St. Peter's Anglican Church Château-d'Oex · Serving the English-speaking Community Since 1899

History of English Churches in Switzerland – Bex-les-Bains

On Sunday 22 May 1881 the English church at Bex was consecrated. The Journal de Vevey reported it a week or so later in three lines. The Revd Sidney Pelham had presided, and the paper described him as a son of the Bishop of Norwich. The ceremony had drawn “les nombreux Anglais qui séjournent dans les hôtels de la contrée”, the many English staying in the hotels of the district.1

Those visitors had come for the salt. Bex looks across the Rhône valley to the Dent du Midi, and the salt works at Bévieux were one of the sights of the district. The Bains et Grand Hôtel des Salines offered its guests salt-water baths. In June 1912 the visitors’ paper of the Swiss Riviera described Bex as a pretty small town hidden among orchards and gardens, growing more prosperous year by year. The sedative and calming influence of its climate, it said, made Bex a favourite stay for people needing rest, “les nerveux et les excitables”. Its salt-water and mother-lye baths followed in brackets. The same survey recommended Aigle, the next spa along the line, to the anaemic.2

A church opposite the hotel

The English were coming long before they had a church of their own. The Colonial and Continental Church Society, which supplied clergy for English chaplaincies abroad, placed Bex on its list of chaplaincies in 1857. A Revd W. Hamilton was its chaplain in 1862 and again in 1866, and he seems to have gone out each summer. In August 1871 the Society’s roster sent the Revd S. Shone to Bex.3 In 1878, at least, the English services were held in the Swiss parish church. That June the Bex paper printed the list of Sunday services: the National Church, the Free Church, the German service and the Catholic mass. Between them stood “Culte anglais. Temple de Bex. 11 ½ et 4 ½ heures. Révérend W. Owen. B. A.”4

Two years later the English began to build. On 2 July 1880 a Vevey paper reported that the first stone had been laid the day before, at three o’clock. The church was to stand “vis-à-vis du Grand Hôtel des Bains avenue de la Gare”, opposite the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the avenue de la Gare.5 Less than eleven months later it was consecrated. On 21 July 1881 the “Hôtel à Bex” sold land to the Society, presumably to put the site in the Society’s hands.6

A photograph published in 1915 shows a small stone church behind an iron railing, with a rounded apse at its east end and the mountains behind. It is captioned simply “Bex-les-Bains : L’église anglaise”.7 We do not know to whom it was dedicated.

Chaplains for the season

Bex never had a resident chaplain that we know of. It was served by clergymen from Britain and Ireland, who came out for a month or a season, took the services and went home. The Society’s rosters and the Montreux visitors’ paper, which listed hotel guests with their occupations, name nine of them between 1892 and 1913. They range from a curate in Hull to a rector near Mullingar, and several of them came from Ireland.8

For a few years around 1900 Bex even had its own visitors’ paper, the Moniteur et liste des étrangers. It listed the guests at the Grand Hôtel des Bains, run by M. P. Kœhler, and at the other hotels and pensions.9 In August 1910 a London paper noted that the town had seldom been so full of visitors. Its position on the Simplon line, the paper said, made it “a convenient stopping place for travellers to Zermatt and the other resorts in the Valais”.10 That summer floods struck the district, and the list of gifts for the victims included 35 francs 30 from the “Eglise anglaise, Bex”.11

In September 1912 the Journal de Bex printed the English services for the month among those of the parish. There was Holy Communion at eight, and Morning Prayer, sermon and Holy Communion at ten. Evening Service followed at a quarter past five, and the chaplain was the “Rev. Honey”.12

War, closure and the lodge

In the autumn of 1915, during the First World War, the church was put to another use. A Landwehr battalion was stationed near the fortifications at St-Maurice. Some of its non-commissioned officers, on a drill course, were quartered “dans l’enceinte de l’Eglise anglaise de Bex”. A socialist paper reported in November what happened on the evening of Wednesday 20 October. The men were singing before lights-out, and their major had them turned out under arms and marched through the night to Bévieux.13

We know little of the church after the war. In September 1932 a funeral service was held “à la chapelle anglaise de Bex”.14 On a Sunday in December 1936 the Bex lodge inaugurated its new premises “dans le bâtiment qui jadis était l’église anglaise de Bex, à l’avenue de la Gare”. About 150 masons from all over Switzerland attended, and a representative of the municipality thanked the lodge for its work in the town.15 The following April the national church’s paper noted that the English church, “fermée depuis quelques années”, closed for some years, had just been turned into a masonic lodge.16

