St. Paul's

St Paul's was built in 1656 as a chapel-of-ease to St Dunstan's Stepney, and most of the cost was borne by Thomas Neale, who owned property in Shadwell. The land was leased from the Dean of St Paul's, and this is how the church got its name. By 1669 the chapel had been replaced by a church, and served its own parish, which was an almost exclusively nautical area, and between 1730 and 1790 over 17 names of sea captains and their wives appear in the registers.