Friday, 1 September 2023

VINCENT STUCKEY STRATTON COLES

 

STUCKEY
AND HIS CIRCLE
 
By
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 


Stuckey Coles, circa 1898

‘The ordinary conventions of life were to us merely absurd.’ 

[Robert Bridges. Three Friends. 1938. p. 9]

 

Throughout my life I have held a passion and admiration for the poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben and Gerard Manley Hopking, the name of Vincent Stuckey Coles rings softly as a bell between them, defined as a great friend and spiritual force whose religious beliefs helped shape much of the former poet’s own thoughts and aspirations and shared much with the latter poet’s; but so little is known of Stuckey that I felt driven to discover more about him and about those who entered his circle of friendship. Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles was born at the Rectory in Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset, where his father James Stratton Coles was Rector, on 27th March 1845, (he was baptised there on 1st June). According to Rev. Granville William Borlase (1876-1952) he was fond of riding his pony and walking but was not particularly interested in sport; he would ride his pony to the next village, Hambridge, where the vicar taught him Latin. (1) In searching through the records I find that the vicar of the church of St. James the Less in Hambridge at the time was Reverend Charles Stephen Grueber (1815-1894) who was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford and was a prominent member of the English Church Union; he was ordained deacon in 1840 and priest the following year by the Bishop of Winchester and took the living at Hambridge in 1844. Borlase goes on to tell us that young Vincent, according to Vincent’s sister, Julia Mary Coles, ‘always took a great interest in religious matters’ and that ‘as a very small boy he said he wished to be ordained, and used to induce the servants to listen to his sermons.’ As already mentioned, Stuckey’s father was the Reverend James Stratton Coles, born 6th June 1810 in Ashill, Somerset (2) and his mother was Eliza Stuckey, the daughter of the West Country banker, Vincent Stuckey (1771-1845), born 23rd February 1808 in Chelsea, London (3); they were married in Langport, Somerset in 1844 and Vincent, their only son, was the first born child in 1845 followed by Julia Mary Coles in 1847 (4) and Eliza Mary Coles in 1850 (5).

Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles attended a preparatory school in Exmouth from 1854-58 and had a thoroughly miserable time there, his health was poor and he was overweight and not good looking in the conventional sense. In 1858, aged thirteen, he was confirmed at the 13th century church of All Saints in Martock, Somerset and entered Eton College where, unlike at Exmouth, he was happy and became popular. Coles was in Mr. Birch’s form which was mostly made up of the sons of nobility; his tutor, Rev. Augustus Frederick Birch (1827-1898), a Suffolk man was highly sought after by the gentry probably because his brother, Rev. Henry Mildred Birch (1820-1884) who had been an Eton Master from 1844-49, was Chaplain to the Prince of Wales. Also in Mr. Birch’s form was the flamboyantly named Reginald Temple Strange Clare Grenville-Murray (1846-1892), son of the diplomat, author and satirist, Eustace Clare Grenville-Murray (1824-1881); Reginald, who later changed his name to James Brinsley-Richards, later wrote an interesting memoir of his time at Eton titled ‘Seven Years at Eton’ and in it he says that ‘whilst in Mr. Birch’s division, I became temporarily mixed up with a literary set, who for a year had been bringing out a School periodical, called The Eton Observer.’ (6)

 

THE ETON OBSERVER

 

According to Brinsley Richards, who was at Eton from 1857-1864, Stuckey Coles, a ‘lower boy in Upper Remove’, became editor and contributor of the Eton Observer in 1859 which ceased publishing after about a year; Coles was assisted on the publication by several like-minded friends such as Vincent Cracroft-Amcotts (1845-1881) who together with Stuckey were known as ‘the two Vincents’ and he later went on to become a JP for Lincoln and an author of burlesques and operettas but was unfortunately found dead at the age of 36 in 1881 (7) and William Hamilton Codrington Nation (1843-1914), another aspiring poet and playwright (8); Henry Wyndham Alleyne (1844-1863) who went from Eton to Exeter College, Oxford and who sadly died at the young age of 19 at Clifton on 24th September 1863 and perhaps the best contributor and assistant of the Observer – William Reynal Anson (1843-1914), who later became Sir William Anson, M.P. and like Stuckey, went up from Eton (1857-62) to Balliol College, Oxford; he became President of All Soul’s College, Oxford and never married (9). Coles and Amcotts went on to publish the successor to the Observer – The Phoenix, (10) which Brinsley-Richards describes as a ‘short lived but rather clever periodical, which arose out of the ashes of the Observer’ (‘Seven Years at Eton’. p. 200). The Eton Observer became a rival to another Eton periodical, the Porticus, which often published remarks and verse attacking the Observer which Coles attributed to the Porticus contributor, John Bradley Dyne (1839-1909), son of the Rev. John Bradley Dyne; J. B. Dyne minor, became a barrister and member of the Conveyancing Counsel to the High Court of Justice (11). Another friend of Coles was Archibald Philip Primrose (1847-1929), later 5th Earl Rosebery and Prime Minister from 1894-95 who was known as Lord Dalmeny at Eton and tutored by the great William Johnson (later Cory); Dalmeny was at Eton from 1860-65 and became a ‘favourite’ of Johnson’s who took him to see Rome in 1864 but he must have shared a spiritual friendship with Coles for together they wrote a hymn. James Brinsley-Richards in his book ‘Seven Years at Eton’ (p. 370) says that Dalmeny had a ‘slight figure and fresh, prim, young-ladyish appearance. His family name of Primrose suited him to a nicety. He was not remarkable for scholarship, but he possessed plenty of cool assurance.’ It seems young Lord Dalmeny had strong feelings towards another Eton boy named Frederick Grantham Vyner (1847-1870) who like Primrose went from Eton College up to Christ Church, Oxford, Primrose in January 1866, Vyner in the previous October of 1865, but less than five years later on 21st April 1870, Vyner was captured, held hostage and murdered in Greece by brigands; he was one of a party of seven tourists on a trip to the site of the Battle of Marathon on Monday 11th April which included Edward Herbert, an old Etonian and nephew of the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon; Mr. Edward Lloyd a barrister and Count Alberto de Boyl; Lord and Lady Muncaster also made up the party (Lord Muncaster was released to arrange the ransom and so were the women, his wife and Mrs. Lloyd and child; the tragedy came to be known as the Dilessi Massacre). Rosebery himself came under a similar attack as Oscar Wilde at the hands of the mad Douglas, the Marquess of Queensbury – Queensbury’s first-born son, Francis Douglas (1867-1894), Viscount Drumlanrig became Rosebery’s private secretary in 1892 and there were scandalous rumours of a sexual relationship between Rosebery and Francis, or at least Queensbury believed there to be and he threatened to expose the whole affair; he also believed his son’s death to be the result of Rosebery’s relationship with him and Queensbury hounded Rosebery like he hounded Wilde whom he saw as corrupting his other son, Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945). Another friend at Eton with similar Catholic sympathies was Frederick George Lindley Wood (1846-1910) who later in 1905 changed his name from Wood to Meynell. Frederick, who later went up to Cambridge and became a barrister, was the younger brother of Lord Halifax – Charles Lindley Wood (1839-1934), the 2nd Viscount Halifax who had also been at Eton and become a ‘favourite’ of the tutor-poet, William Johnson (later Cory) who dedicated his volume of poems, ‘Ionica’ to him; Charles later went up to Christ Church, Oxford and became President of the English Church Union from 1868-1919. Also at Eton and a friend of Coles, sharing his High Church interests and seemingly mirroring Charles Lindley Wood, was Sir John Conroy (1845-1900), 3rd Baronet who became an analytical chemist and like Wood went up to Christ Church, Oxford and became involved with the English Church Union; he became a Fellow of Balliol College in 1890 and a Fellow of the Royal Society the following year. Conroy never married and died in Rome.

