REVEREND GABRIEL GILLETT

 

THE WORD UNSPOKEN:

GEORGE GABRIEL SCOTT GILLETT (1873-1948)

POET, HYMNIST AND CHRISTIAN SOCIALIST

 

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

If He walked among us, would we wound him still? 

Ink Illustration by Barry Van-Asten (May 2023)

 

The name Gabriel Gillett is often found within the fringes of the Uranian world of poetry, associated with other ecclesiastical poets who extol the Hellenic vision of young male beauty; he is mentioned in Timothy d’Arch Smith’s monolithic tome on the subject, ‘Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English ‘Uranian’ Poets from 1889 to 1930’ published in 1970, and although biographical details are rather slim, it does provide a starting point for the biographer. George Gabriel Scott Gillett was born on 1^st December 1873 in Hawley, Hampshire and Christened there on 4^th January 1874; he is the first born child of the curate of Holy Trinity Church, Hawley, Reverend Edward Alfred Gillett (1842-1879) who married Catherine Ellerton Scott, (born in Dirleton, 1845), daughter of James Scott of Dirleton, North Berwick; they were married at St John’s Church, Edinburgh on 12^th February 1873 (1) Edward and Catherine (sometimes spelt Katherine) went on to have six more sons: Walter Scott Gillett (1875-1907), Edward Scott Gillett (1876-1952), Ralph Scott Gillett (1879-1880), Charles Scott Gillett (1880-1957), Harold Scott Gillett (1883-1957) and Aubrey Scott Gillett (1886-1963). Little Ralph Scott Gillett born 1879 and Christened on 29^th June that year sadly died the following year. Young George G. Gillett, a 7 year old scholar can be seen in the 1881 census living at the ‘Village Street Rectory’ in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire with his parents – 38 year old Reverend Edward A. Gillett, M. A. ‘Rector of Woolsthorpe’ and 36 year old Catherine E. Gillett, born 1845, Scotland; George’s younger brother, 5 year old Walter S. Gillett is also at the address along with 3 year old Edward and 3 months old Charles; they are living at the Rectory with five servants: Eliza A Jerome, 58 who is the cook, Sarah Lock, 21 who is the housemaid, Maria Croucher, 30 who is the nurse; Emily Davis, 17, another housemaid and 21 year old Sarah Matthews, who is another nurse. Reverend Edward Alfred Gillett became Rector of St. James Church, Woolsthorpe, near Grantham, in 1879; the church, built 1845-47 (tower built (1893) is a typical Anglican village church with its lych gate (the original medieval church was destroyed by fire during the Civil War). Kelly’s Directory of Lincolnshire with the part of Hull of 1885 (p. 716) tells us that ‘the living is a rectory, tithe rent-charge £80, net yearly value £230, including 38 acres of glebe with residence in the gift of the Duke of Rutland K.G. and held since 1879 by the Rev. Edward Alfred Gillett M.A. of Exeter College, Oxford.’
 
On 22^nd September 1887, thirteen year old George Gabriel Scott Gillett is admitted into Westminster School as a Queen’s Scholar; he takes particular interest in the Debating Society in which local ‘town boys’ are also welcomed – on 29^th March 1888 he begins a discussion whereby he is in favour of cremation (2); the following year, on Thursday 17^th October, he seconds a discussion affirming the ‘Existence of ghosts’ (3), bringing in biblical sources, saying it ‘recognised the belief’ but ‘he considered however, spiritual appearances to be of very rare occurrences.’ Another member of the Debating Society, J. S. Shearme (4), attempted to ‘explain the apparition at Endor by the theory that the witch of Endor mesmerised Saul; he thought all such stories capable of a natural interpretation’ while another member, P. Williamson, said all ‘apparitions [are] due to rats and indigestion’ and another member, H. L. Stephenson, ‘agreed with nobody and made some amusing remarks about twins and flying pigs.’ Gillett ‘related two stories of men who saw their doubles’ which Shearme criticised and both ‘upheld opposite views on the subject of the wonders performed by the Egyptian magicians.’ At the next meeting a week later on Thursday 24^th October, the discussion resumed which fell to re-telling ghost stories, which all young boys like to do, Gillett giving a story from Plutarch. Some other topics of discussion were: the Sunday opening of museums, galleries and libraries as ‘desirable’ proposed by Gillett, who was recently appointed Secretary of the Debating Society and who says it will ‘keep the working classes from drinking and loafing’ (Thursday 10^th October 1889); ‘That this house regards any attempt to meddle with the Established Church is dangerous’ (Thursday 7^th November 1889) which is seconded by Gillett; the approval of the dockers and the recent strike (Thursday 14^th November 1889); the disapproval of the existence and policies of the Triple Alliance, which Gillett seconded (Thursday 21^st November 1889); the approval of vivisection, which Gillett, who resigned as Secretary of the Debating Society in January, opposes (Thursday 27^th February 1890) and a discussion on the ‘press’ proposed by Gillett (Thursday 12^th November 1890) (5). As well as the Debating Society, Gillett is a firm member of the Literary Society and we find him reading many roles, mostly Shakespearean and often women’s parts, such as the part of ‘Hippolyta’ in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for the meeting on Friday 25^th October 1889 (J. S. Shearme played ‘Hermione’); ‘Bianca’ in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ on 8^th November (J. S. Shearme played ‘Sly’ and ‘Baptisto’); ‘Donalbain’, the young son of King Duncan in ‘Macbeth’ on Friday 22^nd and Friday 29^th November; the ‘Princess of France’ in ‘Love’s Labours Lost’ on Friday 24^th January 1890; ‘Queen Katherine’ in ‘King Henry VIII’ on Friday 7^th February and also that month, ‘Paulina’, wife of Antigonus in ‘A Winter’s Tale’ (see note 5). Gillett seems to enjoy his theatrical appearances and he is a member of the cast for the Westminster Play of December 1888 – the ‘Trinummus’ of Plautus performed in the Great Dormitory of St. Peter’s College. Gillett takes on the role of the goddess ‘Luxuria’, reading the prologue, opposite ‘Inopia’ played by John S. Shearme. Gillett was not able to perform on the second night – ‘the alterations consequent on the illness of G. G. S. Gillett and C. A. Philmore naturally made a great difference’ and so the prologue was omitted (6)
 
The Westminster Play of 1889, was the ‘Andria’ of Terence, a Latin comedy in which Gillett played the part of Charinus, best friend to Pamphilus; the first night of the performance being Thursday 12^th December 1889; of his performance we are told that ‘Mr. Gillett as Charinus had many of the faults of Pamphilus, and he gave too much prominence to the weak and selfish part of Charinus’ character; but his elocution was good.’ (7)
 
