CLERICAL ERRORS - A VICTORIAN SERIES (Volume 1)

Somewhere on a dusty shelf in a Yorkshire second hand bookstore, there is a century-old copy of J. Horsfall Turner's Ancient Bingley: Its History and Its Scenery. Flipping through the dog-eared, fragile pages, the curious reader might come to the author's mention of the Rev. Joseph Weedow, vicar of St. Luke's, East Morton. The mention is certainly brief. Horsfall states only that he shot himself in 1892 "after some shameful proceedings."



Born in Cheshire, Mr. Weedow first came to Yorkshire as a curate in Bingley. In 1883, he was presented with the vicarage at East Morton. By all accounts, he was a popular pastor; known for his excellent sermons and the devoted care he gave to his invalid wife, Lizzie. In 1891, the Weedows advertised in the Leeds papers for a new servant. They were in need of a "plain" cook, a requirement meant to reference her culinary art, not her comeliness. But soon the little village was humming with gossip about their handsome vicar and Miss Broadbent.



The Rev. Weedow's tragic story is fully told in the compelling new e-book - CLERICAL ERRORS - A VICTORIAN SERIES, Volume 1. In all, Clerical Errors contains the stories of five clergymen whose "scandals" created great cause celebres.


Clerical Errors is now available at Amazon.co.uk (£3.86)
For more information on this new book, please contact the author at victorianga@aol.com.
The photograph of St. Luke's Church, East Morton, is used with the gracious permission of Betty Longbottom at geograph.org.uk