[3] When first erected, the diocese included Berkshire, Hampshire, and the Channel Islands in addition to Surrey, Kent and Sussex.

Grant was instrumental in obtaining some Sisters of Mercy from Bermondsey to serve as nurses in the military hospitals during the Crimean War.

In 1882, Robert Coffin, an associate of John Henry Newman and Provincial Superior of the Redemptorists in England and Ireland, was appointed bishop.

Refused a hearing, they became violent and so began a week of burning, plundering and killing in which many Roman Catholic chapels and houses were destroyed.

It was then that Thomas Walsh, a Douai priest, for £20 a year hired a room in Bandyleg Walk[8] (near where the Southwark fire station now stands).

According to tradition, it was here that the first High Mass was celebrated in London outside the chapels of ambassadors since the time of King James II of England.

The occasion was the Solemn Requiem sung for the repose of the soul of Louis XVI of France, who was executed on 21 January 1793.

[9] By 1839, enough money had been collected to make a start, and the present site in St George's Fields (then an open space) was purchased for £3,200.

The foundation stone was laid on 26 May 1841 in a private ceremony held in the early morning so as not to arouse public unrest.

For the next half-century, until the opening of Westminster Cathedral, St George's was the centre of Roman Catholic life in London.

[11] Thomas Grant was made the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark; Doyle became the provost and administrator and remained so until his death on 6 June 1879.

The archdiocese covers the parts of London south of the Thames (boroughs of Bexley, Greenwich, Bromley, Croydon, Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Merton, Sutton, Kingston and the eastern half of Richmond) the county of Kent and the Medway Unitary Authority.