Skip to main content

Tickets

Home

Main navigation

  • Worship and music
  • Visit us
  • What's on
  • Safeguarding
  • Search

Secondary navigation

  • Search
  • Visit us
    • Book tickets
    • Plan your visit
      • How to find us
      • Guided and self-guided tours
      • Visit with your family
      • Accessibility at the Cathedral
      • Group visits
      • UK schools visits
      • Remember Me Memorial
      • Filming and photography
      • Safety and security
    • Explore our map
    • Information for travel trade
    • Booking tickets FAQ
  • What's on
  • Worship and music
    • Music
      • Upcoming performances
      • Our choirs
      • Our musicians
      • Working with schools
      • Information for visiting choirs
      • The bells
      • The organ
    • Worship with us
      • Our services
      • Attending a St Paul's service
      • Join your London community
      • Weddings, baptisms and confirmations
  • History and collections
    • Explore our stories and collections
      • Hidden histories
      • Architecture and decoration
      • Celebration and remembrance
      • Exploring faith through art
      • Library treasures
    • A timeline of the Cathedral
    • About our Collections
    • Access the Collections
    • Conservation
    • Our podcast series
    • The East India Company at St Paul's
    • War and resistance in the Caribbean: The monuments at St Paul's
  • St Paul's Cathedral Institute
  • Learning
    • Visit with your UK school
    • Our digital resources
  • About us
    • Our mission and purpose
    • Who we are
    • News and updates
    • Our annual reports and accounts
    • Contact us
    • Work for us
    • Press and media
    • St Paul's Cathedral in America
  • Support us
    • Donate to us
    • Become a Friend
    • Become a Music Patron
    • Leave a legacy
    • Volunteer with us
    • Corporate support
    • Trusts and foundations
  • Your event at St Paul's
    • Event space guide
    • Explore our venues
      • Wren Suite
      • The Crypt
      • Chapter House
      • Nelson Chamber
      • North Churchyard
    • Our approved suppliers
    • Weddings, baptisms and confirmations
  • Shop
Menu Close
Filter

Suggested searches:

  • Book sightseeing tickets
  • Family activities
  • Saving St Paul's exhibition
  • Wren 300
  • Map of the Cathedral
  • Opening times
  • Service schedule

Secondary navigation

  • Search
  • Visit us
    • Book tickets
    • Plan your visit
      • How to find us
      • Guided and self-guided tours
      • Visit with your family
      • Accessibility at the Cathedral
      • Group visits
      • UK schools visits
      • Remember Me Memorial
      • Filming and photography
      • Safety and security
    • Explore our map
    • Information for travel trade
    • Booking tickets FAQ
  • What's on
  • Worship and music
    • Music
      • Upcoming performances
      • Our choirs
      • Our musicians
      • Working with schools
      • Information for visiting choirs
      • The bells
      • The organ
    • Worship with us
      • Our services
      • Attending a St Paul's service
      • Join your London community
      • Weddings, baptisms and confirmations
  • History and collections
    • Explore our stories and collections
      • Hidden histories
      • Architecture and decoration
      • Celebration and remembrance
      • Exploring faith through art
      • Library treasures
    • A timeline of the Cathedral
    • About our Collections
    • Access the Collections
    • Conservation
    • Our podcast series
    • The East India Company at St Paul's
    • War and resistance in the Caribbean: The monuments at St Paul's
  • St Paul's Cathedral Institute
  • Learning
    • Visit with your UK school
    • Our digital resources
  • About us
    • Our mission and purpose
    • Who we are
    • News and updates
    • Our annual reports and accounts
    • Contact us
    • Work for us
    • Press and media
    • St Paul's Cathedral in America
  • Support us
    • Donate to us
    • Become a Friend
    • Become a Music Patron
    • Leave a legacy
    • Volunteer with us
    • Corporate support
    • Trusts and foundations
  • Your event at St Paul's
    • Event space guide
    • Explore our venues
      • Wren Suite
      • The Crypt
      • Chapter House
      • Nelson Chamber
      • North Churchyard
    • Our approved suppliers
    • Weddings, baptisms and confirmations
  • Shop
Explore our site

Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

a silhouette of a male figure wearing a hat against a background of St Paul's bell tower

Exhibition: Saving St Paul's: The Watch and the Second World War

Worship with us

couple reading service schedule during consecration service

Worship with us

Ways to donate

choristers boys sharing candle light christmas

Ways to donate

Our digital resources

Rowan Williams smiling as he leafs through his book at an event at St Paul's Cathedral

Our digital resources

Stories from St Paul's podcast

library books dark

Stories from St Paul's podcast

Bishop Thomas Fanshaw Middleton (1769-1822): The history

Monument Bishop Thomas Fanshaw Middleton
Image courtesy of Pantheons: Sculpture at St Paul's Cathedral.