Young G. G. S. Gillett is at Westminster School until December 1890 and gains a History Scholarship to Keble College, Oxford in May 1892 (8), matriculating on 15^th October that year; like previous Keble scholars before him, such as the Reverend Edward Cracroft Lefroy (1855-1891) who matriculated in 1875 and Edmund St. Gacoigne Mackie (1867-1952), matriculating in 1886, or the three ecclesiastical poets from Exeter College, Oxford, who all shared Uranian proclivities – Reverend Edwin Emmanuel Bradford (1860-1944), Reverend Samuel Elsworth Cottam (1863-1943) and Reverend John Francis Bloxam (1873-1928), the latter went up to Oxford the same year as Gillett in 1892 (9), like them, Gillett would become infatuated with poetry and the church and consumed by Anglo-Catholic thought concerning social equality. There is no doubt that Gillett the undergraduate would have admired the new Shelley Memorial formally opened on 14^th June 1893 which shows a reclining nude in white marble by the sculptor Edward Onslow Ford displayed at University College, Oxford, and been impressed by the hanging of William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Light of the World’ which depicts Christ knocking upon the door and carrying a lantern in October 1894 in the side chapel constructed for Keble College. The tutor at Keble from 1892-93 was the Reverend Sidney Arthur Alexander (1866-1948) of St Paul’s School and Trinity College, Oxford; Rev. Alexander was a poet and author of such books as: ‘Sakya-Muni: The Story of Buddha’ (1887), ‘Christ and Scepticism’ (1894), ‘The Christianity of St. Paul’ (1899) and ‘Progressive Revelation’ (1910); he was curate of St. Michael’s, Oxford (1889-92) and in 1909 Alexander was Canon Treasurer of St. Paul’s. Among the many undergraduates who matriculated with Gillett in October 1892 several stand out as having achieved distinguished careers, such as Sir Egbert Laurie Lucas Hammond (1873-1939) who became the Governor of Assam, India from 1927-32; the archaeologist and Egyptologist, Arthur Cruttenden Mace (1874-1928) who was a member of Howard Carter’s team during the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922; Reverend Charles Hopwood Hart born in 1872 who published ‘A Book for Children about our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1905) and ‘Joan the Maid of France’ (1910), along with several sporting legends from the world of cricket – William Vincent Jephson (1873-1956) who played for Hampshire and Dorset, George Rupert Hunt (1873-1960) who played for Somerset and Gilbert Oswald Smith (1872-1943) who played cricket for Oxford University and Surrey [Joseph Foster. ‘Oxford Men’, see note 8]. During this period Gillett has been writing sundry verses with a distinctly ‘decadent’ aroma which appear in print, such as this in the April 1890 edition of The Artist which seems to hint at an unrequited, infatuation from afar that the poet had for someone with the initials ‘W. J. M.’:
 
TO W.J.M.
 
Guessed you but how I loved you, watched you smile
Hungered to see the love-light in your eyes –
That ne’er can wake for me – would wild surprise
Or sheer disgust at passion you deem vile
Be your response? For you are free from guile
While I, enraptured foolishly or wise
Long but for you, till even yearning dies
Save to be near, you loving me the while.
In all the world this thing can never come
And tho’ I die, no word your soul shall shame.
Mine by the punishment as mine the blame
And though in hopeless fear my heart is numb
And its renunciation, yet still dumb
You shall not hear me even breathe your name. (10)
 
The poem is definitely Uranian in tone and the secrecy involved is understandable when many a friendship has been broken by the declaration of affections which are not always understood and a sense of ‘sheer disgust at passion you deem vile’ can damage a young sensitive soul irreparably. From the same magazine the following year appearing on his eighteenth birthday, December 1^st, there is another poem which displays similar sentiments:
 
TO KALON
 
‘Suggested by a Portrait in a private collection’
 
In the old Greek legends such a face was seen,
Flushing its carnations through the grey and green
Of the olive gardens, where the gods had been.
 
In the later stories, Plato has enshrined,
When the wondrous Sophist moved the youth to mind,
Such a look on Lysis’ sunny face I find.
 
And the same sweet secret lives across the years,
Lights monastic cloisters with its smiles and tears
Fills the present moment with its hopes and fears.
 
In one fortress fostered, in one temple lord,
Banned elsewhere what matter, since with one accord
Artist through all ages have in soul adored?
 
While Art lives, thy Cult lives. By the crowd downtrod,
By the court neglected, or given to the rod;
Art in sight of Beauty, gains a glimpse of God.
 
Ask no foolish questions, Angel, youth or maid,
Virtuous or vicious, daring or afraid,
Beauty in mere being, having Love repaid.
 
Yet to him that giveth Love as a thing due,
Worship as a free will, Beauty lends the clue;
Whereby out of old things, Art makes all things new. (11)
 
While an undergraduate at Keble College, a poem of Gillett’s appeared in The Spirit Lamp (volume III, number III: March 1893. p. 72-73) under his initials ‘G.G.S.G.’ The poem is ‘In Memoriam E.B.F.’ and dated 10^th January:
 
They brought him home when the sun
In the southern sky sank red,
When the winter day was done;
On his white bed
They laid him cold and dead.
 
They told how they found him there
In the water, dead and cold.
Did the clear ice fail to bear?
Was he over bold?
Did he fall? – ‘Tis a tale untold.
 
Shroud of the white mist,
Splendid and white and dumb!
Cold were the lips I kiss’d
And his fingers numb;
Will never the warm breath come?
 
Friend and more than a friend,
Brother and comrade true,
We are come to the dim sad end
Of the way we knew:
I bleed in the dark for you.
 
The way that we two together
Hand in hand have gone,
Thro’ sunny and stormy weather
On still and on –
And now I am left alone.
 
I am left alone and I dream
Of the days spent side by side,
Of nights on the summer stream
Or the open tide,
With love for our stars to guide.
 
Our love was as pure and free
As the grace that the lilies win,
As God judg’d you and me
Not a trace of sin
Or shame was there found therein.
 
As love was as fervent-deep
As the heart of a golden wine,
In lands where the warm suns keep,
Thro’ the days divine,
Long watch o’er the fruitful vine.
 
Brave boy with the bright blue eyes,
Faithful and fair and strong!
Dead now – when the short day dies
Like a broken song,
And the night comes dark and long.
 
Friend and more than a friend,
Brother and comrade true,
We are come to the dim sad end
Of the way we knew:
I bleed in the dark for you.
 
Gillett seems to be echoing Tennyson’s haunting poem ‘In Memoriam’ to his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, the young poet who died at the age of 22 and we can also imagine him invoking the loss of ‘dear Dolben’, the young poet, Digby Mackworth Dolben (1848-1867), beloved ‘friend and more than a friend’ of the poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) who at the age of nineteen, before taking his place at Oxford, drowned, ‘in the water, dead and cold’, sustaining his youth and beauty for ever, like Antinous who drowned in the Nile, mourned by Hadrian, or Hylas, kept in watery suspension, a ‘brave boy with the bright blue eyes’ like some Ganymede afloat, ensuring an eternal youth. Timothy d’Arch Smith tells us in ‘Love in Earnest’ (p. 53) that according to S. E. Cottam the initials were fictitious and that Gillett’s friend A. R. Bayley ‘who had already contributed a harmless article on Peer Gynt’ sent in a story [to The Spirit Lamp] which was too dangerous even for [Lord Alfred] Douglas to handle.’ Bayley – Arthur Rutter Bayley (1868-1948) of Pembroke College, Oxford, did however manage to get his fairly innocuous ‘Sonnet’ in the same issue as Gillett on page 60; he also published ‘The Great Civil War in Dorset, 1642-1660’ in 1910 and after Bayley’s death he left his wealth and most of his personal effects, including his twenty-roomed mansion and cars to the value of £70,000 to his Secretary-Chauffeur Reginald A. G. Surridge (born 1914) whom Bayley of Malvern, Wiltshire, while Governor of a Grammar School, met when Surridge was a nine year old choir boy. (12)
 
In 1894, perhaps encouraged by the reception of his poetry amongst his friends at Keble, Gillett’s poems appear in a small volume of poetry entitled ‘Oxford Verses’ (13) –
 
I.
 
I shew’d you love’s crown of gold
Fair-wrought – but you would not wear it,
Love’s sceptre your hands might hold
And rule – but you would not bear it,
Love’s prize of delight untold
But you would not share it.
 
Love’s crown by the wayside lies,
Love’s sceptre of gold is broken,
Love’s heart in the darkness cries
For a word or a look or token,
For the light unborn in your eyes,
And the word unspoken.
 
