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Anglican Evangelicalism in the West of England, 1858–1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Extract
The Church of England Clerical and Lay Association (Western District) for the maintenance of Evangelical Principles was started in 1858 as part of a ‘more comprehensive plan for a general organized association’ of Anglican Evangelicals. The case for such an association was graphically made by an anonymous clerical pamphleteer:
Now that the Church of England seems called upon to choose, whether she will give her allegiance to Christ, or to Anti-Christ either as Roman or Neologian or a compromise of both—now that hundreds have actually passed away to Rome, and also that so considerable a number of the younger Clergy are more or less under the seductive influence of her errors so as to render it difficult to meet with like-minded men as fellow-helpers,—now that the State, hitherto bound up with the Church, apparently either contemplates casting her adrift or reducing her to a conation of political servitude,—under these, our present exigencies, the desire for union becomes more intense and irresistible. We want to know each other’s thoughts and feelings. We are in great need of mutual information and counsel. We thirst for sympathy and encouragement. We want to act together as one man.
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References
1 These words occur on the title-page of a pamphlet: ‘Church of England Clerical and Lay Association… A Letter to a Clergyman of the Church of England, signed Presbyter. Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, London. Second edition, 1860.’
2 Ibid., pp. 6–7.
3 Capper was born in Cheltenham; he rebuilt the Huntley church at his own cost, with S. S. Teulon as architect, in 1863.
4 All this information comes from the Association Minute-Book (hereafter AMB), pp. 1–19.
5 AMB, pp. 33–4. The Archbishop of Canterbury was said to be in sympathy with this demonstration.
6 Repon of the Second Annual Meeting, held 7 and 8 June, 1859 at the St James’ Schoolroom Cheltenham, Davies and Son, Printers, Northgate Street, Gloucester, pp. 15–16.
7 G. I. T. Machin’s interpretation of Derby’s words as ‘an almost identical, if coincidental, repetition of a Liberation Society minute of November 1857’ seems to me to misunderstand Derby’s intention, which was to distance the Government from all missionary societies. See Machin, G. I. T, Politics and the Churches in Great Britain 1S32 to 1868 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 294–5Google Scholar. Anglican Evangelicals, however, thought that the Government should support Anglican evangelism and disavow Dissenting (liberationist) religious activity.
8 I have a copy of the printed report of the first meeting of what called itself the Midland District, of which Sir Matthew Blakiston, of Sandbrooke Hall, Ashbourne, was President. The meeting was held in Derby on the 19/20 June 1860; there were then 111 members, almost all in Derbyshire, but there were 7 in Leicestershire and 9 in Nottinghamshire. Dorset was to remain in the Western District. A Northern Home Counties Association held its first Conference on 30 June and 1 July 1862, under the presidency of Robert Hanbury. In 186 j an Eastern District seems to have been formed in Norfolk.
9 See AMB, ‘Minutes of the Anglican Clerical and Lay Association’: ‘Committee held in Abbey Church Room, Bath, 1 February, 1883’.
10 Report of the Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting, held at Bath, 24 ana 25 May 1898 (Bath, 1898), p. 17.
11 Report of the Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting, held at Bath, 24 and 25 May 1898, pp. 19–20.
12 This was the title of a paper published by the Association after the 1862 Conference; it was written by the Revd H. A. Simcoe from Egloskerry, Cornwall; it was a direct appeal for loyalty to the tradition of Henry Venn and the eighteenth-century Anglican Evangelicals (there was ho reference to the Wesleys).
13 A copy of the Petition is pasted into the Minute-Book opposite the minutes for the meeting of 22 January 1861.
14 Quotations are from the copy mentioned above.
15 All the material in this paragraph is quoted from the Report of the Fourth Annual Conference of the Church of England Clerical and Lay Association (Western District), held at Bath, 4 and 5 June 1861 (Seeley,Jackson and Halliday, London, 1861), pp. 3–10.
16 The quotations come from Extracts from the ‘Essays and Reviews’, no author, a 4-sided pamphlet, published by J. B. Bailey, Printer, 27, Clarence Street, Cheltenham. A copy is pasted into AMB, opposite the entry for 5 February 1861.
17 The Revd George Fisk, Prophetic Study: its use, and principies of interpretation,). Elliott, Printer, High Street, Stroud, MDCCCLXIV, p. 3.
18 Hathaway, E. P., Esq., Barrister at Law, The Privy Council Judgement. Elliott, J., High Street, Stroud. MDCCCLXIV, p. 11Google Scholar.
19 Fisk, p. 12.
20 See AMB, 14Jan. 1864.
21 Report of the Seventh Annual Conference of the Church oj England Clerical and Lay Association (Western District), held at Bath, 31 May and l June, 1864, J. Elliott, Printer, High Street, Stroud. MDCCCLXIV, p. 4.
22 Ibid., p. 4.
23 See AMB, 2 Feb. 1865.
24 Report of the Eighth Annual Conference … held at Cheltenham. May 30 and 31, 1865, J. Elliott, Printer, etc. MDCCCLXV, p. 3.
25 Ibid., p. 4.
26 The Revd Charles Kemble, Rector of Bath, Convocation, Our Attitude Towards It. Included in Report of the Eighth Conference, pp. 16–17.
27 Report of the Eighth Conference, p. 8.
28 Report of the Ninth Conference… held at Bristol, June 5 and 6, 1866, p. 4.
29 See AMB, 2 Jan. 1866, for a copy of the Memorial.
30 See AMB, 30 Oct. 1866.
31 Report of the Tenth Annual Conference … held at Bath, June 4, 5, 1867, J. Elliott, Printer, etc. Stroud, 1867, p. 15.
32 The Revd E. A. Litton, MA, Rector of Naunton, Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Durham, late Fellow of Oriel College. The Connection of Church and State with Particular Refer ence to the Question of the Irish Church, delivered at Cheltenham, at the Annual Meeting of the Church of England Clerical and Lay Association, June 9, 10, 1868, London: Longmans and Co.; Chelten ham New High Street, p. 32.
33 Report of the Tenth Annual Conference, pp. 6–7. A footnote added that the aim was ‘the preservation of a state of things which it cannot be denied has commonly prevailed for the last 300 years’: p. 6.
34 Wilberforce, R. G., Life of Samuel Wilberforce (London, 1882), bk. iii, p. 212Google Scholar.
35 AMB, 9 April 1867.
36 Wilberforce, p. 206.
37 Report of the Eleventh Annual Conference… held at Cheltenham, June 9 and 10, 1868. Printed at the Stroud News Office, 1868, p. 7.
40 Chadwick, O., The Victorian Church, pt. 2 (London, 1970), pp. 324–5Google Scholar.