It is not surprising that within the cultured and cloistered atmosphere of the all male Public School system that boys form close friendships and desires, considered immoral, are awakened; passions develop into flourishing romances, often quite harmless and in most cases beneficial, and Eton was no exception to this form of ‘spooning’; Eton, that great academic institution that saw the likes of the poet, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) who liked nothing better than to idle away the hours in his sexual fantasies over the Eton flogging block, the scene where many a young boy’s plump bottom was birched; Eton, where there had been scandalous rumours and revelations concerning William Johnson’s ‘romantic’ attachments to ‘favourite’ boys, so much so that he was forced to resign in 1872 and a few years later in 1875 the great tutor Oscar Browning (1837-1923) was dismissed due to his ‘intimate relationship’ with George Nathaniel Curzon (1859-1925), for at Eton, like other Schools and Colleges, Harrow and Clifton for example, the sensuous Greek ideal of tutoring was in opposition to the athletic principles of Muscular Christianity. A contemporary of Coles’s time at Eton was Reginald Baliol Brett (1852-1930), the 2nd Viscount Esher who entered Eton in January 1865 and found himself two years later, a ‘favourite’ of his tutor, William Johnson [Cory]; Brett later published a volume of ‘Uranian’ verse called ‘Foam’ in 1895. Among Brett’s friends which included Rosebery, was Lord Henry Arthur George Somerset (1851-1926) who at Eton was known as ‘Podge’; the 3rd son of Henry Charles Fitzroy Somerset (1824-1899) the 8th Duke of Beaufort, ‘Podge’ was identified by several ‘telegraph boys’ as being involved in the ‘Cleveland Street Scandal’ of 1889 and he went into exile, living in Vienna; he died unmarried in France in 1926. Brett was also on friendly terms with Lord Arthur’s older brother, Lord Henry Richard Charles Somerset (1849-1932) who was also at Eton and later became a politician; following a disastrous marriage in 1872, Lord Henry became infatuated with a seventeen year old boy. After his wife, Lady Isabella broke with convention and went public with the scandal and in doing so ostracising herself, Lord Henry fled to Italy in disgrace and later produced a volume of Uranian verse called ‘Songs of Adieu’ in 1889. But perhaps the most disagreeable close friend of Brett’s was Lewis Vernon Harcourt (1863-1922), Viscount Harcourt who was known as ‘Loulou’ had similar proclivities as Brett; in fact, ‘Loulou’ attempted to seduce Brett’s fifteen year old daughter, Dorothy Brett (1883-1977) and she says of him in a letter to her father of August 1917 that ‘it is so tiresome that Loulou is such an old roué. He is as bad with boys as with girls… he is simply a sex maniac. It isn’t that he is in love. It is just ungovernable sex desire for both sexes.’ (12) Brett, like Loulou and Coles would go up to Balliol College, Oxford where similar relationships blossomed and withered on the academic vine, such as William Money Hardinge (1854-1916) who became involved with Walter Pater and was known as the ‘Balliol Bugger’; Coles, whose friendships were intense and tender, would have been familiar with such behaviour and although it is doubtful that he let his desires surface into the physical realm, for he was profoundly celibate, his fancies almost certainly were drawn that way. Stuckey’s other tutors at Eton were: Rev. Charles Caldecott James M.A. (1831-1903) of King’s College, Cambridge who was a very unpopular Master known as ‘Stiggins’; Rev. Edward Hale M.A. (1828-1894) who took Science and was known as ‘Badger’ and Rev. Francis St. John Thackeray M.A. (1832-1919), a classics Master known as ‘Swag’. Among Stuckey’s closest friends at Eton were the future Poet Laureate (1913-30), Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930) who was at Eton from 1854-1863 and another young poet, Bridges’ younger cousin, Digby Augustus Stewart Mackworth Dolben (1848-1867) who entered Eton in January 1862 from Cheam School which was under the headmastership of Rev. Robert Stammers Tabor M.A. (1819-1909). A flavour of the friendship between them can be found in the correspondence Bridges publishes in his Memoir of Dolben found in his ‘Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben’ of 1911 (13).

 

DOLBEN

 

At Eton, Dolben, who was tutored by William Johnson (later Cory) (1823-1892) who published his influential volume of poems, ‘Ionica’ in 1858, became fond of a boy named ‘Archie Manning’, writing romantic verses about him; in fact, it was a ‘passionate devotion’, or so Robert Bridges writes in his ‘Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben’, disguising the name of Dolben’s real affection, a boy named Martin Le Marchant Gosselin (1847-1905), whom Dolben called ‘Marchie’ and Bridges changes to ‘Archie Manning’ (14). Dolben was unable to talk to Bridges on the subject but he could confide in ‘Stuckey’ Coles about his romantic feelings for Gosselin, who was a year older than Dolben and unaware of the deep affection Dolben held for him, perhaps recognising in Coles, who knew Gosselin better than Bridges, a similar sympathy of affection and he often sought advice from ‘Stuckey’, which Coles was always willing to give as his two loves were always Religion and Friendship. Dolben, who was ‘tall, pale and of delicate appearance’ (Memoir. vii) seemed to make close attachments to other boys, such as Robert Bickersteth (1847-1916) who was at Eton and Wentworth Beaumont Hankey (1849-1905), who like Dolben came from Cheam School to Eton (and later to Christ Church, Oxford and became curate of St. Paul’s) and it was only a matter of time before Bridges, who had ‘enrolled Dolben among my fags, and looked after him’ (vii) introduced him to his friend Vincent Stuckey Coles. Bridges left Eton in July 1863, the summer in which Dolben’s idolisation of Gosselin was at its height, and the correspondence begins a month later. Dolben’s tutor, Rev. John Eyre Yonge M.A. (1818-1890), became aware and concerned (as was Dolben’s father) over Dolben’s visit to the Jesuits and of the boy’s ‘disaffection’ and it was agreed that ‘Eton was an unsuitable residence for Dolben’ and he should leave the School in July 1863, and so he was back at the family home, Finedon Hall, Northamptonshire by Saturday 13th July; he writes to Bridges from there on 1st August, perhaps with some suspicion that Coles had said too much to Mr. Yonge – ‘tell Coles that I by no means approve of his conversation with John [Yonge], my late lamented tutor: it was to say the least rather cowardly’ (xxxi). Following a family holiday to Wales where Dolben secretly witnessed a mass at the Catholic chapel in Bangor and where he met Gosselin for a ‘long walk on the hills’ (xxxv) he writes to Bridges from Finedon in September, saying ‘I cannot tell whether I am glad or sorry’ (xxxvi) in reference to his return to Eton at the Michaelmas term 1863. Towards the end of September or beginning of October Dolben stayed with a mutual friend of his and Coles, Vincent Cracroft-Amcotts in Lincolnshire and sometime after Dolben falls ill as can be seen in a letter Bridges writes from Corpus Christi College, Oxford to his friend Lionel Muirhead on 2nd November (1863) in which he says ‘Dolben as you know is ill though it is time he was well again now. He is not coming to Hors[e]path [a village in South Oxfordshire to which Bridges had presumably invited him]; his father thought the domestic arrangements uncomfortable.’ (see note 15. Selected Letters of Robert Bridges. p. 85) Writing to Bridges in Oxford from Eton on 17th November Dolben mentions that he ‘heard from Coles the other day’ adding that he ‘is coming down here [Eton} next Friday week. Has he come up to Oxford yet?’ before casually mentioning that he is ‘going to be confirmed this time.’ (xxxvii-xxxviii) Dolben and Coles ‘spent some time there [in the chapel where Dolben had his confirmation], and the effects of light and shade were almost more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.’ (Christmas letter from Finedon to Bridges. xxxviii) Soon after this in January he must be missing Coles, who was notorious for not answering letters promptly,  for he writes to Bridges that he is looking ‘anxiously in the Births, Marriages and Deaths for some news of Coles, for I can get none in any other way. Have you heard from him lately? I think he must be ill or else…’ (xli). Dolben, who has a deep interest in Benedictine monasticism, now turns his spiritual gaze towards Brother Ignatius – Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne (1837-1908) and he joins the Order of St. Benedict and takes the name Brother Dominic (mentioned in his letter from Finedon to Bridges. Maunday Thursday [24th March] 1864. xliii); he becomes ill soon after and regrets returning to Eton, wanting nothing more than ‘a quiet tutor near Oxford’ (xliv-xlv) and says as much to Coles in his letter to him from Finedon – ‘I am not well enough to go back to Eton yet, but I am afraid I must go next week… I positively hate the place.’ (xlvi-xlvii). Despite ‘positively’ hating the place Dolben seems to have been well-liked at Eton among his fellows and tutors, such as Rev. Edward Daniel Stone M.A. (1832-1916) of King’s College, Cambridge who became an Assistant Master at Eton in 1857; Stone was a scholar and a poet and probably encouraged young Dolben in his verse writing. Another tutor of Dolben’s was Thomas Howell Stevens (1810-1877) who was an extra Master at Eton.

 


Stuckey in 1870, three years
after Dolben's death


OXFORD

 

Stuckey tells us in his paper ‘Recollections of Fifty Years of the Catholic Revival’ which he first read at a meeting of the English Church Union at Exeter in 1913 [Briscoe. p. 159] of his first Anglo-Catholic stirrings – ‘I had seen a chasuble for the first time on my first morning in Oxford in 1861, in the Church of St. Thomas the Martyr, when I had come up to try for a scholarship; I had wistfully departed with those who were not going to communicate from Sherbourne Minster at the great service of its reopening in 1858, just before my confirmation, after hearing Bishop Walter Hamilton preach on the text, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that Love Him.”’

Vincent Stuckey Coles, who in 1863 at the age of eighteen had embraced Tractarianism, and joined the English Church Union (his mother had been deeply interested in Tractarianism and the Oxford Movement), went up to Balliol College, Oxford, matriculating on 9th April 1864 at the age of 19. [exhibitioner 1865-67; B.A. 1868; M.A. 1872. Honours: 3rd class Classical Mods, 3rd class Greats]. Author, Robert Bernard Martin says in his biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins that when Coles was ‘sitting for Scholarship examinations at Balliol with his Etonian friend Vincent Cracroft-Amcotts, “Gerard Hopkins used to sit near us, and smile at our remarks before we had properly made his acquaintance.”’ Martin goes on to say that ‘Coles and Amcotts were among the first of many at Oxford to be attracted by his [Hopkins] openness and spontaneity.’ But it would be Stuckey Coles who once the foundations of friendship were cemented, became closest to Hopkins who ‘owed his introduction into many of the High Church circle in Oxford, and perhaps the speed with which he got to know Coles’s two closest friends, from Eton, Robert Bridges and Digby Dolben, who in turn became, in their different ways, Hopkins’s own best friends.’ Friendship to Coles, was a magical bond of brotherhood for he had a ‘beautiful and ennobling love for his friends’ which he did not separate from ‘much that is faulty and ill-regulated, and even with much that is corrupt, and that, like all passionate enthusiasms, it has untold capabilities for good but also carries within it possibilities for evil.’ (15) Dolben meanwhile, is ill again in June with neuralgia and gets leave from Eton to go to the Harrow match but secretly visited the Catholic Priory at Ascot near Windsor; he was there two days and ‘slept in an outhouse with Ignatius’ Coles informs Bridges in his letter (lx) and from August to September he is holidaying near Keswick in Cumberland. In December at home in Finedon he tells Bridges that ‘a miserable man has been found in Rutlandshire, named Pritchard’ as his private tutor to prepare him for Balliol (lxvi); this so-called ‘miserable man’ is the Rev. Constantine Estlin Prichard (1818-1869), the Rector of South Luffenham in Rutland, for whom Dolben grew to respect with much affection.

