Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword by The Bishop of Shrewsbury, The Rt Revd Mark Rylands
- 1 Introduction: shaping rural theology
- PART 1 PERSPECTIVES FROM THE BIBLE
- PART 2 PERSPECTIVES FROM ORDINARY THEOLOGY
- PART 3 THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
- PART 4 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
- 11 Blackshawhead: a local case history in rural church categorization
- 12 Is the rural church different? The special case of confirmation
- 13 Rural Anglicanism: one face or many?
- 14 Pastoral fragments: discovered remnants of a rural past
- PART 5 LISTENING TO VISITORS
- PART 6 LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY
- PART 7 LISTENING TO CHURCHGOERS
- PART 8 LISTENING TO CHURCH LEADERS
- PART 9 SATISFACTION AND STRESS IN MINISTRY
- Contributors
- Sources
- Subject Index
- Name Index
14 - Pastoral fragments: discovered remnants of a rural past
from PART 4 - HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword by The Bishop of Shrewsbury, The Rt Revd Mark Rylands
- 1 Introduction: shaping rural theology
- PART 1 PERSPECTIVES FROM THE BIBLE
- PART 2 PERSPECTIVES FROM ORDINARY THEOLOGY
- PART 3 THEOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
- PART 4 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
- 11 Blackshawhead: a local case history in rural church categorization
- 12 Is the rural church different? The special case of confirmation
- 13 Rural Anglicanism: one face or many?
- 14 Pastoral fragments: discovered remnants of a rural past
- PART 5 LISTENING TO VISITORS
- PART 6 LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY
- PART 7 LISTENING TO CHURCHGOERS
- PART 8 LISTENING TO CHURCH LEADERS
- PART 9 SATISFACTION AND STRESS IN MINISTRY
- Contributors
- Sources
- Subject Index
- Name Index
Summary
Abstract – The article records the discovery of pages from an unpublished manuscript of an autobiography by Jean Blathwayt, daughter of the rector of Melbury Osmund, Dorset, the Revd Francis Blathwayt, who held the living from 1916 until 1929. The intention of the article is to extract elements from this fragment that throw light on life in the rural rectory during the 1920s, and to examine these against the broad social and religious context of the period. Jean's work is also located in the context of what is known from other sources about the family of the Revd Francis Blathwayt. An attempt is made to assess the value of the manuscript from an historical perspective, to link its concerns with a theory of the rural church and to explore briefly its insights into rural theology.
Introduction
In 2004 I set about a task I had promised to do some thirty years previously: I researched and recorded the life of a parson-naturalist, the Revd Francis Linley Blathwayt (Kerry, 2005). As a result of publishing this biography I corresponded, and in some cases met, with current members of Blathwayt's family. As a result of these meetings and further consultations of Blathwayt's diaries (twenty-two volumes held by the Dorset County Museum) I was able to augment my picture of the man (Kerry, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). Family members were unreservedly generous and allowed me to use private papers to flesh out my picture of him still further. Among these was a hand-written manuscript by one of Francis's daughters, Jean Blathwayt (1918–1999). This manuscript comprised two fragments of an account of her life and that of her family in the parish of Melbury Osmund, Dorset, where Francis was rector from 1916 to 1929.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Rural Life and Rural ChurchTheological and Empirical Perspectives, pp. 161 - 178Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2012