Bishop Thomas Fanshaw Middleton

1769-1822

The history

Part of The East India Company at St Paul’s: A digital trail produced in collaboration with Stepney Community Trust.

Written by Reverend Canon Dr Peniel Rajkumar, Theologian and Director of Global Mission, United Society Partners in the Gospel. 

The following text is available in Bengali, Gujurati, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and Tamil. Please email CollectionsDepartment@stpaulscathedral.org.uk to request a copy.  

Stepney Community Trust logo    USPG logo Museums Association logo

The renewal of the East India Company’s charter in 1813 gave rise to considerable debate in Parliament over the place of Christian religious activity in the East India Company’s territories. Ultimately, the Act of 1813 required the East India Company to permit missionary work in India, and a charter was passed through the House of Commons to establish the Anglican Bishopric of Calcutta (Kolkata). Thomas Middleton became the first Bishop of Calcutta, arriving in India in 1815. The monument here was jointly paid for by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

What linked Bishop Middleton with the Society for Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) – known today as USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) – was a mutual recognition of the transformative potential of education. Middleton had a vision of establishing a mission college in Kolkata that might function as a ‘university of the East’, strengthening on the one hand the Christian formation of young Indian Christians, as well as catering to Hindus and Muslims without any specific religious purposes on the other.

The figures in this statue are kneeling on Victorian-style pew stools (found in historic Anglican churches in India like St Paul’s Cathedral, Kolkata) probably during the rite of confirmation. It is significant to note the absence of visible upper-caste symbols on the boy figure like the shikha (tuft of hair) or sacred thread; equally noteworthy is the presence of the armlet, a symbol of ambiguous caste affiliation, on the girl figure. These features indicate that the young people may not have necessarily belonged to the upper-caste groups. The education work of Anglican mission agencies like the SPG sought to transcended caste boundaries and be a ‘general asylum for the friendless, the destitute, and the rejected children of either Hindoo or Mohamedan origin’, as described by the journal British Critic of which Middleton had served as editor.

Today, the college Middleton founded is called Bishop’s College, an ecumenical theological college run by USPG’s partner, the Church of North India (CNI), which seeks to train men and women to be agents of God's transforming work in the Church and in the world today. Find out more at the Bishop’s College website.

USPG’s work with the Church of North India (CNI) has over the years focused on education, which is widely acknowledged by the Dalits (formerly known as untouchable castes) as an effective means of emancipation from the caste system. The famous Dalit leader, Dr B R (Babasaheb) Ambedkar, whose ancestors had in fact served in East India Company armies, issued a clarion call to Dalits ‘educate, agitate and organise’. You can read about some of the services provided by the CNI to address issues of caste through education.

For detailed information about this monument, visit the Pantheons: Sculpture at St Paul's Cathedral website.

Image
Illustrations of some of the monuments at St Paul's

The East India Company at St Paul's

Explore the full digital trail produced in collaboration with Stepney Community Trust.

Find out more

Our address

St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Churchyard
London
EC4M 8AD

View on map
How to find us

Footer Column 2

  • Visit us
    • Book sightseeing tickets
    • Explore our map
    • Plan your visit
    • Accessibility
    • Remember Me COVID-19 Memorial
    • Travel trade
  • What's on
    • Search our events
  • History and collections
    • Explore our stories and collections
    • Timeline of the Cathedral
    • 70 Years of the Friends
    • About our Collections
    • Access the Collections
    • Conservation
    • Our podcast series
    • Visit the catalogue

Footer Column 3

  • Worship and music
    • Worship with us
    • Music
  • Learning
    • Our digital resources
    • Visit with your UK school
  • About us
    • Our mission and purpose
    • Who we are
    • Annual reports and accounts
    • News and updates
    • Contact us
    • Work for us
    • Press and media
    • Statement of investment principles
  • St Paul's Cathedral Institute

Footer Column 4

  • Support us
    • Donate to us
    • Become a Friend
    • Become a Music Patron
    • Leave a legacy
    • Volunteer with us
    • Trusts and foundations
    • Corporate support
  • Your event at St Paul's
    • Corporate hospitality
    • Wren Suite
    • Chapter House
    • Nelson Chamber
    • North Churchyard
    • The Crypt
    • Weddings, baptisms and confirmations
  • Shop

Utility links

  • Terms and conditions of entry
  • Privacy policy
  • Staff and volunteers portal
  • Terms of use

Safeguarding

St Paul's Cathedral takes safeguarding very seriously. We are committed to protecting the welfare of children and of all adults who are vulnerable – whether that be our worshippers, visitors, clergy, staff or volunteers.

Find out more

rgb(143,63,109)

Copyright St Paul’s Cathedral 2025

Registered charity number: 1206171