 

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

 

It was a fateful day when Dolben reached the age of 17 on 8th February 1865 and he went to visit his undergraduate cousin, Robert Bridges at Corpus Christi College, Oxford with the intention of looking around the colleges, particularly Balliol where young Dolben wanted to matriculate; ‘fateful’ because Bridges introduced his young cousin to his friend and fellow poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) who from the first meeting (their first and only meeting), was smitten by the natural charm and beauty of Digby, a devotion that would encompass and haunt the older poet for the rest of his life. The two poets had much in common in their religious aspects and their poetic principles and a bond of friendship was quickly established. In his letter of February 1865 from Finedon Dolben tells Bridges that he is about to go to ‘a most dreary tutor, with grey hair, situated in the midst of a vast ploughed field, with a young wife, one other pupil, and endless Greek grammar.’ (lxvii) Bridges was preoccupied with his own studies too and writes in a letter dated 28th April (1865) from Corpus Christi College, Oxford to his friend Lionel Muirhead that he wants ‘very much to get through this term, and do not care at all about honours myself (especially as they probably would be such inferior ones) but the dons and several other people, among whom of course Coles urges me on provokingly.’ (16) Edinburgh born Lionel Boulton Campbell Lockhart Muirhead (1845-1925) of Haseley Court, near Oxford was a close friend of Bridges, Dolben and Coles; he was educated at Radley School and went on to Eton before going up to Balliol College, Oxford and the four friends considered themselves ‘High Church’.

Dolben spent the Lent term at Luffenham under the tutorship of Rev. Prichard before going to Rossthwaite in Cumberland on a family holiday in August; Bridges tells us in ‘Three Friends’ [p. 68] that he had invited Dolben to Rochdale but Dolben says in his letter to Bridges of August 1865 that ‘they [his parents] would not let me come to Rochdale on my way here’ [Cumberland]; Bridges had also invited Hopkins who had been to Manchester to see his ‘college companion, Edmund Geldart’ but the invite was delayed and Hopkins wrote back to Bridges saying that ‘nothing cd. have been so delightful as to meet you and Coles and Dolben.’ (17) It seems, Hopkins had other things on his mind in Manchester, staying with his friend ‘Geldart’ who was also of the High Church set of which Coles presided. Edmund Martin Geldart (1844-1885) went up to Balliol in March 1863 (BA 1867, MA 1873) and was later ordained; Hopkins spent five weeks at Geldart’s family home in Bowden, Manchester during the summer of 1865 and to take his mind off Dolben he rested his gaze upon the beautiful form of Geldart’s younger brother, 17 year old Ernest Geldart (1848-1929), saying in a letter that he was ‘looking at temptations, esp, at E. Geldart naked’. (18) Ernest, the possessor of the beautiful form Hopkins pondered over, studied architectural design in 1864 under the London architect Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) and in 1871 studied theology at King’s College before being ordained deacon in 1873 and priest in 1875; he became curate of St. Andrews and Reverend of St. Nicholas Church, Little Braxted, Essex (1881-1900). He published several books including – ‘On the Art of Garnishing Churches at Christmas and Other Times’ (1882) and ‘A Manual of Church Decoration and Symbolism’ (1899); he died in Surrey on 11th July 1929. Geldart later published his amusing volume ‘A Son of Belial, Autobiographical Sketches’ in 1882 under the name Nitram Tradleg [his own name backwards] and in it he gives some recollections of Balliol [Belial] and the people he knew, such as Professor Jewel [Jowett], ‘my Ritualistic friend’, Gerontius Manley [G M Hopkins] and Vincentius Staccato [Stuckey Coles] of whom he says on pages 169-170 – ‘one of the most devoted adherents of this [Catholic] set in Belial, Vincentius Staccato, Esq., a diligent attendant at private complines’ adding ‘nor was logic his strong point; gushing was his forte. Gerontius gushed as well, but then he meant it.’ Sadly, Geldart died at the age of 41 while crossing to Paris on 10th April 1885 on the night voyage; it is presumed that he accidentally or purposefully went overboard and drowned before reaching Dieppe.

Unfortunately in 1865, Rev. Prichard became ill with pneumonia and had to dismiss his pupils, Dolben, remarking in his letter to Bridges from Keswick on 18th September that he repents ‘most sincerely of going to Roman Catholic chapels and services, when at Eton – but that is long ago now. Still it is right that I should be punished for it.’ (lxxviii) Once more in the midst of searching for another tutor, Dolben becomes sick and feverish towards the end of September before a new tutor in Lincolnshire is found – Rev. Henry Earle Tweed M.A. (1827-1910) (19); Dolben is unhappy at the vicarage in Coleby  with its ‘one other pupil’ and remains there only for the Michaelmas term of 1865. After Easter 1866 he is tutored by Rev. Henry De Winton (1823-1895) at Boughrood in Radnorshire where Coles was also tutored. In the summer of 1866 Coles was attending a series of eight Sunday ‘Bampton Lectures’ on ‘The Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ given at St Mary’s in Oxford by Rev. Henry Parry Liddon M.A.. During that summer, Dolben stopped off at Birmingham on his way home to Northamptonshire with the intention of meeting Rev. Dr. John Henry Newman at the Oratory in Birmingham but he was away during his visit and in his place he saw Father Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder (1837-1907)  – a link with Dolben (and Coles) to the Oratory was his acquaintance with a junior Master at Eton who ‘also seemed out of place’ there named Rev. John Thomas Walford (1834-1894) (20) whom Dolben had met at the School in 1864; Hopkins wrote to Bridges on 24th September 1866 to say that ‘Walford believed that Dolben had been mobbed in Birmingham. He went in his habit without sandals barefoot. I do not know whether it is more funny or affecting to think of.’ (ci) Coles had visited Dolben at Boughrood prior to this incident in late July or early August and says that Dolben would ‘dress himself in his monk’s habit and prowl about the country at night’ (cii). That same August Bridges enticed Hopkins to come to Rochdale by the suggestion that Dolben would be there too – Hopkins accepted the invite saying in his letter to Bridges, dated 4th August (1866) that he ‘should like nothing so much as to stay at Rochdale, more especially (if one can say that) when you hold out the possibility of Dolben being there.’ (A Literary Friendship. p. 32) Hopkins joined Bridges in Rochdale, at Rev. Dr. Molesworth’s vicarage on Saturday 1st September and stayed for a few weeks reading Greek together, during which they had both implored Dolben to join them and the latter wrote back on 16th from West Malvern where the family are holidaying, saying that he is unable to as his father was anxious he should study for the Balliol entrance. Secretly Dolben has been visiting Catholic institutions, in a letter to Rev. Frederick George Lee (1832-1902) dated 6th February 1867, he gives his reasons for his Catholic calling, which he terms his ‘conversion as a supernatural Call from God’, saying that ‘my reason has been thoroughly convinced and satisfied, first by Dr. Newman’s writings, subsequently visits to the Birmingham Oratory and Oscott Coll.’ (21) It must have been during one of his visits to Oscott College that Dolben became acquainted with a young man named Maurice Noel Welman (1848-1866), third son of Charles Noel Welman (1815-1907) a J.P. of Norton Manor, North Fitzwarren, near Taunton in Somerset who was a nephew to Lord Gainsborough and Irish-born Annette Elizabeth Bolton (1817-1887) whom Charles married in 1835. Maurice seems to have been a captivating and divine soul upon whose face ‘was written up the secret of the Lord’, much like Dolben drawn to the spiritual and Welman’s death in January 1867 moved Dolben to compose his poem ‘Brevi Tempore Magnum Perfecit Opus’ in his honour: ‘He stayed till seventeen Aprils here had budded into May, / along the pleasant hedgerows that he knew not far away: / but scarcely seventeen summers yet the lily-beds had blown, / before the angels carried him to gardens of their own.’ (22) Maurice, who was 9 years old when he became a student at Oscott College, remaining there 10 years, died on 30th January 1867 ‘after having received all the consolations of the holy Church, from the effects of a fall on the ice whilst skating’ in Regents Park, London. He left Oscott in 1866 and went to London to prepare for the Indian Civil Service. He sprained his back during the accident and was in terrible pain for two weeks before his death, after which his body was brought from London to St Mary’s College, Oscott on Saturday 9th February by two brothers, Charles and Arthur and placed in the chapel sanctuary where Matins were sung and flowers left in the coffin which was left in the chapel overnight; the next day a Requiem Mass was held at 11 a.m. by Right Rev. Dr. James Spencer Northcote (1821-1907), the President of St Mary’s College, Oscott.

