St Paul’s, Shepley:
people & connections
An architect whose work helped shape Huddersfield, a family that sailed to New Zealand, and refugee twins who found a home in Shepley. These are some of the stories connected with St Paul’s.
The refugee twins who found a home at Shepley Vicarage
Peter and Elizabeth Amster arrived in Britain from Vienna in January 1939, not yet two years old. They were among the youngest of a large group of refugee children from Germany and Austria.
A newspaper report described their missing luggage labels and the nurse’s suspicion that the twins had eaten them. By April, they were living with Rev. Cuthbert E. G. Glascodine and his wife at Shepley Vicarage, where they were reported to be settling happily and learning English.
A First World War veteran in wartime Shepley
Glascodine had enlisted at 19 in April 1915. Sent to France in October 1916, he was wounded just eleven days later but stayed on duty. After a second wound six months later, he was evacuated to England and eventually discharged, receiving the Silver War Badge.
He served at St Paul’s from 1934 to 1940. Around 1941, he wrote A Thousand Years of Torture; the supplied display notes a surviving copy at The Wiener Holocaust Library, catalogued under rescue, Christianity and antisemitism.
View the display & newspaper clippingsThree months at sea — and a romance on board
John Crossley was born in Belfast in 1814 and served at St Paul’s from 1852 to 1857. After returning to Belfast, he was invited by George Vesey Stewart in 1875 to become pastor at the new settlement of Katikati, New Zealand.
Crossley and members of his family sailed aboard the Carisbrooke Castle. They reached Auckland on 8 September 1875 after a three-month voyage. The settlers formed a Reading and Musical Society on board during the journey.
His daughter Emily Gertrude Crossley, born in Shepley, met her future husband Robert Hunter on the ship. Their daughter Gertrude Thornton Hunter was born in 1876 and is described in the display as the first European girl born and registered in the Katikati district.
View the Crossley family displayWhat links St Paul’s, the George Hotel and Castle Hill?
Architect William Wallen (1807–1888) designed St Paul’s between 1845 and 1848. The display also credits him with the George Hotel in 1849 and the Castle Hill Hotel in 1851.
Born in Stepney, London, Wallen exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy between 1828 and 1833. He worked with his father John Wallen in the practice Wallen, Son & Beatson, and was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1835.
After publishing an illustrated study of Little Maplestead in 1836, he moved to Huddersfield in 1838 and established the Yorkshire Architectural Society. His final project was the Aspley Lecture Room, begun in 1853.
In 1854 he was admitted to Bootham Asylum in York, where he remained until his death in 1888.
View the William Wallen timelineThe original displays
Read the full panels, including photographs and newspaper extracts. Tap to enlarge.
This page summarises the three supplied St Paul’s heritage display panels. Original source references and image credits shown on the panels are retained. It covers selected stories, rather than a complete history of the church.
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