ECCLESIASTICAL

 
Charles Russell Tomkins was the first vicar of St Peter's Church on Somers Road, Southsea.
 
The need for a new church in Southsea arose because the major church of the time, which was St Judes on Kent Road, designed and built by Thomas Owen, was serving a parish of 11,000 souls which it could not accommodate. In 1871 the Church Council decided to erect a temporary church for the poorer classes. A plot of land had been reserved by it's owner, Mr J Godman Temple who was selling St Peter's Park, to be given free for the construction of a church. It was to this site, or close to it, that an "Iron Church" was built.
 
It was purchased, erected, furnished, decorated etc for the sum of £789. It seated 350 people but very soon even this was not enough and by 1879 a committee was formed to oversee the raising of funds for a new permanent church. This was considered urgent "...because of the possibility of the nonconformists beginning to build if the neighbourhood were left unoccupied". By July 1881, some £5500 had been pledged and an agreement was reached with the Architect, Mr Hudson of Kent Road, to erect the church in no more than one year.
 
Reverend Tomkins had been curate in charge of the "Iron Church" and so naturally became the first incumbent. He was a man of independent means who at one time had loaned nearly £600 to the church.