Dolben came up to Oxford on 1st May 1867 to matriculate but because of his weak state he fainted during the examination the following day; on his return home his father thought to try him at Christ Church instead of Balliol and to leave De Winton’s tutorship and go back to Rev. Prichard in Luffenham, both suggestions seemed agreeable to  Dolben, and so he arrived at the Rectory, having missed his train, at 10 p.m. on Saturday 15th June 1867 and he seemed quite contented there, with the Prichard’s and their children, Walter and Mabel, both 11 years old, Constance, 9 and Leonora 6; he enjoyed playing chess which he was learning to play in the evenings or reading poetry and studying under his tutor until, as he intended, going to Oxford in October. But fate was to intervene and on Friday 28th June 1867, after reading a speech of Ajax in his Sophocles, he went late in the afternoon to bathe (he was by all accounts a good swimmer) in the River Welland, just two miles away from the Rectory; he went with Reverend Prichard’s 11 year old son, Walter Henry Prichard (1856-1913) (23), who was unable to swim but could float on his back; within a few yards of returning to the safety of the bank, Dolben suddenly sank and Walter, turning himself over onto his back and floating, began to shout for help to some nearby reapers in the meadow; after some delay, the reapers assisted retrieving Walter from the river, which was deep and none would go in and poor Digby Dolben’s body was not found till some hours later. [from Mr. Prichard’s Memorandum. civ-cvii). A search of Dolben’s possessions produced an unfinished and undated letter to his father written at the Rectory in Luffenham, sometime after his arrival, asking ‘to be absolved of his promise not to be baptised, in case of any dangerous accident or illness’ (ciii). Dolben was buried at Finedon on 6th July 1867; Bridges was unable to attend as he was on his way to the Paris Regatta to row for Oxford in the College Eight on the Seine, but concerning Dolben’s death, he writes in his volume – Three Friends, that ‘it was beautiful and strange that, after all his unceasing mental perplexity, he should die unconsciously – for he must have fainted’, as indeed he had during the Balliol examinations, ‘into the water – without pain, in one of his rare moments of healthy bodily enjoyment; and premature as his end was, and the stroke of it unlooked for, and apparently sudden, yet his last poems show him waiting and expectant, and his last action had all the dignity and fitness of artistic preparation.’ That Dolben was at odds with the religious beliefs of his family was a great strain on Dolben, for he writes to Bridges that ‘it is somewhat sad to find oneself differing more and more entirely from all one’s relations in every religious thought and feeling’ and that despondency can be felt when he says to Bridges that ‘sometimes I feel so tired of it all, which is so wrong.’ (24)

There is a flurry of correspondence following Dolben’s death, Coles having informed Hopkins; in previous correspondence between Hopkins and Bridges the former often mentions Coles (whom he was also much taken with) and Dolben – ‘give my love to him [Coles] and Dolben. I have written letters without end to the latter without a whiff of an answer.’ (25) And later, in reference to Coles, in Hopkins’ letter of 14th August 1879 to Bridges, he writes ‘I have seen a Westcountryman – V. S. S. Coles – for the first time since I went down. I am truly fond of him and wish … except these bonds.’ (26)

While he was an undergraduate in his fourth and final year at Balliol, Coles wrote a letter from his address – 12 Park Place, St Giles, Oxford, to Cardinal John Henry Newman, dated 5th November 1867:

‘Reverend Sir, your well-known kindness encourages me to hope that you will excuse the great liberty I am taking in addressing you. I believe you know something of my dear friend Digby Mackworth-Dolben. When the news of his sudden death reached me, it produced a most painful impression on my mind, because when I had last seen him, he appeared to have lost all confidence in the English Church, while he had not the courage to seek for reception into the Roman Catholic Church. I felt that it was inexpressibly sad that his holy life should be ended while he was under the influence of such a weakness. I have been told that his postponement of his reception into the R.C. Church was determined on finally with your sanction. In this case of course his conscience would have been satisfied, and I could dwell with great thankfulness on the happiness which I hear marked his last days. If it is not really so, I am merely as I was before; but the relief of having this confirmed would be so great that I have ventured to ask you if it is really true. I am Reverend Sir, yours very respectfully V.S.S. Coles.’ (27)

Bridges says in his ‘Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben’ that ‘Coles tells me that, wishing to know whether Dolben had acted under Newman’s advice, and being anxious to learn any facts, he wrote a letter of enquiry to the Cardinal, but that Newman, either mistaking his meaning or perhaps because he had no real information to give, replied most courteously by discussing the question concerning which he imagined a friend would be most likely to wish for information, namely whether, since Dolben had not been received into the Roman communion, his soul could be saved. This clerkly opinion is lost.’ (28) In fact, it was not lost as Bridges believed, for Newman wrote back to Coles a few days later on 8th November:

‘Dear Sir, I will answer your question, as exactly as my memory enables me to do. I never saw Mr. Dolben but from what I heard of him thought that he was really in earnest and should make a good Catholic if he preserved in praying for divine grace. I thought, considering he had lately taken a prominent part in an unusual demonstration in the Anglican Church, that he had cause to try his spirit, and that he ought to remain a month or two in the state of Catechumen, (I think I said till the ensuing Easter,) in order to prove the quality of his convictions. You know well that St Ambrose and St Augustine admit catechumens to the communion of the Church. I cannot for an instant believe that Mr. Dolben had given up his good notion or was no longer in his own eyes in the position of a suppliant for the grace of salvation, and therefore think that we may without presumption consider him partaker of the hope as well as the faith of a Catholic. JHN.’ (29)

When Hopkins learns of Dolben’s death, he writes to his friend Robert Bridges, saying that he ‘heard of Dolben’s death that day I returned fr. Paris by a letter fr. Coles wh. had been a week waiting for me. Edgell (30) has since written me a few more particulars.’ Hopkins goes on to say that ‘you know there can very seldom have happened the loss of so much beauty (in body and mind and life) and of the promise of still more as there has been in his case – seldom I mean, in the whole world, for the conditions wd. not easily come together.’ (31) which is a testament to the deep devotion he felt for Dolben; another devoted friend of Dolben’s whom Dolben wrote romantic verse to was the aforementioned ‘Edgell’ in Hopkins’ letter – Alfred Wyatt-Edgell was a close friend of Dolben’s at Eton and also at Reverend Henry De Winton’s Boughrood – Dolben addressed his poem ‘The Invitation to Llanthony’ to him (32); Edgell, who was almost a year and a half younger than Dolben, published a collection of verse called ‘Amadeus and Other Poems’ in 1873 which is an elegy and a tribute to Dolben and the great love he felt for him (33). The title poem, ‘Amadeus’, a lamentation on the loss of his friend in which he devotes almost 400 lines, begins –

 

‘Begin the lay, ye melancholy reeds
That gently whisper by the Welland’s brim;
Your music well may suit the heart that bleeds
In too fond memory of him
Whose latest breath ye mingled with your sighs,
Whose heaven-illumined eyes
Gazed on your oozy stems at last,
Ere to the deathless flowers and heavenly streams he passed.’

Edgell continues in almost Keatsian waves of love-inspired verse when he says ‘grief herself is utterly bereaved, / fresh garlanded with yew and cypress interleaved.’ and verse II on page 7 begins:

 

‘Thy life was one long tragedy of pain,
Like underlying fire-streams that would fain
Burst into life – but then untimely fate
Made all thy journeys desolate.’

Edgell’s despair is profoundly felt as he bids ‘bright suns’ that ‘look down on all the sorrows of our race,’ to ‘come weep for Amadeus, dead and gone!’ (p. 10) and verse III ends ‘grief was the nurse, but genius the sire; / his brow was pale, yet all his soul was fire.’ (p. 12) Amadeus makes another appearance at the end of the poem titled ‘Desiderium’ where ‘sleep by none is prized more dearly / than by those who pass the night, / restless, fevered and distracted, / longing for the tardy light: / thus, my vanished Amadeus, / all the years I spent with thee, / little knew I of their value, / till one day they ceased to be’ (p. 52), but perhaps the most telling poems are ‘Eton School Days’ (p. 61) and ‘Born in February; Died in June’ (p. 63), the former, conjuring an image of Dolben as the second verse begins:

 

‘Eton! there beneath thine elms, beside thy river’s eager beat,
I knew one whose company to me was excellently sweet;
Other waters took his breath – ah me! how could they bear to leave
One lone heart upon their margent for a vanished love to grieve.’

Which goes on to say that as he walks beneath the bright haloes, he ‘will think of him as near, / and ‘tis well that he should rest him while my journeying is here.’ The latter poem, ‘Born on February; Died in June’ also says much about the relationship:

 

‘When he was born the snowdrop
Had scarcely raised her head,
The sky was sad and tearful,
The sunrise cold and red;
All nature mourned in silence
To see the poet come,
An exile from the kingdom,
A stranger from his home.

 

But when he died, the roses
Were yielding their perfume;
The lilies, white and stainless,
Stood bursting into bloom;
The summer sun was sinking –
Unclouded through the west:
Fit emblems of his glory!
Sure tokens of his rest!’

