‘Pew-Opener’s Muscle’: Informal Pew-Renting and Pew-Openers

If the ‘quality’ were not in formally rented pews, where were they? The idea that they almost exclusively frequented the older parish churches where formal pew-renting was comparatively rare seems unlikely—near the turn of the twentieth century Charles Booth mentioned three of London’s ‘fashionable’ churches—All Souls’ Langham Place, All Saints’ (proprietary), Margaret Street, Marylebone and St Andrew’s, Wells Street—all of which were built in the nineteenth century. Some churches, of course, restricted particular sittings to those congregants who had faculties or prescriptions, or allocated seating to some or all congregants without charging rent. But other churchgoers informally rented sittings, a practice in which pew-openers, sextons and sidesmen—here collectively referred to simply as pew-openers—were responsible for choosing those congregants’ seats for each service.