Tin tabernacle

A tin tabernacle is a type of prefabricated ecclesiastical building made from corrugated galvanised iron. They were developed in the mid 19th century initially in Great Britain. Corrugated iron was first used for roofing in London in 1829 by Henry Robinson Palmer and the patent sold to Richard Walker who advertised "portable buildings for export" in 1832. The technology for producing the corrugated sheets improved and to prevent corrosion the sheets were galvanised with a coating of zinc, a process developed by Stanislas Sorel in Paris in the 1830s. After 1850, many types of prefabricated buildings were produced, including churches, chapels and mission halls.

History

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great population expansion and movement. Towns and cities expanded as the workforce moved into the new industrial areas resulting in the building of more than 4,000 churches during the mid 19th century and an upsurge of nonconformism led to a demand for even more buildings. The Church of England, influenced by Pugin, the Cambridge Camden Society and John Ruskin, was initially sceptical about corrugated iron buildings. However, manufacturers found other markets, notably in the colonies of the British Empire where 19 such churches were erected in Melbourne, Australia alone by 1851. A 65 feet by 40 feet church built entirely of cast and wrought iron clad in corrugated iron was built in Jamaica at a cost of £1,000.William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, wrote a pamphlet in 1890 decrying the construction of corrugated iron buildings "that were spreading like a pestilence over the country."