 

‘Robert Bickersteth, an Eton friend, had made copies [of Dolben’s early poems that Dolben burned during Lent 1864] and sent them to Vincent Stuckey Coles. Coles duly forwarded Bickersteth’s copies to Bridges, but, at this stage (25 February 1910), the type for the 1911 edition [of Dolben’s poems] had already been set, and Bridges did not deem the poems worthy enough to disturb the layout of the plates for the 1915 reprint.’ (34) The letter from Robert Bickersteth (1847-1916), later M.P. and son of the Bishop of Ripon who went from Eton up to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to Coles, dated 25th February 1910, contained six hand-written poems by Dolben, such as: ‘I have given you ungrudgingly’, ‘Yes! only two short years ago’, ‘Oh love, first love, comes gently through the wood’ and ‘Good night dear – and not goodbye I say’, a poem Dolben wrote in December 1864 at a London railway station at night which begins: ‘Goodnight, dear -, and not goodbye, I say. / All must be night to me while you’re away: / yet ever in this present night of sorrow / memory will point to me a bright tomorrow.’ These poems were undoubtedly inspired by Dolben’s deep infatuation for Gosselin.

At Balliol, Coles became an intimate friend of Rev. Dr. Henry Parry Liddon (1829-1890) who had organised an essay club in 1864’ Coles became a member of this High Church Essay Society – the ‘Hexameron’ in 1866 and was secretary of the Society in 1867. It is probable that Coles crossed paths with Richard Lewis Nettleship (1846-1892) who was up at Balliol the same time as Coles, being resident there in October 1865; Nettleship, like Dolben, was of a Northamptonshire family; in fact, Richard’s father, Henry John Nettleship (1839-1893) a solicitor of Kettering, went to visit Dolben’s father at Finedon following the young, promising poet’s death in June 1867. Richard, a fine philosopher, died of exhaustion climbing towards the summit of Mont Blanc in August 1892.

From 1868-69, Coles was at Cuddesdon Theological College, near Oxford where Rev. Edward King (1829-1910), who later became Bishop of Lincoln (1885-1910), was Principle from 1863-73.

Coles was ordained deacon by the newly appointed Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873) at Winchester Cathedral on the morning of Sunday 19th December 1869. Coles’s first ecclesiastical assignment was as assistant curate to the Reverend William John Butler (1818-1894), vicar of St. Peter and St. Paul’s church in Wantage (and later Dean of Lincoln Cathedral) from 1869 to 1872; Rev. Butler had founded at Wantage the Community of St. Mary the Virgin in 1848 and its first member was Miss Elizabeth Crawford Lockhart (1811-1870) who became the Mother Superior, Sister Eliza. Coles got to know Sister Eliza rather well for she was ‘one of the three who did not desert the Church of England when in early days the rest of the community became Roman Catholics. On arrival at Wantage, Coles asked her what he should call his lodgings. The answer was, “The Scuttle, for that is where coals should live.” Sister Eliza was very much perturbed at the heavy cost to the community of her false teeth; Coles comforted her by the reminder that they did not belong to her, but were community property.’ (Briscoe. p. 71) Coles enjoyed his time with the Sisters and fitted into the community extremely well, but most of all Coles remembered his training under Reverend Butler, whom he greatly admired, fondly for giving him a thorough grounding in the foundations of clerical duties. He remained in Wantage until his father’s death in January 1872 whereupon he took over the living at Shepton Beauchamp, Coles says in his record for 1872 that ‘on Wednesday, January 3rd, after Evensong at church, which he [his father, Rev. James Stratton Coles] had taken himself (I having preached on the Return of the Seventy), our dear Father was suddenly called to his rest in the thirty-seventh year of his priesthood. He fell down in the Great Lane while returning from church. His body was laid out in his cassock, surplice, and stole, and a cross and lights were placed near it until the day of burial. Many of his parishioners came to see his face once more, and offices were said from time to time in the chamber of death.’ (35) The funeral took place the following Wednesday 10th January.

Stuckey took part in the 2nd London Mission in 1874 and two years later visited Boston and other American cities.

In a letter dated 10th August 1878 from 52 Bedford Square, London, Bridges writes to Lionel Muirhead who was a member of Stuckey’s ‘ardent High Church set’ at Eton, he says that ‘Stuckey preaches at St. Paul’s. He is very fat – as ever – and his left eyebrow has gone a snowy white, which embarrasses one a little till one gets used to it.’ (36) Regarding his eyebrows, his sister Julia says that ‘one of her brother’s eyebrows became white at Dresden, after some hours of acute anxiety spent in searching for his sister Mary, who was lost.’ (37)

 

SHEPTON BEAUCHAMP

 

After Stuckey’s father died Reverend Coles, after much doubt and deliberation, took over the living at Shepton Beuchamp and his curate was Arthur Lethbridge (1846-1932) who lived at the Rectory. The Rectory at Shepton became a sort of retreat for visiting priests and one such priest was Rev. Montague Cyril Bickersteth (1858-1936), son of the Bishop of Ripon and younger brother of Coles’s Eton friend, Robert Bickersteth (1847-1916), who sent Stuckey the hand-written Dolben poems which the latter had destroyed. Cyril Bickersteth, as Stuckey knew him, was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford and he first met Coles at the Rectory in November 1889 when Coles was at Pusey House and the current vicar of Shepton, Arthur Lethbridge, asked Cyril to take a mission there and Coles came down from Oxford for the night; Cyril preached another mission at Shepton in 1912. (38) From 1880-83 his assistant curate was Rev. Howard Gurney Daniell-Bainbridge, M.A. (1857-1950), who became a minor canon of Westminster Abbey and Priest-in-ordinary to the Queen. Daniell-Bainbridge was educated at Trinity College, Oxford in 1875, (B.A. 1878, M.A. 1882) and studied at Cuddesdon College in 1879; he was ordained deacon in 1880 and priest in 1881.

There is a fine description of life at the Rectory during 1891 by the visiting American priest, Rev. Frederick Joseph Kinsman (1868-1944) who came to Shepton several times over four years, in his interesting book ‘Salve Mater’ published in 1919 by Longmans, Green & Co. Kinsman was at Keble College, Oxford in 1891 (B.A. 1894) and from 1894-95 ‘lived for a year, as a graduate, at the Pusey House’, but it was at Shepton that Kinsman ‘learned what clerical life and parochial work should be’, – ‘Shepton Beauchamp is a small village in Somerset, four miles from Ilminster, with a glimpse of Glastonbury Tor twenty miles to the north. Its claim to distinction is that of a well-worked country parish in which the principles of the Oxford Movement have been consistently translated into action. It is the home of the Coles family to whom its unique features are due. The Reverend James Stratton Coles, who was “squarson” – squire and parson – had made St. Michael’s, Shepton Beauchamp, in many ways a model parish, when he was succeeded as Rector by his son, the Reverend Vincent Stratton Stuckey Coles, who brought to his work an irresistible personality and experience gained in Oxford, Cuddesdon, and Wantage under Dr. Butler. He built the Rectory for himself and the Vicar of Barrington, a village two miles off, and opened his house to friends among the clergy in need of a rest and among Oxford undergraduates who wished a place to read during vacations. The household at Shepton Rectory often consisted of four or five clergy and four or five younger men, living in an atmosphere of regular devotion, systematic hard work, and, at times of recreation, what is perhaps best described as intense cheerfulness! Life was ordered with a view to providing in the most thorough way for the pastoral care of the people of the village and for the prosecution of every one’s special work with energy and good spirits. When I went to England in 1891 I had letters to Mr. Stuckey Coles, then Chaplain of Pusey House of which he was subsequently Principle, and to his successor at Shepton, the Reverend Arthur Lethbridge’. Kinsman goes on to give an accurate description of Shepton’s ordered structure: ‘the standard was emphatically that of priests, representing the influence of Cuddesdon, Wantage, and the Society of the Resurrection, given a unique flavour by the Rector and Vicar, to say nothing of the frequent visits of Canon Coles. There were four or five Eucharists a week; daily Matins and Evensong in church; Terce, Sext, and Compline in the Oratory; all services simple and devotional, with hearty congregational singing of a sort I have never heard elsewhere except in the parish-church at Hawarden and in St. Martin’s, New Bedford; and all the work and recreation of the village made to centre about these, so that the church was made the actual centre of village life.’ (‘Salve Mater. 1919. pp. 43-45)

Coles became a familiar face at St. Barnabas in Oxford for he often preached there and became a friend of the vicar, the Reverend Montague Henry Noel (1840-1929) of Christ Church, Oxford (B.A. 1864, M.A. 1866) who had also trained under the watchful eye of Rev. Butler as assistant curate at Wantage from 1865-69. Father Noel, who was ordained deacon in 1864 and priest the following year, served as vicar of St. Barnabas from 1869-1899.

