It also hosts a Roman Catholic congregation and so is sometimes known as St John with St Mary and St Edward, North Woolwich to include the dedications of this congregation's former churches.

Its first building was consecrated by Thomas Legh Claughton, Bishop of Rochester on 26 September 1872, initially as a mission church of St Mark's Church, Silvertown and Uppingham School and from 1877 as a parish church in its own right.

It parish was formed from an area that originally been part of the main East Ham parish before being assigned to St Mark's between 1864 and 1877.

[1][2] The church building was destroyed on 7 September 1940, the first day of the London Blitz, leaving only the old Infants School Hall.

[3] The church used the school hall for worship until the consecration of a replacement on 28 October 1968 by John Tiarks, Bishop of Chelmsford - it had been built to a design by Laurence King and Partners.