Yet again we find similar sentiments to his earlier poems, a deep yearning for love and a fear of disappointment and rejection. There is a divine aspect to the secretive rapture that the young poet feels for his beloved who by just a ‘word or a look or a token’ would give the whole of creation to the beholder of this secret unrequited passion. The second poem in the sequence (page 29) is more erotic and seems to confuse the divine aspect of spiritual, ‘heav’nly love’ with physical love and that illicit intimacy which was sometimes common among public schoolboys who formed quite often, innocent attachments to one another and enclosed within secret yearnings of the members of the clergy; a love that must always remain secret and hidden, fearing the ‘shame and cruel speech of the world’ –
 
II
 
Years and years I have loved you
And dar’d not speak my love,
Your face was a light to lead my feet
To the crown of the Heav’ns above;
(Lean closer kiss me again, again,
For this is the Heav’n of Love).
 
Years and years I have waited
And gazed at your face afar,
Set in the dim wide night of my soul
A tremulous silver star.
(Lean closer, love is diviner now
That the way to his shrine was far).
 
Years and years I have fear’d the shame
And the cruel speech of the world,
But over our heads in the darkness now
Is the banner of love unfurl’d,
(Lean closer, cling to me, kiss my lips,
Our love can despise the world.)
 
In the next poem (pages 30-31) which begins ‘only one short week and I meet you’ there is a sense of the schoolboy’s romantic feelings of tenderness at the longing to meet the object of his devotional affection, the beloved, to roam together free from that ‘shame’ of the world that we found in the previous poem:
 
III
 
Only one short week and I meet you
Out on the hills that we love so well,
Hear your footsteps and turn to greet you,
Tell you all that I long to tell.
 
Out on the hills in the windy weather,
Keen with the breath of the breezy sea,
Sweet with the breath of the scented heather
I see you waiting alone for me.
 
Your sunburnt face in the clear air bright’ning
Your lithe white limbs and your trusting hand,
The flash of your eyes like summer lightning
Call me out of the southern land.
 
I dream of the days we shall roam and wander
When the sun rides high in the Heav’n above,
Or lie, looking over the cliffs, and ponder
The deep, sweet secrets of life and love.
 
Or the fall of day, with its tired hours dreaming,
When love remembers but shame forgets,
Faint and grey, though the west be gleaming
With a ling’ring glow of the sun that sets.
 
Or, best of all, when the world lies sleeping,
Your arms twin’d round me, your lips to mine,
Love shields us both with his pinions steeping
Our souls in music and fire and wine.
 
*          *          *          *          *
Only one short week and I meet you,
(Days run swift to a goal like this!)
Hear your footsteps and turn to greet you,
With glance and tremour and word and kiss.
 
Gillett proves to be quite a capable poet, if a little awkward in places and there seems to be the promise of more to come, but the well, although it does not dry up completely, is less forthcoming with the waters of inspiration as after leaving Oxford and taking Holy Orders, Gillett becomes more spiritually minded and works tirelessly at his clerical duties.  The final poem (page 32) recalls the unrequited nature of the poet’s love, that great ‘gift’ once more and the obvious fear of being rejected, by now a common theme in Gillett –
 
IV
 
Thro’ the gathering dusk and thro’
Weary distance dim and blue
How my heart goes out to you?
 
If I came and took your hand
In the shadow-haunted land
Would you turn and understand?
 
If I came with lips aflame
Would you rise and speak my name,
Rise and linger, if I came?
 
If I came and dar’d to lay
Life and love before you, - say,
Would you cast the gift away?
 
At Keble College Gillett became a member of the Debating Society as he had done at Westminster School and at a meeting in June 1894 where the talk was on ‘the advisability of an independent labour party’ he ‘opened the debate by a vigorous denunciation of Mr. Keir Hardie and his partisans.’ (14) In 1895 ‘Gillett is President of the Keble Debating Society’ (15) and during April of that year the Oscar Wilde trial is taking place and his conviction would have created shockwaves and reverberations throughout the Oxford colleges. The following year Gillett gains his B. A.; but perhaps more profoundly to him, a translation of a poem in French by the Greek poet, Jean Moreas (1856-1910) is accepted in Arthur Symons’s illustrated monthly, The Savoy and appears in the September 1896 issue with its Aubrey Beardsley cover, among such writers, to which the name ‘Gabriel Gillett’ may be included, are: W. B. Yeats, Ernest Dowson, Theodore Wratislaw and Symons himself –
 
From the French of Jean Moreas
“O petites fees…”
 
O tiny fays with the long gold hair,
You sang, as I slept, with a tender grace;
O tiny fays with the long gold hair,
In a spell-bound forest, a charmed place.
 
In a forest enchanted with spells untold
Compassionate gnomes as I slept the while
Offer’d me gently a sceptre of gold,
A sceptre of gold as I slept the while.
 
I know they are dreams and deceits of sleep
The sceptre of gold and the forest songs;
Yet still like a credulous child I weep,
And my heart for the rest of the woodland longs:
And I care not now tho’ I know the songs
Are only the dreams and deceits of sleep. (16)
 
After leaving College, Gillett, in the footsteps of his father, is ordained as a deacon in London in 1898 and as a priest the following year. He becomes curate of St. Michael and All Angels in North Kensington in 1898 until 1901 when he then becomes curate of St. Saviours in Sunbury, Middlesex until the following year; we can see 27 year old George G. Gillett there in the 1901 census, a ‘single, clergyman (Church of England)’ living as the head of the household at Staines Road, Cambridge Terrace, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex (17). From Middlesex he goes to Sussex where he is curate of the Church of the Annunciation in Brighton from 1902-1904; he then takes on the role of Chaplain to Earl Beauchamp at Madresfield in Worcestershire for the next two years. Earl Beauchamp, William Lygon (1872-1938), the 7^th Earl Beauchamp and a man fond of embroidery, is a well-known homosexual who had numerous affairs and opened himself up to blackmail and scandal, eventually, like Wilde before him, he was forced into exile (18); it is tempting to assume that Gillett and William Lygon had a relationship which went beyond that of Chaplain to Earl but I can find no evidence of this; then in 1906 Gillett became Chaplain to Viscount Halifax (Charles Lindley Wood, 1839-1934) for the next five years. (19) It is during this time that Gillett has been translating some hymns from the Latin of Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatas and ‘while domestic Chaplain to Earl Beauchamp at Madresfield he contributed to The English Hymnal, 1906, three translations (58, 172, and 630) and his own composition: ‘It is finished! Christ hath known’ (Good Friday)’ (20)
 
 
I.
 
It is finished! Christ hath known
All the life of men wayfaring,
Human joys and sorrows sharing,
Making human needs his own.
Lord, in us thy life renewing,
Lead us where thy feet have trod,
Till, the way of truth pursuing,
Human souls find rest in God.
 
II.
 
It is finished! Christ is slain,
On the altar of creation,
Offering for a world’s salvation
Sacrifice of love and pain.
Lord, thy love through pain revealing,
Purge our passions, scourge our vice,
Till, upon the Tree of Healing,
Self is slain in sacrifice.
 
III.
 
It is finished! Christ our King
Wins the victor’s crown of glory;
Sun and stars recite his story,
Floods and fields his triumph sing.
Lord, whose praise the world is telling,
Lord, to whom all power is given,
By thy death, hell’s armies quelling,
Bring thy saints to reign in heaven. (21)
 
The three translations are as follows: Hymn number 58 – ‘O Boundless Wisdom’:
 
O Boundless Wisdom, God most high,
O maker of the earth and sky,
Who bid’st  the parted waters flow
In heaven above, on earth below:
 
The streams on earth, the clouds in heaven,
By thee their ordered bounds were given,
Lest ‘neath the untempered fires of day
The parched soil should waste away.
 
