20 years as Rector, April 1944

The Rector referred to the fact that he had recently completed 20 years as rector of St John’s, and gave the following interesting statistics of the work done in the church and parish during that time:-
711 baptisms had been taken; 307 weddings solemnised; 639 parishioners had been buried; 310 candidates had been prepared for confirmation, and 55,000 communions had been made.
Including addresses to children, he had preached in St John’s alone 1,900 times, an average of nearly 100 times a year – no light task.
Many hundreds of parochial visits had been made, of which no record had been kept.
The work of Chairman and correspondent of the managers of the day schools had also taken up a considerable amount of time.
As far as finance was concerned, £7,400 (about £475,000 today) had been collected at the church services, in addition to subscriptions for charitable objects, and £1,700 (£110,000) had been raised for improvements to the building, which included the reconstruction of the organ.
Over £1,000 (£65,000) had been remitted to headquarters for the diocesan quota.

(Extract from Annual Parochial Church Meeting, 11th of April 1944)