Men and women from all over England will gather at St John on Bethnal Green on Saturday 10th May for a service of thanksgiving for the life of Emily Anne Pemberton-Barnes.

They’ll be coming from the Lake District, Warwickshire and Hampshire, with a large contingent from Tower Hamlets and Essex. The Rt. Rev. John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, will be preaching.

The celebration acknowledges the generosity of Miss Pemberton-Barnes, who died in Felixstowe in August 1943 at the age of 90. She had been living in Havering atte Bower, near Romford in Essex but Stepney was the source of her family fortune.

Her father, William Pemberton-Barnes, founded the Pemberton-Barnes Estates Company which owned pubs and several hundred houses in what is now Tower Hamlets. With headquarters in the Mile End Road, the company was so extensive that it maintained its own staff of plumbers, carpenters and other tradesmen to keep the properties in good repair.

At the time of her death, Miss Pemberton-Barnes owned virtually all the shares in this company and in her will, she set up a trust to benefit many charitable organisations. Unfortunately, war damage, improving properties by, for example, providing indoor toilets, and the compulsory purchase of some of the houses by the council meant that none of the beneficiaries received anything before 1970. Later that decade, the trustees began selling the East End property and investing the proceeds in commercial buildings in the West End. Profits soared and the beneficiaries of the will trust began to see the results.

St John on Bethnal Green, one of the many Tower Hamlets organisations that benefit from the will, believes that now, a quarter of a century after the turnaround in the company’s fortunes, is a good opportunity to celebrate Miss Pemberton-Barnes’ generosity.

10/05/08

St John on Bethnal Green 200 Cambridge Heath Road London E2 (next to Bethnal Green Tube Station

14.00

N/a

Donna McDonald
Project Manager

020 8876 7341