E’en so on us who seek thy face
Pour forth the waters of thy grace;
Renew the fount of life within,
And quench the wasting fires of sin.
 
Let faith discern the eternal Light
Beyond the darkness of the night,
And through the mists of falsehood see
The path of truth revealed by thee.
 
O Father, that we ask be done,
Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son;
Who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,
Doth live and reign eternally. Amen. (22)
 
Hymn number 172 – ‘Sion’s daughters! Sons of Jerusalem!’:
 
Sion’s daughters! Sons of Jerusalem! All ye
Hosts of heavenly chivalry! Lift your
Voices, singing right merrily Alleluya!
 
Christ our Saviour weds on this festival Holy
Church, the pattern of Righteousness, whom from
Depths of uttermost misery He hath rescued.
 
Now the Bride receiveth his benison, Tasteth
Now the joys of the Paraclete; Kings and queens
With jubilant melody Call her blessed.
 
Mother meet for sinful humanity, Life’s sure
Haven, rest for the sorrowful, Strong protectress,
Born in the mystery Ever wondrous.
 
Not more fair the moon in her loveliness! Not more
Bright the sun in his majesty! Like an
Arm splendid and terrible! Ranged for battle –
 
So the church shines forth on her pilgrims, Signed with
Jordan’s waters of penitence, Drawn to
Hear the wisdom of Solomon, From the world’s end.
 
So, foretold by figures and prophecies, Clothed in
Nuptial vesture of charity, Joined with Christ,
O’er heaven’s glad citizens Now she reigneth.
 
Welcome! Feast of light and felicity, Bride to
Bridegroom joining in unity; in her mystic
Marriage is typified Our salvation.
 
Christ, whose joys we joyfully celebrate, Grant us
All a place with thy chosen ones, True delights,
Ineffable happiness, Rest eternal. (23)
 
And Hymn number 630 – ‘Lo! in the likeness of fire’:
 
Hail thee, Festival Day! blest day that art hallowed for ever;
Day wherein God from heaven shone on the world with his grace.
 
Lo! in the likeness of fire, on them that await his appearing,
He whom the Lord foretold, suddenly, swiftly descends.
 
Forth from the Father he comes with his sevenfold mystical dowry,
Pouring on human souls infinite riches of God.
 
Hark! in a hundred tongues Christ’s own, his chosen Apostles,
Preach to a hundred tribes Christ and his wonderful works.
 
Praise to the Spirit of Life, all praise to the Fount of our being,
Light that dost lighten all, Life that in all dost abide.
 
God, who art Giver of all good gifts and Lover of concord,
Pour thy balm on our Souls, order our ways in thy peace.
 
God Almighty, who fillest the heaven, the earth and the ocean,
Guard us from harm without, cleanse us from evil within.
 
Kindle our lips with the live bright coal from the hands of the Seraph;
Shine in our minds with thy light; burn in our hearts with thy love. (24)
 
On Saturday 8^th July 1905 ‘Princess Louise and the Duke of Argyll arrived at Madresfield Court’ visiting the Earl and Countess Beauchamp for the week-end; ‘the distinguished visitors travelled by the corridor express leaving Paddington at 1.40… and on reaching Great Malvern at 4.15 they were received on the platform by Earl Beauchamp, with whom they drove through the leafy Worcestershire lanes to the Court. The Madresfield servants in attendance wore white and scarlet liveries. To meet her Royal Highness and the Duke of Argyll the following house party had been invited: - Earl and Countess of Powis, Countess Tolstoy, Lord and Lady Tennyson, the Hon. Philip and Countess Stanhope, Lord and Lady Burghclere, Mary Lady Raglan, Sir Francis Mowatt, Mr. and Lady Morrison, Mr. Victor Corkran, and the Rev. Gabriel Gillett.’ (25). The distinguished guests spent most of the day in the garden and the grounds but a service was conducted in Madresfield chapel by the rector, the Rev. G. S. Munn, and the Rev. Gabriel Gillett.
 
Gabriel was moving among the higher echelons of society but there is a sense that his duty to the church and to the lower classes of society and the role God plays in their lives comes first – ‘both the aristocratic connections of Gabriel Gillett, as alumnis of Westminster School and Keble College, Oxford and former chaplain to the Anglo-Catholic Viscount Halifax, and the purport of his Passion hymn “It is finished! Christ hath known” typify the conservative tradition’ (26)
 
 
He had also become acquainted with the author Douglas Goldring (1887-1960) who says about him in his book ‘Privileged Persons’ of 1955 – ‘another clerical humourist and poet I encountered at this stage was the Rev. Gabriel Gillett, who was in temporary charge of the next parish, Barington [South Cambridgeshire]. Gabriel, like Marson [Reverend Charles Latimer Marson (1859-1914) who was curate of Hambridge from 1893-1914], had been a contributor to Stewart Headlam’s “Christian Socialist”’ (27)
 
While G. G. S. Gillett was Chaplain to Viscount Halifax (1906-11) there was another event which occurred in 1906, Gillett’s younger brother, Edward Scott Gillett (1877-1952) married his cousin, Katherine Seale Gillett (born 1877), the 2^nd daughter of late Rear Admiral Arthur Woodall Gillett of Waltham House, Cowes, Isle of Wight. Edward, who was born on 15^th September 1877 in Hawley (Christened 10^th October 1877) was educated at Lancing College and qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1900 at the Royal Veterinary College, London. He served with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps in 1917 [South Africa and India] attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He travelled extensively between Britain and the United States [Florida, Arizona] as a temporary visitor from 1921-1948 and was an ‘agent to the Countess of Suffolk, Charlton Park, Malmesbury’ (28). In 1948 at the age of 70 he settled permanently in Arizona and died there in 1952 (29).
 
The following year, 1907, sees the death of Reverend Edward Arthur Gillett’s second-born child, Walter Scott Gillett, born 12^th October 1875 (Christened 7^th November 1875); he served with the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant (July 1889) and by January 1905 was on the retired list. He died on 9^th February 1907 at Seymore, Victoria, Australia, aged 31. (30)
Gillett seems to have been greatly influenced by Viscount Halifax, a man of very similar tastes. The 2^nd Viscount of Halifax, Charles Lindley Wood was a major figure in the British Anglo-Catholic world and was on very friendly relations with King Edward; Wood, was educated at Eton (where he was confirmed in the Catholic faith by Bishop Wilberforce) in 1852, quickly becoming a ‘favourite’ of his tutor, the Uranian poet William Johnson (later Cory) (1823-1892) famous for his volume of verse ‘Ionica’ (1858) and for writing the ‘Eton Boating Song’ (1865) before Wood went up to Christ’s Church, Oxford in 1858 where he was influenced by the Oxford Movement and interested in ghosts and hauntings, later bringing out a collection of ghost stories. Although married, Viscount Halifax cultivated the friendships of men and Gillett was one such man; in the spring of 1907, Halifax is writing to his son in a letter dated 2^nd March 1907 and he relates the comic adventures and tribulations of his Chaplain, Gabriel Gillett’s ‘dental trials’, saying ‘Mr. Gillett went into Doncaster to have his enemy removed. It appeared there were two enemies; one he would have risked, though he was afraid of two without gas. (Half a one would have damped my courage.) Search for a doctor to administer the gas – not a doctor to be had in all Doncaster… Poor Mr. Gillett had then to come home re infecta. Ten of the next morning was fixed for the deed. He went back, handed himself over to the executioner, gas applied, no result. Discovery that the machine wouldn’t work and couldn’t be mended. Second return to Hickleton with his teeth in. On the third day Dr. and dentist and gas were all ready, but they managed so badly that though they kept pumping more and more gas, the victim was twenty minutes in the chair and conscious all the time; they never produced insensibility and the wretched Gillett suffered all the pangs and worse than the pangs of acute martyrdom. It was some comfort that he was fairly cheerful when he came back without his teeth and was able to eat quite a good dinner.’ (31)
 
