Swedish trade links with London have existed for many
hundreds of years but grew rapidly in the 17th century. With so many
Swedish sailors, traders, bankers, shop keepers and business men coming
and going in London it is not surprising that eventually a Swedish
Church was necessary to serve their religious needs. Thus in 1710 a
Swedish congregation was formed and in 1728 the Ulrika Eleonora Church
was built. This church, named after the Queen of Sweden born in 1688,
the same year as Emanuel Swedenborg’s birth, was placed in the Wapping
area of East London, in Princes Square, near the docks from where the
great Swedish merchant ships would come and go. The Swedish congregation
was linked to the Diocese of Uppsala and came under the jurisdiction of
the Archbishop of Uppsala.
Emanuel Swedenborg visited and stayed in London on
many occasions, his first visit being in 1710 at the time the Swedish
Congregation was being formed. No doubt on his later trips he took
interest in the Ulrika Eleonora church as it was being built and the
congregation grew and later on he attended services there. Over the
years Swedenborg lodged in various places; in the Minories, in Fetter
Lane, in Wellclose Square close to Princes Square, and finally in Cold
Bath Square, Clerkenwell. About a fortnight before his
death in 1772 he received Holy Communion from Rev Arvid Ferelius, pastor
of the Swedish Church. Because this church was the centre for Swedish
people in London it is not surprising that on his death, Emanuel
Swedenborg’s body was laid to rest in the vaults. And there it would
have probably remained to this day had not the need to develop and build
in London at the beginning of the 20th century forced the demolition of
the 200 year old Ulrika Eleonora church. The church closed in 1910 and
was finally demolished in 1921.
a result of this a new Swedish Church had to be built elsewhere in
London to which the altar, the pulpit and many other objects from the
former church were transferred. The Swedish Government also decided that
it would be appropriate to remove the remains of certain Swedish people
buried at the church and return them to Sweden. So it was that on April
7, 1908, the coffin of Emanuel Swedenborg left England with great
ceremony and was carried on board the cruiser Fylgia which had been sent
by the Swedish government. After the voyage to Sweden the coffin was
placed in a magnificent marble sarcophagus in the cathedral at Uppsala.
The picture on the left shows the procession leaving the Swedish Church.
Swedenborg was not alone in this process. Captain
Cook once lived in this part of London, having married a girl from
Wapping, and on his first Endeavour voyage he took with him the ‘Swedish
gentleman’ Daniel Solander as a botanist and doctor. Daniel was a pupil
of Linnaeus and on his death in 1782 he was also buried in the vaults of
the Swedish Church. His remains, like Swedenborg’s were removed to
Sweden in 1908, although in Solander’s case it was to Stockholm.
ground on which the church stood was made into a garden and in 1938
Princes Square was renamed Swedenborg Gardens. In the late 1960’s the
area was developed again and new blocks of flats built but a small park
area with the memorial to the Ulrika Eleonora church was maintained. In
the last few years the site has been re-landscaped but the church
memorial remains sadly neglected (see picture on the right).
just a mile east of the Tower of London, in an area just north of the
river Thames you can find a part of London which was once closely
associated with Emanuel Swedenborg and his work and life in England.