HISTORY OF THE PARISH
1: EARLY SURBITON

Surbiton two hundred years ago was a rural area of farms and farmhouses, some brick kilns, a few very large houses, the Waggon and Horses pub, the Plough Inn, three turnpikes, and very little else except bare common dotted with furze bushes. Then in 1830 Surbiton's future expansion was decided by the planned route of the London and Southampton Railway. The people of Kingston feared for the railway's effect on trade and property values, and determined to keep it out of their town. The directors of the railway had to change their plan and adopt the expensive alternative of cutting through the hill at Surbiton, and Kingston station was finally located at the spot where Surbiton station now stands. New buildings grew around the station, and the area was known first as New Town, then Kingston-on-Railway, and finally Surbiton, in the Parish of All Saints, Kingston.

Most of the development was financed by Coutts' Bank, and as the new village grew large enough to need its own church, Coutts' provided the land and most of the necessary funds, apart from a few hundred pounds collected locally. Coutts' were also the patrons of the living, with the right to appoint the vicar. St Mark's Church was begun in 1844, in the Gothic revival style, and consecrated by Charles, Bishop of Winchester on 1st May 1845. Two schools were built "for the poor of the parish", one for boys, and one for girls and infants, at the site of what is now Evesham Terrace on St Andrew's Road. These were at first known as St Mark's National Schools, and later as St Andrew's Schools, and have since been rebuilt in Maple Road as St Andrew's and St Mark's Church of England Junior School, and Maple Infants' Community School.

As the population continued to grow, the church became over-crowded, and it was almost entirely rebuilt on a much larger scale in 1854. The new St Mark's was re-opened on Palm Sunday 1855. By this time, it had become clear that the parish was growing too large, and the first Vicar of St Mark's, the Reverend Edward Phillips, planned two chapels of ease, one for Berrylands and the other for Lower Surbiton. In the event, Berrylands became part of a separate parish with the completion in 1863 of Christ Church in King Charles' Road. The chapel of ease for Lower Surbiton was a small iron church built at the corner of North Road, opposite the church schools, which held its first service on Advent Sunday 1860.

Little is known of the early clergy, with a few exceptions, such as the Reverend Richard Meux Benson, a leading light of the Oxford Movement or Anglo-Catholic wing of the church. Benson, who became curate in 1850, came from a wealthy family. He was appointed to Surbiton on graduating from Christ Church, Oxford, and donated "very large sums of money" to the new church. As his mother lived close by at Teddington she would often drive over to attend a service taken by "her beloved Dick". One of the congregation wrote "At Surbiton he was very welcome amongst us all, both rich and poor. Ascetic even then, and very diligent in his calling, he was yet genial and helpful to all who came his way." He is remembered as having danced a quadrille at a children's party, then as causing astonishment by "leaving on his plate a beautiful slice of roast beef on a fast day", Friday abstinence not being much practised in those days. This ascetic tendency had started early: as a little boy he was scolded by his governess when she found him sleeping on the floor instead of in his cot. "But how am I to learn to be hard if I may not sleep on the floor?" he replied. After three years in Surbiton he was given the living of Cowley, in Oxford, where he gave up his dream of missionary work in India, and instead ministered to another growing suburb. In 1866 he went on to found the Society of St John the Evangelist, or the Cowley Fathers, the first religious order for men founded since the Reformation.

Edward Phillips retired in 1870 and was succeeded by the Reverend Charles Burney, who soon decided that the iron church was inadequate, and that the temporary building should be converted into a larger, permanent church. A committee was formed, subscriptions were invited, and when completed in 1872, St Andrew's Church was staffed by the curates of St Mark's.

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