In 1910 Gillett’s ‘The Claims and Promise of the Church’ was published which is a sequence of correspondence discussing Anglo-Catholic matters and the change of attitudes towards such beliefs, which ‘”while the blank indifference or unveiled hostility characterised the rationalism of a few years ago is no longer displayed by the men towards religion” and people are beginning to realise that a man need not be a fool or a fanatic because he interests himself in religious matters, the position and claims of the English branch of the Catholic Church do not readily get a hearing and are often grossly misunderstood’ (32) The following year in 1911 Reverend George Gabriel Scott Gillett became Rector of Madresfield in Worcestershire until 1914 (33). Gabriel was not the only member of the Reverend Edward Arthur Gillett’s children to enter the church as Gabriel’s younger brother Charles Scott Gillett (1880-1957) also took Holy Orders. Born 12^th December 1880 (Christened 9^th January 1881) Charles was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford (B A 1904); (M A 1921 University of Cambridge); he was ordained deacon in Southwark in 1913 and priest in Worcester the following year. He was Assistant Master at St. Edward’s School, Oxford; Curate of Halesowen 1913-14; Chaplain of Liddon House, South Audley Street 1915-21; Curate of Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street 1916-21; Vice Principle Westcott House, Cambridge 1921-22; Examination Chaplain to Bishop of Southwark 1922-27; Junior Proctor of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge 1926-27; Select Principle University of Oxford 1927-28; Fellow, Dean and Chaplain of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge from 1922; Examination Chaplain to Bishop of Derby from 1927; Principle of Chichester Theological College 1933-46; Emeritus of Chichester since 1954. He died in Cambridge on Friday 18^th October 1957, aged 76 and his funeral took place a few days later on Wednesday 23^rd October. (34)
 
Gillett’s book, ‘Politics and Religion’ was published in 1912 and it is a ‘book which reflected the influence of Bussell [Dr. F. W. Bussell], and combined an attack upon plutocracy with a good deal of suspicion of collectivist tendencies and a leaning towards what was afterwards to be known as “Distributism”…’.  ‘Published as early as 1912, this book foreshadowed a type of social criticism which was later to become predominant in Anglo-Catholic sociology. To-day, says the author, “everything is made easy for the rich and difficult for the poor in almost exact proportions to their poverty. If there were a strong public opinion in favour of wider distribution, changes in our laws might be made in a contrary direction. In addition to the much more graduated taxation of great incomes we might legislate deliberately to favour small owners and small investors… Some policy of that kind is the only sane alternative to collectivism… Such a policy would be immensely popular, appealing as it would both to the conservative and democratic instincts of the people; for it would be a conservative policy in refusing to aim at something which has never been tried on a large scale, and a democratic policy in securing for the ordinary man the opportunities of a larger life.”’ (35)
In 1913 Reverend Gabriel Gillett found another of his translated hymns published; the hymn – ‘Angelus Ad Virginem’ a 13^th century Latin hymn was translated by Gabriel Gillett as ‘Came the Archangel to the Maid’ and it appeared in The English Carol (1913):
 
 
Came th’ Archangel to the Maid
Of loving mien and station,
And her maiden fears allayed
With courteous salutation;
“Hail! Queen of Virgins pure and fair,
The Lord of all things thou shalt bear;
The Holy One
Shall be thy
Son Immortal,
Man’s mortal lot to share;
And thou art Heav’n’s high Portal,
That man may enter there.”
 
“How shall I conceive a child,
With man’s desire complying?
How shall I be thus defiled
My steadfast vows denying?”
“The Holy Ghost,” said he, “this hour
Shall come with his celestial dower:
Great joy is here,
Be not by fear
Constrained;
Thy maidenhood’s fair flower
Shall remain unstained
Through his almighty power.”
 
Spake the noble Virgin then,
Surpassing meek and lowly:
“I am but his handmaiden,
And he is God all-holy:
Do thou, who art is Angel sent
To shew his secret high intent,
His royal will
To cure our ill
Displaying,
Announce I do assent,
His wondrous work obeying
With joy and sweet content.”
 
Mary, Mother of the Lord,
Who hast by thy child bearing
Peace and happiness restored
To Mortal men wayfaring,
Beseech Thy blessed Son the He
To each and all may kindly be,
Our sore offence
Of thought and sense
Forgiving:
That by his grace may we
Be numbered with the living,
Through all eternity. (36)
 
 
Following Reverend G. G. S. Gillett’s work as Chaplain for Viscount Halifax, he travelled to South Africa and in 1914 he became the Chaplain to the Pretoria Diocesan House of Mercy, until 1915 where he then became Curate of St. Mary’s Church, Johannesburg, a role he remained in for five years until 1920 when he became Rector of St Mary’s, Jepperstown, Transvaal and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Pretoria until 1924.
 
While Reverend Gillett is away overseas, his youngest brother Harold is getting married in Islip, Oxfordshire, to Constance Emily Wilkinson (1895-1973) on 6^th August 1918. Harold Scott Gillett was born on 20^th January 1883 (Christened 11^th February 1883) and he became an officer in the Royal Navy, a Lieutenant on 1^st April 1913. On 8^th June 1914 he was appointed to the destroyer HMS Landrail and an incident in which Landrail collided with HMS Undaunted, another destroyer on 24^th February 1915 while Gillett was in temporary command due to the Captain being unwell and not fit to command, the collision was blamed on Gillett but he seemed to come out of it quite unscathed. Lieutenant Gillett remained with Landrail until 10^th June 1916 when he was given the command as Captain of a P Class patrol boat – HMS P18, which he served with until16th August 1917 (37). Another incident in which Captain Gillett made a mistake occurred on 27^th November 1917 while he was Captain of HMS Exe, while weighing the anchor he failed to notice how close he was to shore and ran the ship aground (38). He Captained several more destroyers during the war: HMS Azalea (2^nd September 1918- April 1919), HMS Ceanothus (May 1919-22^nd March 1920), HMS Trojan (21^st June 1920-23^rd July 1920), HMS Skate (August 1920-22^nd February 1922) and HMS Tyrant (August 1920). Harold Scott Gillett was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander on 1^st April 1921 and a few years later on 1^st June 1924, with the rank of Commander, he put himself on the Retired List (39). Harold died aged 74 in 1957 in Blyth, Suffolk.
 
