Let’s step back in time to 1941. 

It’s World War Two. London is in the midst of the Blitz, a sustained attack of aerial bombing by the Germans that lasted for 57 consecutive days. According to the Royal Air Force Museum:

‘The most devastating raid on London took place on the night of 10/11th May 1941. The moon was full, and the Thames had a very low ebb tide.’

During this raid alone, over 700 tonnes of high explosives and over 80,000 incendiaries (fire bombs rather than high explosives) were dropped across London. 1,436 civilians were killed.

Westminster Abbey, a building which the British said was to be ‘saved at all costs’, escaped the worst of the destruction. But still, burning beams and molten lead fell from the roof onto the chairs and the choir stalls of the Abbey. The famous lantern roof crashed down onto the crossing, the roof over the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was hit repeatedly, and the Deanery was totally destroyed. 

Over the next decade, lumps of stone continued to fall from the vast ceilings. The pillars supporting the great roof began to crumble, and there was no money in the church fund to pay for the works. 

It was decided that a £1 million capital appeal was needed for the restoration.

In 1953, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched the appeal (conceived by the Dean of Westminster) and asked everyone in the country to donate one pound. A choir boy presented a pound note from the new Queen of England. Actor and theatre director John Gielgud gave a reading, and a pound. The newspapers, television and radio published everything. 

So far, so normal. 

However, within a few weeks of the appeal being launched, the East Coast Floods happened and a National Disaster Appeal was launched from Mansion House by the Lord Mayor of London. The Westminster Abbey Appeal took a back seat, and it didn’t get going again until April 1953.

In fact, it had just started gaining traction when disaster impeded the appeal’s fundraising efforts yet again. But this was a disaster of a different kind. 

On 2nd June 1953, more than 27 million people in the United Kingdom watched and listened to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. They tuned in live, through the power of television and radio. Over three million new television sets were purchased by households for this occasion. Pictures were beamed across the world and around the Commonwealth, with over 150 million people watching globally. 

And that was a problem for a capital campaign that was talking about dilapidated buildings. Because everyone saw the grandeur, the splendour, the magnificence of it all – and they wondered why on earth were they being asked for a donation to restore Westminster Abbey. 

By the end of July, it became clear that there was no hope of reaching the £1 million pound target. But here’s why I still admire this fundraising campaign. 

Many appeals would have quietly given up, gone into the shadows, or sought funds in other ways. Yet this campaign decided to do things differently. 

The organiser was changed from the Dean, who knew nothing about fundraising, to the Assistant Receiver General (who actually had been running the campaign all along). A dedicated Press Officer and a gentleman from an advertising agency were drafted in. These two made changes, and they made them fast. 

A pound a head? Nice idea… dropped. 

Those people who had already given a pound each had been told ‘that’s all you need to give’, but that was no good. Maximum support was sought:

• Personal letters were sent to the banks, the Stock Exchange, the City Corporation, every large organisation and certain trusts. Industry letters were sent out to the 1,000 largest companies. 
• Letters were circulated and telephone calls were made to every local authority asking for their cooperation in ‘Save the Abbey Week’. They had no idea what that was, but they asked for support early – just in case they ran something! 
• Letters were also sent out to every education director across the country, every political party constituency and 30,000 sports clubs. The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) sent a personal letter to each trade union representative. 
• An appeal was made to all ranks of the military and the Worshipful Company of Brewers arranged for a letter to be sent to every pub in the country.
• The Foreign Office dispatched messages to every diplomatic mission and station around the world.

And they did all that in just three weeks! 

Then the fundraisers wrote to every one of the 35,000 donors who had given one pound, asking them to increase their donation. That was week four. 

‘Save the Abbey Week’ was organised for the end of November 1953. That was week five.

But to change public opinion, the optics of the Abbey had to be influenced. 

So, week six meant journalists and broadcasters were shown around the crumbling masonry and bits of beams that fallen from around the Abbey – all 18 tonnes of it.

The new fundraising committee realised that if the campaign was to succeed, they needed to influence the story and make it widely appealing. So, at the end of August, every female journalist in the country was invited to the Abbey for a garden party with a difference – the rubble was brought out and the Archdeacon Fox gave a very carefully crafted speech. The intention was to mobilise journalists into action. And it worked!

When ‘Save the Abbey Week’ came around months later, it set in motion a series of special services at the Abbey. Every day during November, at nine o’clock in the morning, a senior representative from one of the Commonwealth countries climbed all 300 stairs – to the top of the flag towers – and hoisted the flag of their country. This garnered global attention for the appeal, in different countries, every single day. 

Every week for the remainder of the year there was a featured news story, related to the appeal. The people of Derbyshire practised something called ‘well dressing’ and crafted a special version of the Abbey that was then taken around the country on a trailer, collecting money along the way. 

The Cubs, Scouts and Girl Guides of London lined the streets with silver coins all the way to the Abbey. Celebrities arranged to attend this event, which was called ‘The Silver Mile’, and were photographed. It attracted the press, day after day. ‘The Silver Mile’ was so popular, that they ended up with not one line of silver pennies, but 18 lines of pennies, side by side, a mile long, leading to the door of the Abbey. 

These fundraisers inspired everything.

By the 31st December 1953, the bank balance for the Westminster Abbey Appeal stood at £800,000. But as anyone who works in capital appeals will tell you, once a capital appeal campaign like this has captured the imagination of the public… you can’t stop it. 

So, by the end of March 1954, when the daily total of post was down to one sack of mail a day, the appeal had exceeded £1.1 million. 

The total cost of the campaign was £35,000. And because the works took so long to complete, the interest on the amount raised resulted in a legacy that saved the Abbey for decades to come.  

£1.1 million raised from a global audience in effectively nine months (with a cost to income ratio of 3.5 per cent) – I wish I’d thought of that. 

If you’d like to watch Damian Chapman’s presentation on the Westminster Abbey Appeal at IWITOT 2023, click the image below. Please accept our apologies for some of the minor sound issues at the beginning of this live event recording.

IMAGES: © All images as credited in individual captions.

Sources: 

Imperial War Museum & The Royal Air Force Museum