The Church of St Matthew and Saint James, more generally known as Mossley Hill Church, was consecrated on 23 June 1875. The Church's names were that of its founder Matthew James Glenton, a friend of William Ewart. In the 1830s he had stood at the corner of Rose Lane and Mossley Hill Road and admired the outlook, commenting to his friend as to the possibilties of that spot as a site for the Church. Glenton moved South but on his death in 1871 the bulk of his fortune was left for the building of a Church on the spot where it stands today. Michael O'Mahoney, in his "Liverpool Ways and Byeways" says of the Church that "it has one of the finest church sites in the kingdom...the great church - I might almost say minster - rises in majesty above you".
It was difficult to justify the building of a church where the population was so small and St. Anne's was at the bottom of the hill. However, the men of wealth and power who lived in and around (North) Mossley Hill Road were not to be refused their own church at a bargain price. Despite the objections of the neighbouring parishes from which the new parish would be carved the Bishop of Chester gave his approval and the Building Committee got to work. The composition of the committee reflects the nature of the society created by the arrival of the railway - two cotton brokers, two stockbrokers, one merchant and one manufacturer.
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