 

PUSEY HOUSE

 

Pusey House opened on 9th October 1884 and the Bishop of Birmingham, Reverend Dr. Charles Gore was the first Principle (a role he remained in until 1893), and one of three librarians, along with Frank Edward Brightman (1856-1932) and Stuckey Coles. In the early period of Pusey House it seemed as if it was ‘trying to become a monastery. Silence was observed at dinner on Fridays. Great regularity of attendance at the chapel offices, and regulations as to the times of retirement and rising, began to be practiced, and undergraduates dropping in to tea at four-thirty found not only the familiar librarians, but quite a little crowd of serious neophytes.’ It was a ‘life of celibacy and continual prayer which had so long been the ideal of an Oxford college.’ (Briscoe. pp. 208-209) Coles occupied a small room on the second floor of Pusey House which had a ‘green curtain across a part of it’ which ‘inadequately hid a bed and washstand; it was furnished very barely; there was a gas stove; dome books; the Arundel print of Van Eyck’s “Adoration of the Lamb”.’ (Briscoe. p. 56) Here, Coles welcomed undergraduates who were seeking help, either spiritually and often financially – ‘living himself in real poverty, he spent his large income in helping those in need. One of his secretaries tells me that a chief part of his business was the dispatch of cheques in answer to appeals.’ (Briscoe. p. 56)

 

‘Foolishly churchy’

 

On 10th February 1893, Bridges wrote to Lionel Muirhead from Yattendon to say that ‘we have had Stuckey Coles staying with us for a few days, and enjoyed his visit. He is just the same as ever, foolishly churchy, but excellently kind and good. He is even a sort of professional controversialist in the press, thinking it worth while to write and shut up incomplete low church men all over them but did not care for my lyrics. Criticism from him was worth hearing.’ (39)

Coles became Principle of Pusey House in 1897, where he moved to a larger and more comfortable room with ‘more books, and a fine carved table from his home at Shepton: but I think he was never so happy as in his “little old room” as he used to call it, on the second floor.’ (Briscoe. p. 57) Also in 1897 Coles became a ‘Commissary Bloemfontein’ until 1900, or so we are told in the Eton Register of 1862-68.

On 4th May 1898, Coles attended the ‘Blessing of the House of the Resurrection’, Hall Croft, Mirfield in Yorkshire where the ‘College of the Resurrection’ had moved to from Radley in Oxfordshire; the Bishop of Wakefield also attended and consecrations were performed. In one of his letters to Lionel Muirhead, dated 1st December 1899 from Yattendon, Bridges mentions seeing Stuckey Coles, ‘in Oxford; he looked very well. He is doing very badly in the HAM [Hymns Ancient & Modern] word committee. They are I fancy making a grand mess of it.’ (40) Coles was a member of the committee revising the Hymns Ancient and Modern to which there were many disagreements. While undertaking his work at Pusey House Coles also worked in connection with the Society of the Resurrection which was a number of priests who had taken a vow of celibacy living by monastic rule and for many years Stuckey was appointed Superior and was a great friend to all the members of the Society. Also during his time at Pusey House Coles became acquainted with the Bishop of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, Reverend George Howard Wilkinson (1833-1907), of Oriel College, Oxford; Coles was Examining Chaplain to Bishop Wilkinson in 1893 and later became his confessor and spiritual adviser and by this firm friendship Coles worked alongside Wilkinson in Scotland – ‘There was no man to whom the Bishop was more deeply indebted during the later years of his life than to Mr. Coles. He did not resort to confession at fixed periods; but since the death of Mr. Carter of Clewer, it was to Mr. Coles that he went whenever he felt the need.’ (41)

Borlase is incorrect when he says that in 1903 Coles undertook missionary work in South Africa in connection with the Mission of Help to the Church (Briscoe. p. 22), suggesting that Coles and a fellow priest, Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell (1856-1921) (42) were sent by Bishop Wilkinson. In fact, Coles was one of the first pioneers to undertake the mission in 1902. A committee had been set up in which Coles was one of its members and the Bishop of St. Andrew’s (Wilkinson) was the chairman. The first half of the pioneer expedition, started on 28th February 1902 (the second half went about six weeks later) and Coles was a member of the first group, consisting of the Rev. Joseph Hamlet (1857-1926), Vicar of Barrington and the Rev. Lawrence Banks Sladen (1867-1945), Vicar of Selly Oak, Birmingham (43). ‘They were specially charged to visit the dioceses of Grahamstown, Bloemfontein, and St. John’s, Kaffraria.’ (44) The mission must have been a particular hardship for Coles as he suffered from eczema all his life and ‘was never without bandages and lotions and ointments’ (Briscoe. p. 74) yet he bore the rough terrain stoically and without complaint. Coles returned to England in October 1903.

In 1906 Coles attended the summer camp at Conishead Priory, Ulverston, Cumbria.

 

HYMNS AND PUBLICATIONS

 

Stuckey always had a deep interest in hymns and hymn writing which began as a boy at Eton. Several of his hymns appeared in ‘The English Hymnal’ and ‘Hymns Ancient & Modern’ and various other hymnal anthologies, hymns such as:

‘Lord, I cannot seek Thee’. Lyra Eucharistica: Hymns and Verses on the Holy Communion. Ed. rev. Orby Shipley M.A. London. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green. 1863. Number 249. pp. 322-323.

‘O Lamb of God, whose love divine’ written in 1868. Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1868. Number 383.

‘O Shepherd of the sheep’ written in 1868. Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1868, number 382, and The English Hymnal. London. Oxford University Press, A. R. Mowbray & Co. 1906. Number 190, p. 159.

‘Lord in whose eternal counsels’ which he wrote for the English Church Union Festival of 1870 and appeared in ‘Church Hymns’. London. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 1871. Number 420, pp. 372-373.

‘We pray Thee Heavenly Father’ written 1871. Church Hymns. . London. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 1871. Number 218, pp. 196-197; also The Churchman’s Altar Manual and Guide to Holy Communion. London. Griffith and Farron. 1881. Number 13. p. 246, and The People’s Hymn Book. London. Mowbray & Co. 1924. Number 390. pp. 293-294, and Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1904. Number 262. p. 232. The hymn was re-written for The English Hymnal. 1906. Number 334, p. 271.

‘Most Holy Father, bending low’ (Lent), number 45 in the Bucharistic Hymnal. 1877.

‘Almighty Father, Lord most high’ written 1904. Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1904. Number 264. pp. 235-236.

‘Father, whose love we have wronged by transgressions’ (a Litany for Lent) written 1904. Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1904. Number 633. pp. 560-561.

‘Meet it is to tell thy Glory’, translation by V. S. S. Coles. Hymns Ancient & Modern. London. William Clowes & Sons. 1904. Number 258. pp. 227-228.

‘Ye who own the faith of Jesus’ (for St Mary the Virgin), written 1906. The English Hymnal. London. Oxford University Press. A. R. Mowbray & Co. 1906. Number 218. pp. 182-183.

‘Before the close of His Holy day’. The People’s Hymn Book. London. Mowbray. 1924. Number 32. pp. 24-25.

 

Stuckey published the following works:

Seven Addresses Delivered at St. Paul’s Cathedral at the Midday Service. Good Friday. 1879. London. Rivingtons. 1897.

Salvation. London. Rivingtons. 1886.

Lenten Meditations. London. Longmans & Co. 1899.

Advent Meditations on Isaiah. I-XII together with outlines on Christian Meditations on St. John I. 1-12. London. Longmans & Co. 1899.

Preparations for Holy Orders during Undergraduate Life. 1901.

Pastoral Work in Country Districts: Lectures delivered in the Divinity School at Cambridge. Lent, 1905. London. Longmans & Co. 1906.

 

He also provided Introductions and Prefaces for the following volumes:

 

Introduction to ‘Sonship: Six Lenten Lectures’. Verney Lovett Johnstone. London. Longmans & Co. 1899. [Verney Lovett Johnstone , 2nd son of Rev. Philip Marmaduke Cromer Johnstone (1866-1946), Vicar of All Saints, Cheltenham]

Preface to ‘Country Communion Classes: a series of outline addresses for services of preparing for Holy Communion’. Rev. Arthur Lethbridge. London. A R Mowbray & Co. 1906.

Introduction to ‘The Gospel of Incarnate Love: a course of mission sermons and meditations, with three lectures on the Gospel of St. John’. Rev. Montague Cyril Bickersteth. London. Rivingtons. 1906.

Memoir to ‘The Cost of Discipleship, and Other Sermons’. Gregory Lewis Albert Way. London. A. R. Mowbray & Co. 1919. [Rev. Albert Way, who lectured on History and Historians of the 19th Cent. also published ‘Religious Experience and Christian Faith’. London. Longmans, Green & Co. 1913]

 

In 1909 Coles resigned his office as Principle of Pusey House due to ill health and became Warden of the Community of the Epiphany at Truro, Cornwall, the following year (until 1920) and Diocesan Chaplain to Rev. Dr. Gore, Bishop of Oxford in 1912; he also continued as Chaplain to King’s School in Taunton; and in 1913 he became Honorary Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. After Oxford he lived for some years in Seaton, Devon, where he ‘rented a queer old house over a grocer’s shop in the main street’, then in 1918 he gave up the house at Seaton and went to live with his sister Julia in Shepton Beauchamp. He suffered from rheumatic pain and lost much of the use of his hands and his legs and walking became very difficult for him. During the last two years of his life his memory began to fail him and he became more tired, so much so that his sister Julia had to take care of him. He had a secretary who took care of his correspondence when Coles became ill named Gilbert Ronald Alan Antrobus-Weston, born in Liverpool in 1905, the son of Thomas Antrobus-Weston and Margaret Emily Weston; he died in Somerset in 1982.

