At St. Mary's, the pastor Burckhardt and the Church Council could not agree, and the feelings were strong; however, they maintained their respect for each other while continuing to live with the original charter for the Church. (One of the reasons given by the Council was that they had some bound copies of the Church Order which had not been distributed yet.) In his 20th year of service, Burckhardt died at the age of 49. As an interim pastor, Ringeltaube of the Moravian church served for a while. He was replaced by Dr. Steinkopff, who made a favorable impression in both German and English circles. Like Burckhardt, he moaned over the tendency of the Germans to drift away from the German Church and German ways.
In 1817, large portions of Savoy Palace were pulled down. The only remaining parts were the English Savoy church and the German St. Mary's. The space was needed for Waterloo Bridge. The Germans lost the parsonage and the school, but these were rebuilt by the government. In 1828, the Church underwent intensive renovation. George IV contributed 200 pounds toward this end.
For two months in 1848, Prince William of Prussia attended St. Mary's every Sunday while he was in exile from the revolutionary unrest in Prussia. Twenty-three years later he became the first Emperor of the German Empire.
During Steinkopff's term, the school had from 70 to 80 children, a third of whom were girls. Financially the school was doing very well, so well that it lent money to the Church which had some money problems.
The pattern at St. Mary's was for the children to be educated in the English way so that the second and third generation merge completely with the English. The majority of the congregation was poor, though there were notable exceptions. There were many single people. As the Germans acquired material goods, they moved to the suburbs where they generally joined English Churches.
Steinkopff had served as pastor for almost 60 years when he died in his 87th year (in 1859). He was an imposing figure, tall, slim, totally erect, always wearing a tailcoat and a high white necktie. Though he appeared at a distance as stiff and distant, everyone agreed that he was friendly and warm.
Though the next pastor was well known to the Council for his work at St. Mary's, especially in the school, they followed the proscribed procedure in the Church Order which said they should hear at least three candidates.
(17 Mar 05)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.