The winning design was number 27, entered by architects Edwin Alfred Rickards (1872-1920) and Henry Vaughan Lanchester (1863-1953). From these, nine were chosen to be submitted in more detail for a 100-guinea fee. A total of 132 anonymous designs were entered. not like Westminster Abbey or the Palace of Westminster). The design specified that it should not be Gothic, (i.e. Methodist Central Hall Westminster is now protected as a grade 2* listed building. The design for Methodist Central Hall Westminster was chosen from an anonymous architects’ competition, held in 1904-5, by a panel of judges led by Sir Aston Webb. Once the site of the Royal Aquarium had been purchased, attention could then turn to building. He proposed using it to finance a huge programme of evangelical work and social action as well as building a headquarters in the heart of London to be the world centre for Wesleyan Methodism. Sir Robert Perks, the Liberal MP, a leading Wesleyan layman suggested trying to raise 1 million guineas from 1 million Wesleyan Methodists (even though the membership at this time was approximately 420,000). In 1891 members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church wanted to mark the 100th anniversary of Wesley’s death in a spectacular way. After his death in 1791, his followers broke away from the Church of England and formed the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Most of his ministry was spent travelling the length and breadth of the British Isles, preaching in the open air to working class people ,mainly in the industrial centres of the Midlands, Yorkshire, North East England, Bristol, the South West and London. Wesley (1703-1791) was a Church of England priest who founded Methodism at Oxford in 1729 as an evangelical movement within the Church of England. Methodist Central Hall Westminster has its origins in the Wesleyan Methodist Twentieth Century Fund, established at the end of the 19th Century to commemorate the centenary of the death of John Wesley. The Aquarium’s poor reputation earned it the nickname ‘the Devil’s acre.’ So the purchase of the premises by the Wesleyan Methodist Church was therefore amicable. However by 1900 it had ceased to be a viable business, to the joy of many people who thought it was unsuitable for the serious location that it occupied, next to Westminster Abbey and government buildings. The Aquarium was opened in 1876 and had some fish but it also staged exhibits such as ‘The World’s Strongest Woman’, ‘Boxing Kangaroos’, human cannonballs, the ‘Leopard Boy.’ Its best known artist was the music hall star ‘Champagne Charlie’ - George Leybourne. Designed by Alfred Bedborough, the Royal Aquarium was highly ornamental and faced with Portland stone, being very much like that of the ‘Crystal Palace’ erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and subsequently moved to south London. The Aquarium and the Imperial Theatre together occupied about 3 acres, a site that stretched as far back as St James’ Park tube station. The Royal Aquarium stood on the very site of Methodist Central Hall Westminster before the Methodist Church purchased it in 1903 for the price of £4 per square foot of land.
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