Stuckey died on Sunday 9th June 1929 aged 84 and his funeral took place three days later on Wednesday 12th June at Shepton Beauchamp conducted by the Rector of the parish, his friend, Reverend Arthur Lethbridge; there was a large turn-out at the church for the service which had a full surplice choir, from the people of Shepton and family, including his sisters, Miss Julia Coles and Mrs. Mary Lean and his friend and secretary, Mr. Antrobus-Weston. From the clergy, Rev. Cyril Bickersteth of Mirfield, Yorkshire and Rev. J. A. Briscoe, Vicar of Bagborough came to pay their respects to a much loved fellow clergyman. Stuckey was buried in the churchyard at Shepton robed in his Eucharistic vestments and wearing the Stole of Bishop Wilkinson, as he wished.

In the evening the bells rang half-muffled. His gravestone simply reads:

 

STUCKEY COLES
Priest
Died June 9th, 1929
Aged 84 years
R.I.P.

 

Throughout his life it had been his remarkable and enormous capacity for friendship which shone bright and his complete devotion and faith in God that propelled his gentle spirit into such firm spiritual bonds, such as his early friendships with Amcotts, Bridges, Dolben and Hopkins, and Rev. Dr. Liddon at Oxford; the Reverends Butler, Campbell, Brightman and Lethbridge; the Bishops Gore and Wilkinson… and later friends such as Rev. Spencer Cecil Carpenter (1877-1959) of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (and later Dean of Exeter from 1935-50) who met Coles at Cuddesdon in 1902; Rev. Sidney Leslie Ollard (1875-1949) of St. John’s College, Oxford, who became Vice-Principle of St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford from 1903-13 and later Canon of Windsor from 1936-48; Rev. Robert Lawrence Ottley (1856-1933) of Pembroke College, Oxford who was Principle of Pusey House from 1893-97 and fellow Pusey Librarians – Rev. Darwell Stone, D. D. (1859-1941) of Merton College, Oxford who became Principle from 1909-34 and Rev. Gregory Lewis Albert Way, M. A. (1880-1918) of Corpus Christi College, Oxford… the list of friends seems without end for his circle was wide, but perhaps we should let the Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore, Stuckey’s friend and fellow Librarian have the last word, for he says of Coles that – ‘in his mind the grave and the gay lay close together.’

 

 

NOTES AND SOURCES:

 