In 1924 Reverend G. G. S. Gillett’s youngest brother, Aubrey Scott Gillett (1886-1963) divorced his first wife, Margaret Elsie Gillett, nee Potts; in fact, Aubrey seems to have led an interesting life. Born 15^th June 1886 (Christened 4^th July 1886), Aubrey Scott Gillett studied medicine at King’s College, Hospital in 1906 and three years later in 1909 he is a student house surgeon at King Edward VII Hospital, living in Gloucester Terrace, London; (40) in 1911 he is a ‘student of medicine’ aged 24, boarding at Willowdene Church, Thames Ditton and three years later on 2^nd September 1914 he married Margaret Elsie Potts in Newton Abbott in Devon. In the 1920’s Aubrey gained recognition as a police surgeon at his 30A Wimpole Street practice while living at 116 Westbourne Terrace; he and Margaret divorced following her petition in 1924 and in August 1924 his role as police divisional surgeon (F Division, Paddington Green) came to an end he married his second wife Lilian Smout in 1929 and ten years later, in May 1939 he emigrated to the West Indies. Clive Aslet, in his fascinating book, ‘War Memorial’ (2012) has some interesting things to say about Aubrey, saying that the marriage to Margaret which lasted ten years ‘began at Cockington Parish Church, in Devon just after war broke out in 1914. Gillett was a doctor. In 1916, he sailed back from Malta (known as the Nurse of the Mediterranean for its twenty-seven hospitals) as a 2^nd lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps…’ Their only child, Richard Hamilton Gillett, who later like his Uncle Edward Scott Gillett, went to Lancing College, ‘had been born the previous year. His middle name paid tribute to Aubrey’s friend from medical school, Douglas Hamilton. In the last days of 1908, Aubrey and Hamilton had left King’s College Hospital together, catching a tube to their respective homes. When Hamilton got out at Oxford Circus, he realised he had taken Aubrey’s ticket; he hared alongside the train as it pulled out of the platform, collided with the start of the tunnel, and was caught by the front carriages and dragged onwards, between the train and the tunnel wall. Finger marks showed how he had desperately tried to get a purchase on the wall and claw himself free. His body was found twenty-five yards from the platform.
After the First World War, Aubrey practiced in Torquay’ but he seemed to be unhappy there and ‘by 1923, his consulting rooms were in Wimpole Street, the epicentre of the medical establishment, while the family lived in the fading gentility of Westbourne Park, near Paddington Station and Hyde Park.
Richard was nine when his parents divorced in 1924. His father had set off down a new avenue in his professional as well as his domestic life, becoming a police surgeon. In 1924 he was sufficiently well respected to advise the Home Office pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury on the contents of the first ‘murder bag’, a leather case to be taken to crime scenes.’ (41) Aslet goes on to say that Aubrey and his new wife, Lilian Smout from Lancashire, whom he married in 1929, went to live in the Caribbean where Aubrey was appointed a member of the Executive Council of the Virgin Islands (1934) and later St. Lucia (1946). He died on 3^rd April 1963 in Croydon, Surrey.
 
Reverend George Gabriel Scott Gillett, author of ‘Politics and Religion’ (1912), became a Licensed Preacher for the Diocese of London in 1925 and Editorial Secretary for the S. P. G. [Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts] from 1926 until 1933 (SPG House, 15, Tufton Street, London SW1) (42). Gillett’s philosophy had steadily grown towards a Catholic standard of life and he would talk on ‘Catholicism in Relation to the State’; he gave a talk on Catholicism and the Nation on Wednesday 22^nd July 1925 at the First Summer School of Sociology held by the Anglo-Catholic Congress at Keble College, Oxford, which ran from 20^th-25^th July 1925 – ‘Catholicism and the Commonwealth or Nation was the subject introduced by the Rev. Gabriel Gillett on Wednesday morning. He said that the State was relatively necessary to fallen human nature. It was a punishment for sin, but yet a divinely ordained, though partial, remedy for sin. Man was by nature a social and political animal and his personality could only be realised in social life. The State was one of the means which contributed to this end. It enabled him to co-operate with others for his own and the common good. It had therefore a positive object and not merely the negative object of preventing violence. But it existed for the sake of individuals and not vice versa. The Church was a society distinct from the State. The two loyalties foster the steady reaction against State-Absolution which had characterised political thought in the present century.’ (43) This rather lengthy article goes on to say that there was ‘too much idolatries of the State’ and that it was ‘exceeding its function’ and that the ‘ideal still prevails that moral evils could be eradicated by legistration and beaurocratic government’ – ‘a modern version of the earlier doctrine that the State could eradicate heresy by persecution.’ The article concludes that ‘a radical decentralisation would seem to be demanded was a safeguard against State-Absolutism.’ The Reverend Francis Underhill was the Chairman of the Committee and another eminent speaker was ‘E G Selwyn (then a priest in the Portsmouth diocese, later Dean of Winchester) on “Catholicism and the World Order”’, other guests were Evelyn Underhill and Maurice B. Reckitt. In the summer of 1927, following the death of his father the previous year, Gabriel attended the 3^rd Anglo-Catholic Congress held at London’s Royal Albert Hall from 3^rd-10^th July and several years later he was at the 5^th London Congress, also at the Royal Albert Hall (events were also held in Oxford on both occasions which he may also have attended) held for one week in July 1933 which discussed social Christianity and the problem of the slums – ‘the impact there of Christendom Group thinking was evident in the call for a Christian social philosophy which, for Gabriel Gillett, had always been implicit in the Catholic tradition.’ (44)
 
On Friday 28^th May 1937 Gillett, Rector of Chaffcombe, attended the funeral of his Aunt Mrs. Jessie Baird Hartley, (born Jessie Baird Scott in Scotland in 1836, daughter of James Scott) at Wisborough Green, Sussex; she is in her 102^nd year (she celebrated her 101^st birthday on 10^th January) and she is the second oldest resident of Cheltenham, where she died on 17^th May. Also in attendance is Gabriel’s brother Charles, of Chichester Theological College and among the mourners are members of the Wyatt family of Harsfold Manor, Wisborough Green, Cheltenham, Miss Barbara Wyatt being a close family friend (45).
 
From 1928-1938 Gillett was Editor of ‘The Church Overseas’; Chaplain to St. Helen’s School, Abingdon from 1933 to 1935; Rector of Chaffcombe, Somerset from 1935-1939 (he was inducted as Rector of the 15^th century St. Michael and All Angels Church, Chaffcombe, on 12^th November 1935 but resigned the living after four years) (46); from 1939-1948 he was Chaplain to the Community of St. Peter in St. Leonard’s.
 
On 23^rd January 1940 Gabriel Gillett’s mother, Catherine Ellerton Gillett died, she was 95 years old and living at 46 West Street in Chichester, near to the Cathedral (47).
 
Rev. George Gabriel Scott Gillett died on 12^th August 1948 and it is only fitting to end with his obituary which appeared in the Hastings and St. Leonard’s Observer: ‘Priest and Scholar. Rev G. G. S. Gillett. Chaplain at St Peter’s Grange, St. Leonard’s, for nearly ten years, the Rev. George Gabriel Scott Gillett, of 75, Pevensey Road, West St. Leonard’s, died on Thursday [12^th August] last week. He was 75.
He was the eldest of seven sons of the late Rev. E. A. Gillett, and was born in a small village near Grantham, where his family had lived for many years. He was a King’s Scholar of Westminster, and afterwards went to Keble College, Oxford.
He was ordained in 1898 and after being assistant priest in various parts of England, became domestic chaplain to the then Earl Beauchamp and later to the father of the present Earl Halifax.
In 1912 he went to South Africa for health reasons, and during the last few years he was there he was rector of Jeppestown, a suburb of Johannesburg. He returned to England in 1923, and after a short interval was appointed Literary Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, for whom he worked for seven years.
He was subsequently chaplain of St. Helen’s School, Abington, and rector of Chaffcombe, Somerset, but after two or three years his health broke down and he came to St. Leonard’s as chaplain of the Community of St. Peter’s, the position he held until about three years ago, when illness compelled him to give it up.
He remained in St. Leonard’s all through the war, during which his home was twice seriously damaged by enemy action, once when he was helpless in bed following an operation.
An expert on Christian social and political problems, he studied international affairs from the Christian aspect and his knowledge and advice were greatly valued by those interested in Christian sociology.
He assisted with the paper called “Christendom”, writing a number of articles for them. Among his chief friends in this work were Mr. M. B. Reckitt and the late Miss Ruth Kenyon. He retained his interest in this paper until a week before his death.
He was a constant reviewer of theological and social books for various papers, chiefly the “Church Times”. He wrote two published works of considerable size, “Politics and Religion” and “The Claims and Promises of the Church”, the latter in collaboration with the well-known woman writer, Mrs. Ernest Dowson. This book took the form of letters written to each other about the Christian faith.
An excellent French scholar, he had travelled extensively in France, and for 40 years spent his holiday there each year, walking over a great part of the country.
The funeral took place on Tuesday [17^th August], a service at Christ’s Church, St. Leonard’s, being conducted by his friend the rector, the Rev. Sir Percy Maryon-Wilson, Bt.
The immediate mourners included three of his brothers, Canon C. S. Gillett, Commander H. S. Gillett, R. N., and Mr. A. S. Gillett, F. R. C. S., Miss Barbara Wyatt, of Harsfold Manor, Billinghurst, the Misses Walter and Mr. Alfred Dale, Mr. Frederic Lloyd was unavoidably prevented from attending.
The interment was at the Borough Cemetery.’ (48)
 
