of Czestochowa and St. Casimir served the small Polish community living in London until the outbreak of the Second World War. The situation changed dramatically in 1940 when, following the fall of France, the Polish President and Government arrived in London to carry on fighting against the Nazis as Britain's ally during the War. With them arrived thousands of Polish troops. A second dramatic and long term change came after 1945 when some 100,000 Poles settled in Britain, particularly London, rather than return to a communist-controlled and Soviet-dominated Poland.
It soon became apparent that a second Polish church was needed in west London. In 1955 the Rev. Kazimierz Solowiej (1912-1979), one time chaplain in the Polish Army during the Second World War, was appointed to run the unofficial Polish Parish in Central London centred around St. Wilfred’s Chapel in Brompton Oratory, where the wooden relief of Our Lady of Kozielsk hung. Fr. Solowiej’s specific task was to find a suitable church building which could be acquired for the use of the Polish community in central and west London, around which a permanent parish could be organised. In February 1961, after a lengthy search, the former Scottish Presbyterian church of St. Andrew in Shepherds Bush (Hammersmith) was purchased and the Church was rededicated to 17th century Polish martyr, St. Andrew Bobola. |