Magical History Tour: Part 2

The Baptism of Bessie Estall

“Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin, and that our Saviour Christ saith, none can enter into the Kingdom of God, except he be regenerate, and born anew of water and of the holy Ghost: I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that of his bounteous mercy he will grant to this Child that thing which by nature he cannot have, that he may be baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ’s holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same.”
— Church of England, Book of Common Prayer: Public Baptism of Infants

Bessie Estall was baptized when she was 17 days old on Sunday morning, May 3, 1891 at St. John’s Church on Bethnal Green, two blocks from her parents home. She was among five infants baptized that morning at the ebony and ivory colored stone font at the back of the church. She was sponsored in this rite by her aunt Emma, wife of her father’s older brother John.

When the church doors closed, the sounds of the street were immediately hushed, replaced by the rustling of parishioners on the creaking wooden benches, the fussing of the gathered infants and the shushing of their parents, the sonorous intonations of the priest, and the thundering notes issued by the organ pipes in the loft over the font in what surely must have sounded like the voice of God to the children in attendance. The priest began the ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer with “Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin…”

Though the noises of the neighborhood were locked outside the doors, the brass censer swung by the white-robed altar attendant spread smoke inside the church that mirrored the chimney smoke hanging in the air outside.

The priest took Bessie (or Betsy, according to her baptismal entry) in his hands and “discreetely and warily” dipped her in the baptismal water, saying “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” He should have gone for a full immersion: in the summers I spent with my grandparents I don’t remember Bessie ever going to church. It may be safe to say that she didn’t maintain her mother’s faith—unsurprising in light of the disease, death, and desertion visited upon her in childhood.

My sister Beth and I visited St. John’s twice while we were retracing our ancestors’ steps in London this summer, once to explore and photograph it, and once to attend Sunday morning service. The church, built in 1825 and restored in 1871, is showing her age, her makeup cracking around her hairline. But she’s still beautiful and her spirit is buoyed by a thriving art community that creates and displays its wares within and on her walls as well as in the balcony, belfry and crypt.

I’m not religious, and initially balked at my sister’s desire to attend Sunday service, but I’m glad I went. It allowed us to imagine our ancestors sitting among the pews, to sense their spirit of awe and devotion engendered by the church’s rites and rituals, their sense of community among their neighbors and fellow parishioners. Perhaps appropriately, this Sunday’s service included an address by social workers who were caring for the homeless of the borough, a subject that was probably not far from the minds of our struggling ancestors. (Ironically, we were accosted by a homeless man as we left the service.)

There was one infant among the parishioners on the day we attended service, though a baptism was not performed. It’s a shame, I would have liked to experience one. Bessie went on to attend the baptisms of four of her siblings, including the one of her youngest brother Robert in 1899, two weeks after which Bessie’s mother passed away in the Workhouse infirmary. It would possibly be the last time Bessie attended services at St. John’s.

A span of 120 years would pass before her granddaughter, Beth—likely named after her—would attend a service here in her memory.