 
 
PUBLISHED WORKS BY GILLETT:
 
The Claims and Promise of the Church: A Sequence of Letters between Rev. Gabriel Gillett and William Scott Palmer. A. R. Mowbray & Co. London.1910. [William Scott Palmer is the pseudonym of Mrs. Mary Emily Dowson (1848-1941), born Mary Emily Tee in Bradford, she was the first qualified female surgeon in Britain and Ireland and wrote numerous books on theological matters]
 
Politics and Religion. Gabriel Gillett. London. Edward Arnold. 1912.
 
A Garden of Song. Gabriel Gillett. Pictures by Martin Travers and an Introductory Note by Kenneth Ingram. Westminster. Society of S. S. Peter and Paul. 1923.
 
Civilization and the Gospel. Gabriel Gillett. London. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel [S.P.G.] 1930.
 
Mother of God Incarnate, being a brief answer to some objections commonly raised against devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Gabriel Gillett. London. Catholic Literature Association. 1932.
 
Revolution, Christian or Pagan? (with an Introduction by the Right Reverend Arthur Chandler). Gabriel Gillett. London. Church Literature Association. 1934.
 
Charity. Gabriel Gillett. London. Church Literature Association. 1939.
 
Politics and the Faith. Evelyn Underhill, Maurice B. Reckitt and Gabriel Gillett. London. Church Literature Association. 1953.
 

 

 

 

 

NOTES AND SOURCES:

 