The lodge, Progrès et Vérité, records that it bought the building in 1938. In April 1957 an advertisement announced a public lecture at the “Temple Maçonnique de Bex (ancienne église anglaise)”. The lodge still works there, at 7 avenue de la Gare.17

We would like to know more: to whom the church was dedicated, who paid for it, which chaplains served it after 1913, and when the last English service was held. If you know anything about the English church at Bex-les-Bains, a photograph, a memory or a name, please write to us at info(a)stpeters.ch. The other English churches of Vaud are described in our guide to the English churches in Switzerland. The wider story of the English on the Lake Geneva shore is in Wintering on the Swiss Riviera.

  1. Journal de Vevey, 2 June 1881, p. 3 (Scriptorium item 246324), read on the page image: “Le 22 mai a eu lieu l’inauguration de l’église anglaise de Bex. Le Révérend pasteur, M. Sidney Pelham, fils de l’évêque de Norwich, a présidé à la consécration, qui avait attiré les nombreux Anglais qui séjournent dans les hôtels de la contrée.” We have not checked Pelham’s parentage in an English source. ↩

  2. “Bex-les-Bains”, in a survey of the region’s summer stations, Journal et liste des étrangers de Montreux, de Vevey, 22 June 1912, p. 3 (item 428935), read on the page image: “D’année en année, Bex voit s’accroître sa prospérité car l’influence sédative et calmante de son climat, sa position abritée, le voisinage des forêts et des hautes montagnes en font un séjour des plus recherchés par les personnes ayant besoin de repos, les nerveux et les excitables. (Bains d’eau salée, d’eau mère, etc.)” The same survey recommends Aigle-les-Bains to “anémiques” and “neurasthéniques”. “Bains & Grand Hôtel des Salines” is the heading of the Bex hotel lists in the same paper (for example 17 September 1892, p. 4, item 397840). ↩

  3. Paul W. Schniewind, Anglicans in Switzerland (Berne, 1992), p. 101, who writes of Hamilton: “apparently he went to Bex regularly for the summer months”; “The Tourist Season — The Foreign Chaplaincies in August”, Sun & Central Press, 3 August 1871, p. 2 (BNA BL/0002261/18710803), Swiss section read on the page image. ↩

  4. “Services religieux de la paroisse de Bex”, L’Écho du Rhône, 31 May 1878, p. 4 (item 608159), read on the page image, for Saturday 1 June and the following Sunday. We have not found where the English services were held in earlier years. ↩

  5. Nouvelle Feuille d’avis des districts de Vevey, Aigle …, 2 July 1880, p. 8 (item 248326), read on the page image: “Hier à 3 heures a eu lieu la pose de la première pierre de l’église anglaise de Bex …”. The issue is dated 2 July, so the stone was laid on 1 July 1880. ↩

  6. Schniewind, p. 101, for the land sale of 21 July 1881; the purpose of the sale is our inference. Schniewind gives Bex a short paragraph and adds: “There is no record about construction of a church on the hotel grounds.” ↩

  7. Les Alpes vaudoises: journal illustré avec listes des étrangers, 1 May 1915, p. 3 (item 668442), read on the page image. ↩

  8. Journal et liste des étrangers de Montreux, read on the page images: 16 April 1892, p. 3 (item 397874, “Revd F. W. Stubbs English Chaplain at Bex”); 4 August 1894, p. 2 (item 398188, “Rév. J. Meigh, England, English Chaplain de Bex”); 12 May 1900, p. 19 (item 397990, “M. et Mme Fishe, Chap. of English Church at Bex, Ireland”). Moniteur et liste des étrangers, Bex-les-Bains, read on the page images: 30 June 1900, p. 1 (item 636418, “M. E. B. Harlley, Chaplain of the English Church, at Bex, Irlande”, spelling as printed); 20 April 1901, p. 1 (item 636399, “M. Gibson Forster, Chaplain of the English-Church at Bex, Anglet.”). Society rosters read on the page image: The Record, 1 July 1898, p. 10 (“J. H. Rice, R. Forgney, Mullingar, to Bex”); Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 September 1904, p. 11 (“Bex, Switzerland, Rev. E. C. Cree, M.A., [C]urate of Newland, Hull”); London Evening Standard, 3 July 1913, p. 11 (“Bex, Rev. D. G. Allman”). The ninth is the Revd Honey of September 1912 (note 12). With Hamilton, Shone and Owen (notes 3 and 4) they make a dozen chaplains between 1862 and 1913. An appointment of the Revd W. E. Chadwick to Bex in August 1896 is known only from a search extract and is not used here. ↩