  1. V. S. S. Coles: Letters, Papers, Addresses, Hymns & Verses with a Memoir by G W Borlase. Edited by J F Briscoe with a Preface by the Right Rev. Charles Gore DD DCL LLD. London. A R Mowbray. 1930. p. 3.
  2. James Stratton Coles took over the living at Shepton Beauchamp in 1836 and died in Shepton Beauchamp on 3rd January 1872 aged 61 and was buried there on 10th January.
  3. Eliza Stuckey died in Shepton Beauchamp on 14th March 1897 aged 89; she was buried there on 19th March.
  4. Julia Mary Coles died unmarried on 18th May 1933 aged 86 in Shepton Beauchamp; in 1868, Julia established two night schools for boys and girls during the winter and in 1872 she and her brother Vincent began four night schools for men, older boys and girls which employed a Master from Bath the following year who also taught in the Sunday schools; also in 1873 Julia converted her home, St Gabriel’s cottage in North Street, Shepton Beauchamp into a teacher’s house known as the ‘Guild of St. Gabriel’ which was founded by her (along with her brother Vincent) for the training of young girls in domestic service and used until 1899; the Rectory in North Street was used under the name of St Michael’s Home and Penitentiary by Julia from 1886 as a home for young girls employed in laundry and housework and was active up until the First World War.
  5. Eliza Mary Coles married James Lean (1849-1923) [born in India] on 14th July 1880 in Shepton Beauchamp; they had two children: Edith Mary Lean, born April 1881 in Wells, Somerset and James Vincent Lean born 18th October 1884 in Somerset. Eliza died on 13th March 1937 aged 86 at St Michael’s, West Hill, Ottery, St Mary, Devon.
  6. Seven Years at Eton, 1857-1864. James Brinsley-Richards. London. Richard Bentby & Sons. 1883. ‘In Mr. Birch’s Form’. pp. 200-203. Brinsley-Richards, who became the Times Correspondent in Vienna and Berlin, also published ‘The Duke’s Marriage’. London. R Bentley & Son. 1885, ‘Prince Roderick’ (a novel in 3 volumes). London. R Bentley & Son. 1889, and ‘The Alderman’s Children’ (a novel in 3 volumes). London. R Bentley & Son. 1891. Briscoe mentions in his ‘V. S. S. Coles: Letters, Papers, Addresses, Hymns & Verses’ of 1930 (p. 40) that Stuckey was in Mr. Hale’s House in July 1859 – Rev. Edward Hale (1828-1894) of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (B.A. 1850, M.A. 1853) was known as ‘Badger’; he was ordained deacon in Oxford in 1851 and priest in 1853. He was the Assistant Mathematics Master at Eton from 1850-73 and Science Master from 1873-94.
  7. Amcotts, an aspiring poet, librettist and playwright who had just hired the Olympic Theatre for a production and resided at 39 Portdown Road, Maida Vale, was found dead on 26th November 1881 after an ‘accidental’ overdose of Hydrate of Chloral (suicide was suspected). He was the author of several theatrical works for the stage: ‘Fair Helen’ [in 3 acts based on a translation of ‘La Belle Helene’] (1866), ‘Adonis Vanquished’ (1867), ‘Pentheus: a classical burlesque’ (1867), ‘Ariadne: or the bull, the bully, and the bullion’ a classical burlesque (1867), ‘Lalla Rookh’ [opera-burlesque in 3 acts] (1867), ‘The Statue Bride’ (1868), ‘Lurline’ a burlesque (1868), ‘Paul and Virginia’ (1871), ‘Endymion – a new pastoral cantata’ (1871), ‘Wanted, a Gentleman-Help’ a musical farce (1878), ‘The Poisoned Poet’ a musical farce (1879) and ‘Corydon – the Outwitted Aunt’ an operetta, date unknown (possibly circa 1880) but performed 1895; of his work as a librettist, his songs include: ‘The Trysting Day’ (1875), ‘Dawn Song’ (1879), ‘The Night Watches’ (1879), ‘Daisies’ (1880), ‘Corydon’ [ballad] (1880) and ‘Stay, Happy Night’ a serenade for two voices (1887).
  8. William H C Nation was the author of stories and poetic works such as: ‘Cypress Leaves: A Volume of Poems’. London. W. Kent & Co. 1862, ‘Sketches from Life and Jottings from Books’. London. T. C. Newby. 1864 and ‘Prickly Pear Blossoms’. London. Eden, Remington & Co. 1893.
  9. ‘A Memoir of the Right Honourable Sir William Anson, Baronet: Warden of All Souls College, Burgess for the University of Oxford. Ed. Herbert Hensley Henson (1863-1947). Oxford. The Clarendon Press. 1920. p. 28.
  10. A History of Eton College. Lionel Cust. New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1899. p. 266.
  11. See ‘Memories of Eton and Etonians including My Life at Eton, 1854-1863 and some Reminiscences of Subsequent Cricket, 1864-1874’. Alfred Lubbock. London. John Murray. 1899, for references to J. B. Dyne’s sporting prowess at cricket in the Eton Eleven.
  12. Brett: From Bloomsbury to New Mexico: A Biography. Sean Hignett. New York. Franklin Watts. 1983. pp. 30-31, p. 92. see also The Enigmatic Edwardian: The Life of Reginald 2nd Viscount Esher. James Lees-Milne. London. Sidgwick & Jackson. 1986. As well as William Johnson (Cory) and Oscar Browning, or ‘O.B.’ as he was known, several names come to mind who were also drawn by the notions of Greek love and the Wildean spirit of literary or teaching pursuits such as: Arthur Sidgwick (1840-1920), Master of Rugby (and his son, poet and author, of Balliol College, Oxford, Arthur Hugh Sidgwick, 1882-1917); Henry Graham Dakyns (1838-1911), classics Master at Clifton College and his affair with a boy named Cecil Boyle; author Horatio Forbes Brown (1854-1926), John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) of Balliol College, Oxford who taught at Clifton College and as a boy at Harrow, exposed the affair between the Headmaster, Rev. Dr. Charles John Vaughan (1816-1897) and friend of Symonds, the boy, Alfred Pretor (1840-1908), who was at Harrow from 1853-60 and later Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge after Pretor showed Symonds a series of love-letters between him and Vaughan which brought about the latter’s downfall; author and Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925) and Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge (1890-1918) of Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge who taught classics at Shrewsbury School; Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) the ghost story writer of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge; poet and scholar, Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) of St. John’s College, Oxford and tutor, Rev. Dr. Frederick William Bussell (1862-1944) of Magdalen College, Oxford and Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford,  to name a few Saints and sinners. See: ‘Feasting with Panthers: a new consideration of some late Victorian writers’. Rupert Croft-Cooke. Oxford. The Alden Press Ltd. [London.W H Allen & Co.] 1967.
  13. The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben. Robert Bridges. London. Oxford University Press. 1911. (page numbers shown in Roman numerals), [reprint 1915]. See also Three Friends: Memoir of Digby Mackworth Dolben, Richard Watson Dixon, Henry Bradley. Robert Bridges. Ed. M. M. Bridges. London. Oxford University Press. 1938.
  14. Sir Martin Le Marchant Hadsley Gosselin born 1847 in Walfield, Hertfordshire was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; worked in the Foreign Office from 1868-1905 and converted to Catholicism in 1878. He died in 1905 in Portugal.
  15. Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life. Robert Bernard Martin. London. Harper Collins. 1991. [1st American edition. New York. Putnam’ sons. 1991. Chapter III: ‘My Ritualistic Friend’. pp. 23-24 and pp. 50-51 respectively]
  16. Selected Letters of Robert Bridges: with the correspondence of Robert Bridges and Lionel Muirhead. Volume I. Ed. Donald E. Stanford. London. Associated University Presses. 1983. p. 84.
  17. Robert Bridges and Gerard Hopkins 1863-1889: A Literary Friendship. Jean-Georges Ritz. London. Uxford University Press. 1960. p. 32.
  18. Op. Cit., Robert Bernard Martin.1991. p. 114.
  19. Rev. Henry Earle Tweed M.A. (1827-1910), son of Rev. James Tweed of Rayne; Henry was educated at Trinity College and Oriel College, Oxford, deacon 1855, priest 1856, vicar of Coley, Lincolnshire and later Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. He married Dorothy Phillott, daughter of Rev. Charles Phillott in 1863 and later married in 1894, Pauline Gertrude Attwood nee Guise-Tucker, widow of Rev. William Denton Attwood of Little Bentley in Essex who died in 1885. See The Poems and Letters of Digby Mackworth Dolben 1848-1867. Ed. with an Introduction and Commentary by Martin Cohen. Amersham. Avebury. 1981. p. 2.
  20. Ibid., Rev. John Thomas Walford M.A. (1834-1894), [brother of Edward Walford (1823-1897) of Balliol College, Oxford, priest and antiquarian] son of Rev. William Walford (1782-1855) of Harfield Peverel, Essex. J. T. Walford, Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge (1853),  Cuddeston College (1858), M.A. (1862), ordained (1883), Master at Harrow and five years Assistant Master at Eton. he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1878.
  21. The Poems and Letters of Digby Mackworth Dolben 1848-1867. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Martin Cohen. Amersham. Avebury. 1981. p. 169.  
  22. Op. Cit., Poems. Bridges. 1911. pp. 47-51. Dolben mistakenly attributes Welman’s age as 17, he was in fact 18 [Cohen. 1981. p. 144]. Funeral notice: The Wexford Independent. Saturday 16th February 1867. p. 2.
  23. Walter Henry Prichard, born 26th October 1856 (baptised 23rd November at South Luffenham), entered Rugby School September 1870 aged 13 (one month short of his 14th birthday) and left in 1875 to go up to Queen’s College, Oxford on a Jodrell Scholarship, matriculating on 23rd October 1875 aged 18 (3 days short of his 19th birthday); exhibitioner 1875-79, BA 1880. In 1911 he is living in Sidmouth, a single graduate living on ‘private means’; Walter never married and was a member of the Sidmouth Cricket Club in Devon; he died in Sidmouth on 1st May 1913 aged 56 after he ‘had long been in ill-health, was a double honoursman of Oxford’ [(Obituary: Sidmouth) Western Times. Tuesday 6th May 1913. p. 2] His sisters were: Mabel Alice Prichard born 1856 (baptised 3rd February at South Luffenham), she was a former member of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and taught classics; she never married and died 31st January 1933 in Cheltenham; Constance Mary Prichard, born 1858 (baptised 18th April in South Luffenham); she married Arthur Frederick Nuthall, a tea planter of Assam in Cheltenham in 1886, a son was born to them on 12th November 1888 at the tea estate in Assam, India but Arthur was not a good husband and they divorced in February 1904 on grounds of ‘desertion and misconduct’ of the husband [Western Times. Friday 5th February 1904. p. 11] who had been living with another woman and had two children by her; Constance married again on 29th March 1906 in Thanet, Kent to John Edward Addis Eyre, a Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector of Assam, India; she died in Cheltenham on 10th July 1934; Leonora Seymour Prichard, born 1861 (baptised 24th March in South Luffenham); she remained single and died in Cheltenham on 3rd January 1943. Their mother, Mary Alice Seymour, born in Glamorgan in 1833 married Rev. Constantine Estlin Prichard (1820-1869) in Westcott, Surrey on 20th July 1854. In 1881, Mary Alice Prichard, widow, is living at the family home – 43, Landsdown Crescent, Cheltenham 9with daughters Mabel and Constance) and lives on ‘income from land’.
  24. Three Friends: Memoir of Digby Mackworth Dolben, Richard Watson Dixon, Henry Bradley. Robert Bridges. Ed. M. M. Bridges. London. Oxford University Press. 1938. pp. 104-105, p. 75 and p. 63 respectively.
  25. The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges. Edited with Notes & an Introduction by Claude Colleer Abbott. London. Oxford University Press. 1935. [2nd revised impression. 1955. p. 1]
  26. Ibid. p. 88.
  27. The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, Volume 23. Defeated at Oxford. Defence at Rome, January-December 1867. Edited at the Birmingham Oratory with notes and an introduction by Charles Stephen Dessain and Thomas Gornall. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1973. p. 363.
  28. The Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben edited with a Memoir by Robert Bridges. London. Oxford University Press. 1911. p. 128.
  29. Op. Cit., Dessain & Gornall. p. 364.
  30. Alfred Thomas Townshend Wyatt-Edgell (1849-1928), son of the Rev Edgell Wyatt-Edgell and Henrietta Otway-Cave, Baroness Braye; Alfred attended Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford and became the 5th Baron Braye in 1879 and changed his name the following year to Alfred Thomas Townshend Verney-Cave.
  31. Op. Cit., Claude Colleer Abbott.1935. [2nd revised impression. 1955. Hopkins’ Letter XIV. pp. 16-17]
  32. See poem 55 in The Poems and Letters of Digby Mackworth Dolben 1848-1867. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary by Martin Cohen. Amersham. Avebury. 1981. p. 73.
  33. Amadeus and Other Poems. Alfred Wyatt-Edgell. London. Smith, Elder & Co. 1873. The author adds a note on p. 119 to the ‘Amadeus’ saying that ‘this elegy and the other poems in which the name Amadeus occurs, are written in memory of Digby, the youngest son of the late William Mackworth-Dolben, Esq., of Finedon Hall, Northamptonshire. He was born on February 8th, 1848, and was educated at Eton, where he remained about four years. Afterwards, preparing for the University, he was accidentally drowned on the evening of Friday, June 28th, 1867, while bathing in the Welland, a small river that divides the counties of Rutland and Northampton. His posthumous poems are numerous and exceedingly beautiful, but few or none of them have seen the light.’
  34. Op. Cit. Martin Cohen. p. 2.
  35. Op. Cit. Briscoe. p. 43.
  36. Op. Cit. Selected Letters of Robert Bridges. Stanford. 1983. p. 127.
  37. Op. Cit. Briscoe. note to p. 61.
  38. Montague Cyril Bickersteth, matriculated at New College, Oxford in October 1877, B.A. 1881, M.A. 1884; he was ordained deacon at Ripon in 1882 and priest in 1883. He is the author of ‘The Gospel of Incarnate Love’ (1906) which Stuckey provided an introduction to and a biography of his father, Robert Bickersteth the Bishop of Ripon, published in 1886 which he wrote in collaboration with his Uncle, Rev. Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906), the Bishop of Exeter; Coles also corresponded (circa 1902-03) with Edward Henry’s son, Rev. Samuel Bickersteth (1857-1937) who became Chaplain to the King of England.
  39. Op. Cit. Selected Letters of Robert Bridges. Stanford. 1983. p. 237]
  40. Ibid. p. 353.
  41. Memoir of George Howard Wilkinson. (volume II) Arthur James Mason, D. D. London. Longmans, Green & Co. 1909. p. 258.
  42. Archibald Ean Campbell, of Clare College, Cambridge (graduating 1876, B.A. 1880) was also at Cuddesdon Theological College and was ordained deacon in 1881 by the Bishop of Oxford and priest the following year; in 1904 Rev. Campbell D.D., became Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, a role he served in until his death in 1921. A chapter (XI) on Rev. Campbell’s South African visits of 1903, 1906, and 1909 can be found in ‘The Right Rev. Archibald Ean Campbell, D.D., late Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway: A Memoir by various authors’. Edited by G. T. S. Farquhar. Edinburgh. The Scottish Chronicle Press. 1924.
  43. Rev. Joseph Hamlet became Vicar of Barrington in 1885 and he lived at the Rectory with Coles in Shepton Beauchamp; Rev. Sladen, of Pembroke College, Oxford, B.A. 1889 and M.A. 1892, was ordained deacon in 1893 and priest the following year; he was Vicar of Selly Oak in Birmingham from 1903-08 and Vicar of St. Mary’s, Kidderminster from 1909 until his death in 1945.
  44. ‘The Mission of Help to the Church in South Africa: what it has done, and what it has taught us.’ Arthur William Robinson. London. Longmans, Green. 1906. p. 13.
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