1. Edward Alfred Gillett was born on 3^rd September 1842 in Waltham, Leicestershire and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, matriculating on 23^rd May 1861 at the age of 18; B.A. 1865 and M.A. 1868. He married 1873 [Daily News. London. Saturday 15^th February 1873. p. 1]; in 1879 he became Rector of Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire until 1903 and the following year he was appointed by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Paget) as the Vicar of St. Mary’s, Weston-on-the-Green, Cherwell district, Oxfordshire [Bedfordshire Mercury. Friday 21^st October 1904. p. 3]. He died in 1926 while Rector of St. Mary’s and his obituary appeared in the Lincolnshire Echo of Thursday 18^th November 1926. p. 2. Census information: 1881 Census for England and Wales: Page: 3; Piece/Folio: 3230/65.
2. The Elizabethan, the Westminster School Magazine. 1888. Volume 5, number 22. The Debating Society. p. 265.
3. ibid. 1889. Volume 6, number 8. The Debating Society. p. 97-98.
4. John Stewart Shearme (1873-1941), eldest son of John Shearme of Plymouth, cricket enthusiast educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge 1892; B.A. 1895, M.A. 1900. Assistant Master at Repton School, Derbyshire 1897-1927 and House Master 1905-1927. [Captain in the Repton School Officer Training Corps.] Died Tonbridge aged 67.
5. The Elizabethan. 1889. Volume 6, number 7. The Debating Society. p. 87; Volume 6, number 8. p. 98; Volume 6, number 9. p. 112-114 (also under discussion the ‘revolution in Brazil); 1890. Volume 6, number 12. p. 142; Volume 6, number 18. p. 217 respectively. The meetings of the Literary Society appeared in the same editions, usually following the Debating Society.
6. The Elizabethan.1888. Volume 5, number 29. p. 334. (see also the Morning Post. London. Friday 14^th December 1888. p. 5 and Daily News. London. Tuesday 18^th December 1888. p. 3)
7. The Elizabethan. 1889. Volume 6, number 10. p. 127.
8. The Elizabethan. 1892. Volume 7, number 4: ‘we sincerely congratulate G G S Gillett on obtaining the History Scholarship at Keble.’ [Correspondence: From Our Oxford Correspondent] p. 48. There is also a small biographical mention of George Gabriel Scott Gillett in ‘Oxford Men 1880-1892 with a Record of their Schools, Honours and Degrees’. Joseph Foster. Stephen Austin & Sons. Hertford. 1893. p. 234.
9. An excellent biographical life of Rev. E. E. Bradford (and references to Rev. S. E. Cottam) can be found in ‘Eyes Lit With the Light of Other Skies’ found in ‘My Love Is Like All Lovely Things: Selected Poems of E. E. Bradford’ by C. Caunter. London. Arcadian Dreams. 2023. John Francis Bloxam wrote the story ‘The Priest and the Acolyte’ which appeared in the only issue of The Chameleon (which Bloxam edited) in December 1894, published by Gay and Bird, London.
10. The Artist and Journal of Home Culture. 1^st April 1890. p. 113. Also quoted in ‘Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature from 1850-1900: An Anthology’ (1970) by Brian Reade. p. 227-228. Gillett’s poem ‘Triolet’ appeared in the Artist of December 1889, volume X, p. 367 and two years later in the Artist of 1891, his ‘Sonnets’ appears under his initials ‘G. G.’ volume XII. p. 54.
11. The Artist and Journal of Home Culture. 1^st December 1891. p. 355. see also ‘Sexual Heretics’. Brian Reade. 1970. p. 247-248.
12. ‘Choir Boy Grew Rich’. The People. Sunday 3^rd October 1948. p. 1.
13. Oxford Verses. Edited by Rosslyn Bruce (of Worcester College, Oxford). B. H. Blackwell. 1894. p. 28-32. There is also a mention in The Elizabethan of 1894, Volume 7, number 27 – ‘the signature Gabriel Gillett appears below some stanzas in a recently published volume entitled ‘Oxford Verses’’ [Correspondence: From Our Oxford Correspondent] p. 322.
14. Pall Mall Gazette. Monday 18^th June 1894. University Notes. p. 1.
15. The Elizabethan. 1895. Volume 8, number 8. [Correspondence: From Our Oxford Correspondent] p. 100.
16. The Savoy: An Illustrated Monthly. Number 5. September 1896. Edited by Arthur Symons. London. Leonard Smithers. 1896. [New Impression reproduced in 5 volumes; facsimile edition. (volume 4, number 5) Frank Cass and Co. Ltd. London. 1967. p. 28.]
17. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Page Number: 30; Piece/Folio: 67; Schedule Type: 188. Gabriel’s father, Edward Alfred Gillett is in Woolsthorpe, at the Rectory, Village Street, he’s 58 and has four servants, all single females: Florence A Poole, 29, born in India who is the maid; Florence Wilkinson, 18, born in Woolsthorpe who is the cook; Eliza Ann Ecob, 38, born in Woolsthorpe who is the parlour maid and Sarah Ann Hill, 20, born in Silk Willoughby, Lincolnshire who is the housemaid. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Page Number: 2; Piece/Folio: 85; Schedule Type: 10.
18. Madresfield: The Real Brideshead. Jane Mulvagh. Oxford. Isis. 2008. p. 324, 328, 332, 337 and 338. See also: Homosexuals in History: A Study of Ambivalence in Society, Literature, and the Arts. A. L. Rowse. London. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. 1977. p. 222-223, and also the Hereford Times. Saturday 2^nd September 1911. p. 48.
19. see the Record of Old Westminsters. Volume III, compiled by J. B. Whitmore, G. R. Y. Radcliffe and D. C. Simpson. Barnet. 1963.
20. Reverend James Mearns M. A. in ‘Dictionary of Hymnology’ [1^st ed. 1892; 2^nd revised with supplement 1907] edited by John Julian D. D.  [Dover edition. Volume II. 1957. p. 1641]
21. The English Hymnal with Tunes. Humphrey Milford. London. Oxford University Press. 1906. p. 162. Hymn number 118: ‘It is finished! Christ hath known’.
22. ibid. Hymn number 58 translated by George Gillett. p. 89.
23. ibid. Hymn number 172 translated by George Gillett. p. 247-250.
24. ibid. Hymn number 630 translated by George Gillett. p. 814. (in some versions the last three verses are omitted). This seems to be a variation of Gillett’s translation ‘Rise from the grave now, O Lord’.
25. Princess Louise at Madresfield Court. Gloucester Citizen. Monday 10^th July 1905. p. 3.
26. Hymns and the Christian Myth. Lionel Adey. University of British Colombia Press. 1986 [2011 edition. p. 117-118]
27. Privileged Persons. Douglas Goldring. Richard’s Press. 1955. p. 100. Headlam is Stewart Duckworth Headlam (1847-1924), of Eton College (influenced by William Johnson (Cory) and Trinity College, Cambridge, a controversial Anglican priest who helped to bail Oscar Wilde from prison during his trial.
28. Gloucester Citizen. Wednesday 15^th August 1928. p. 7. The Countess of Suffolk was Lady Margaret Howard (1879-1968), born Margaret Hyde Leither in the United States, she married the 19^th Earl of Suffolk, Henry Howard in 1904; Henry died in India in 1917. After Lady Suffolk’s father died in 1904, he stipulated in his will that she must spend 4 months of the year in the United States; she had property in Arizona and had Forest Lodge built where Edward finally resided in 1948.
29. Arizona, Nogales, Index and Manifests of Alien Arrivals, 1905-1952. From this document we learn that Edward, immigrated on 23^rd March 1948 to Nogales, Santa Cruz, Arizona (his last address was Red Lynch, Bruton, Somerset, England and his wife Katherine S. Gillett’s address is Alford House, Park Lane, London, W1.) His address in Arizona will be Forest Lodge, Tucson – we also learn that he is ‘ruddy’ of complexion, has white hair and blue eyes and ‘tattoo marks both arms’. In the 1940 United States Census he was also staying at Forest Lodge with the head of the household, ‘Lady Suffolk’, a 60 year old widow whose residence is ‘Charleton Park, England’. In the 1942 U.S. Draft Record (27^th April) he is 64, unemployed and gives his relative’s name as ‘Lady Suffolk’ and residence as Forest Lodge.
30. Army and Navy Gazette. Saturday 23^rd March 1907. p. 8. also: Bicester Herald. Friday 22^nd March 1907. p. 8. The London Gazette. 20^th January 1905. p. 491.
31. Letter dated 2^nd March 1907 from Viscount Halifax to his son: Charles Lindley Viscount Halifax, volume 2 (1885-1934). J. G. Lockhart. London. Geoffrey Bles: The Centenary Press. 1936. Chapter XI: ‘Family Letters’. p. 187.
32. Booksellers and the Stationary Trades Journal, volume 5. 1910. p. 1032.
33. Herald Times. Saturday 2^nd September 1911. p. 48.
34. Crockford’s Clerical Directory. 1929. p. 488. also West Sussex Gazette. Thursday 24^th October 1957. p. 2; Bognor Regis Observer. Friday 25^th October 1957. p. 3.
35. Politics and Religion. 1912. pp. xvii-xviii, quoted from Maurice to Temple: A Century of the Social Movement in the Church of England (Scott Holland Memorial Lectures. 1946) Maurice B. Reckitt. London. Faber and Faber. 1947. p. 227.
36. The English Carol: Book I. First Series. London. A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd. 1913. (carol number 3) p. 8. The Hymn also appears in ‘Carols Old and Carols New, for use at Christmas and other seasons of the Christian year. Reverend Charles Lewis Hutchins. Boston. The Parish Choir. 1916. (Carol number 685) p. 567. It is quite obvious that Rev. Hutchins has taken this hymn from the 1913 edition of The English Carol, cited above but he does not credit Gillett as the translator.
37. Harold Scott Gillett, Service Records. National Archives. ADM 196/96/192 f328.
38. The Navy List. December 1920. p. 865. Gillett served as Captain on board HMS Exe from 16^th August 1917 until 9^th December 1917.
39. During the Second World War Harold Scott Gillett served as a Reserve Naval Officer, Seaham from 28^th May 1940 until he was put back on the Retired List on 26^th March 1945.
40. In the Medical Directory of 1918 we find: ‘Aubrey Scott Gillett, Tor View, Chelston, Torquay (Walker, Payne & Gillett, MRCS, LRCP Lond. 1911. (King’s College, Lond) Late House Surgeon, King’s College, Hospital, Surgeon. P & O SN. Co. Capt. RAMC. 1915-17.’ In January 1934, Gillett, F.R.C.S.; M.R.C.S.; L.R.C.P. (Acting Medical Officer) was appointed by the King as an official Member of the Executive Council of the Presidency of the Virgin Islands – in 1946 ‘Mr Aubrey Scott Gillett, FRCS, has been appointed a member of the Executive Council of the Island of St. Lucia.’ British Medical Journal. 15^th June 1946. p. 938.
41. War Memorial: The Story of One Village’s Sacrifice from 1914-2003. Clive Aslet. Viking. 2012. Chapter 10: The War Seemed Very Far Away. Richard Gillett.
42. ‘Missionary News: The Reverend G. Gabriel S. Gillett has been appointed Editorial Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in succession to the late Canon C. H. Robinson. Mr. Gillett has had active experience of Church work overseas.’ London and China Express. Thursday 17^th June 1926. p. 9. see also the Bayswater Chronicle. Saturday 19^th June 1926. p. 2, and the Gloucester Citizen. Tuesday 15^th June 1926. p. 5.
43. Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette. Friday 3^rd July 1925. p. 16 and Friday 24^th July 1925. p. 22. Also see ‘Maurice B. Reckitt: A Life. John Stuart Peart-Binns. Bowerdean Press/Marshall Pickering. 1988. p. 75.
44. Christian Social Thought in Great Britain Between the Wars. Bruce Wollenberg. University Press of America. 1996. [1997 edition. p. 70]
45. Cheltenham Chronicle. Saturday 29^th May 1937. p. 3. Jessie Baird Hartley (widow) lived at 115, the Promenade, Cheltenham and Barbara Frances Penfold Wyatt (1895-1960) is the daughter of John Arthur Penfold Wyatt (1862-1926), born in Hawley, Hampshire; barrister of Harsfold Manor who died after a fall from his horse while hunting, age 64.
46. Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette. Saturday 11^th March 1939. p. 18.
47. West Sussex Gazette. Thursday 25^th January 1940. p. 1.
48. Hastings and St Leonard’s Observer. Saturday 21 August 1948. p. 2. His obituary also appears in The Elizabethan, 1948, Volume 24, number 13. p. 204. Gillett’s friend, the rector, is Rev. Sir George Percy Maryon Maryon-Wilson (1897-1941), 12^th Baronet of Eastbourne, educated at Magdalene College, Oxford, BA 1922, Diploma of Theology 1923, MA 1929; he was ordained deacon 1923 and priest 1924; rector of Christ Church, St. Leonard’s on Sea 1941-64, Canon and Prebendary of Chichester Cathedral from 1953 and author of ‘In Whose Hearts are Thy Ways’ (1937).