  9. Moniteur et liste des étrangers, Bex-les-Bains, 30 June 1900, p. 1 (item 636418): “Grand Hôtel des Bains, M. P. KŒHLER, directeur”. Scriptorium holds issues from 1900 to 1902. ↩

  10. “Bex-les-Bains”, London Evening Standard, 6 August 1910, p. 8 (British Newspaper Archive BL/0000183/19100806, art. 222), read on the page image. ↩

  11. “Dons en faveur des inondés”, Journal de Bex, 28 July 1910, p. 3 (item 634169), and the third subscription list in La Revue, 28 July 1910, p. 1 (item 147621), both read on the page image. ↩

  12. Journal de Bex, 28 September 1912, p. 3 (item 631874), “Services religieux de la paroisse de Bex”, read on the page image: “Englisch Church for September. BEX, 8 oc., Holy Communion. 10 oc., Morning Prayer Sermon and Holy Communion. 5¹⁵ Evening Service. Rev. Honey, Chaplain.” The heading’s spelling is as printed. ↩

  13. “Les excès d’un commandant de bataillon”, Le Grutléen, 19 November 1915, p. 3 (item 176925), read on the page image. The paper was the organ of the Swiss Socialist Party and wrote as a critic of the officer; “enceinte” may mean the church’s grounds rather than the building. ↩

  14. Funeral notice, Feuille d’avis de Lausanne, 3 September 1932, p. 22 (item 25972), read on the page image: “Culte à la chapelle anglaise de Bex, le dimanche 4 septembre à 15 h.” The church may by then have been closed to regular worship but lent for occasional services. ↩

  15. “La nouvelle loge maçonnique”, Feuille d’avis du district d’Aigle, 11 December 1936, p. 2 (item 347323), and Journal de Leysin, 12 December 1936, p. 3 (item 503028), both read on the page image. ↩

  16. Semeur vaudois, 10 April 1937, p. 3 (item 680149), read on the page image: “L’église anglaise de Bex, fermée depuis quelques années, vient d’être transformée en loge maçonnique.” ↩

  17. “Historique”, Progrès et Vérité, progres-verite.ch, read 22 September 2026: “1938 – Acquisition de l’ancienne église anglaise de Bex dans laquelle la Loge travaille encore”; advertisement, Journal de Bex, 12 April 1957, p. 2 (item 610181). The lodge’s premises were in use from December 1936, before the purchase it dates to 1938; the papers do not say whether the lodge first rented the building. Unlike the English church at Aigle, the building appears to stand still. ↩

Questions answered

Was there an English church at Bex-les-Bains?
Yes. The first stone of the English church at Bex was laid on 1 July 1880, opposite the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the avenue de la Gare. The church was consecrated on 22 May 1881. The Revd Sidney Pelham, described by the Journal de Vevey as a son of the Bishop of Norwich, presided. English services had been held at Bex before that, and in 1878 they took place in the town's own parish church. A photograph published in 1915 shows the building, captioned "Bex-les-Bains : L'église anglaise". Its dedication is not known.
Who were the chaplains of the English church at Bex?
The English church at Bex never had a resident chaplain that is known of. Bex was on the Colonial and Continental Church Society's list of chaplaincies from 1857. Clergymen from Britain and Ireland came out for a month or a season, took the services and went home. A dozen of them can be named between 1862 and 1913, among them the Revd W. Hamilton in 1862 and 1866 and the Revd Honey in September 1912.
What drew the English to Bex?
The English came to Bex for the salt. Bex had salt works at Bévieux, and the Bains et Grand Hôtel des Salines offered its guests salt-water baths. In 1912 the visitors' paper of the Swiss Riviera said that the sedative and calming influence of its climate made Bex a favourite stay for people needing rest. These were "les nerveux et les excitables". In 1910 a London paper called it, on the Simplon line, a convenient stopping place for travellers to Zermatt.
What became of the English church at Bex?
The former English church at Bex became a masonic temple. It had been closed for some years when, in December 1936, the Bex lodge inaugurated its new premises in the building on the avenue de la Gare. The lodge, Progrès et Vérité, records that it bought the building in 1938, and it still works there, at 7 avenue de la Gare.