On Wednesday 15 July, members and guests of the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs joined the congregation at St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall for the church's annual Dedication Festival: a choral service of Holy Communion held each year in thanksgiving for the church's rebuilding and reconsecration following the Second World War.

St Lawrence Jewry takes its name from its position on the edge of the medieval Jewish quarter centred on the street still known as Old Jewry, home to London's Jewish community until their expulsion in 1290. A church has stood on the site since around 1136, though the building the Company visited on Wednesday is not that original structure, nor even the second. The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt it between 1670 and 1677, and it became the most expensive of his fifty-one City churches, a cost reflected in its richly decorated interior. It was, and remains, the official church of the Lord Mayor of London and the City of London Corporation, a status that sets it apart from most of Wren's other City churches.

That building was not the last to need rebuilding either. On the night of 29 December 1940, an incendiary bomb during the Blitz gutted the interior, leaving only the Portland stone walls and tower standing. A temporary "Tower Chapel" was built into the ruins within weeks, and worship continued there for the remainder of the war. Restoration did not begin properly until the early 1950s, once patronage of the church had passed from Balliol College, Oxford, which lacked the funds to rebuild it, to the City of London Corporation, which did. City Architect Cecil Brown led the reconstruction, working from historical surveys and drawings to recreate Wren's design as faithfully as the record allowed. The church was reconsecrated in 1957, the same year a new ring of eight bells was cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to replace those lost in the bombing. One bell still carries the inscription chosen for that moment: ecce post ignem, vox (after the fire, a voice) drawn from the Book of Kings.

This year's service was led by the Vicar, Fr James Titley, with the Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, as guest preacher. Members and guests of the Company sat alongside familiar faces from across the wider livery, including Sara Fardon, Master of the Worshipful Company of Insurers, and Adrian Udal, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers.

The service was followed by drinks in the church, continuing the evening in the same spirit as the occasion itself: a gathering of an extended family that has, more than once, had to rebuild what it lost and has chosen, every year since, to give thanks for having done so.

Notes: the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs is open to successful entrepreneurs of any faith and none, but maintains it is historic corporate obligations to support the ancient parish churches of the City of London through its connection with the church of St Lawrence Jewry, and the patronage of St Ethelburga of Barking.

For more information about the Livery Companies and their support for the ancient and modern City of London, or enquiries concerning membership, please contact the Clerk‘s Office.