Sunday, December 1, 2019

Ruin of a Clergyman: Christmas Shoplifting


Especially in December, London's shopkeepers were on their guard for thieves; 'tis the season for "Christmas depredations." On the 18th of December 1890, Thomas Howell was working in the book department at the Army and Navy Stores on Victoria Street. He began to particularly watch a certain browsing shopper. Howell observed the man slip several books into a large pocket of his overcoat. Following this gentleman into the tobacco area, the argus-eyed employee watched two pipes disappear into another pocket. Store security joined the investigation trailing the suspect into a basement lavatory whence he emerged with a large satchel. As was the practice, security waited for the gentleman to leave the store before confronting him on the busy pavement outside. 

The following day in the Westminster Police Court, the Rev. Wiliam Luther Leeman M.A. was formally charged with the theft of the two pipes and a large number of books (including the best-seller, In Darkest England, the now classic expose of Victorian poverty.) While "shopping," Leeman was not dressed in clerical attire and gave a false name. But in his rooms in Willesden, police discovered his identity and - by the way - many more books, several 1891 calendars, and 52 Christmas cards, all bearing the mark of the Army & Navy stores.

The Rev. Leeman was 40; his late father had been an MP in Yorkshire. Leeman's appointed counsel apologised for his client's conduct. "It was a terrible thing for a man in his position." He could only state that the accused was in a period of "great mental worry." Given time, Rev. Leeman's family and friends would come forward to speak on his behalf. 


No bail was granted and Leeman remained in jail for nearly two months before a magistrate's trial in mid-February. The court was told that Leeman's troubles with drink began as early as the age of 12. He was sent to India but returned after a sunstroke. His father sent him to Oxford and Durham and he was ordained in 1872. As a curate, he served in several north country parishes. In 1875, his father's friend, Mr. Gladstone, arranged for Leeman to be Vicar of St. Mary & St. Laurence in Rosedale. By 1880, Leeman was married with three young children, and rector of St. John, Seaforth, in Lancashire. A decade later he stood in court alone; his wife and children were gone, and his career was in ruins. His drinking cost him one living after another. His last appointment had been in Willesden, where he was living, but not working, at the time of his arrest. Family members hoped to spare him from jail and offered to finance his care for 12 months in an asylum for inebriates. The offer was accepted. 

The efficacy of that year's treatment cannot be determined. It is sad to report that in February 1905, the Rev Mr. Leeman died at the Bracebridge Asylum, Lincolnshire. He was 55.

If you're seeking books for holiday gifting, consider Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Vol 2. It's available exclusively thru Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Thank you. 

Sunday, November 10, 2019

The War of the Bells

If the newly-married Duke of Marlborough expected a merry peal of church bells to herald his arrival at Blenheim Palace with his bride, His Grace was to be greatly disappointed. The bells of St. Mary Magdalene, Woodstock were silent per the instructions of the rector, the Rev. Arthur Majendie. All Britain was soon to read about “The Rector Who Wouldn’t Flatter a Duke.”

In June 1888, in New York City, George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough, married Lily Hammersley, widow of a wealthy real estate investor. A Cunard liner brought the couple back to England and there was a happy turnout of locals and estate workers to greet their carriage as it entered the splendid seat of the Marlboroughs. Why no bells? 

Rev. Majendie told the press that he meant no disrespect to the new duchess who seemed to be a charming lady. The Duke, however, was an altogether different story. He inherited his title in 1883 on the death of his father. A critical newspaper wrote that one of Britain's most famous titles was being held by “one of the worst specimens of manhood in England.” As a young man, then titled Marquess of Blandford, he had featured in three divorce trials in just eight years. His first wife was a daughter of the Duke of Abercorn and they had four children. In 1875, however, Blandford began a brazen affair with the Countess of Aylesford while her husband, "Sporting Joe" Aylesford was off tiger shooting in India with the Prince of Wales. The Aylesfords got their divorce and the trial provided all the needed evidence for Lady Blandford to seek one of her own. The details of her treatment at the hands of Blandford were so vile that the Queen waived her usual ban against divorcees at court in favour of the innocent Lady Blandford. Then, in 1886, Blandford (now the Duke), was one of four (but the most active and notable) of the lovers of Lady Colin Campbell whose long-running, salacious, society divorce trial shocked the country. 

During this period, the remarriage of divorced persons, especially those found to be at fault, was not permitted in the Church of England. Thus, the Duke's trans-Atlantic strategy, which found him returning to Britain with a legally married wife and her Yankee dollars to bolster his parlous fortunes. Majendie's decision not to ring the church bells to celebrate this happy event was generally supported by his fellow churchmen. The Rurideaconal Council in Oxford, for instance, declared "there is an extreme danger to public morals from the relaxation of sanctions of marriage" and expressed its sympathy with the rector of Woodstock.

The Duke minimised the snub, which he called "childish and petty." Majendie, he sneered, was “one of those high church parsons who wants to advertise himself.” But there would be retribution. The Duke banned the rector and his family from Blenheim Park forcing Majendie to go the long way around between his two churches in Woodstock and St. Martin's, Bladon. All the estate contributions to the churches were cut off. No great loss, there. Majendie said the Duke's most recent annual gift had been £13. The publicity given to the "War of the Bells" brought in more than enough to cover the loss.

The war between the rectory and the palace was short-lived. The 8th Duke died in 1892, he was just 48. The Rev. Majendie outlived him, he died in January 1895 and was mourned as a man of great ability and wide popularity. "The church has lost one of her best and bravest parish priests."

Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Vol. 2 is available here. Think of it for a Christmas gift to the "church crawler" in the family. Thank you.


Thursday, October 10, 2019

A Thousand and One Rumours

St. Swithun's, Hempstead
All was in readiness for the wedding feast at Hempstead Court, the country home of the Rev. Samuel Lysons of St. Luke's, Gloucester. Tuesday, October 9, 1855, was his daughter Alice's wedding day. The groom was a popular local clergyman, the Rev. Hugh Hovell Baskerville Farmar. From a prominent Irish family, Farmar was curate at St. Nicholas in the nearby village of Hardwicke. The little Hempstead church of St. Swithun was decorated with flowers and filled with the local gentry and friends of the young couple. But the appointed hour of 11:00 passed and neither party to the nuptials appeared. By noon, guests were told that owing to the bride's indisposition the wedding would be the following day. Within hours, the truth was known - the Rev. Farmar had disappeared. He had visited his betrothed the night before and had not been seen since. The trains were checked, canals were dragged, and several tramps at a local "mop fair" were questioned by police. But days passed with no sign of the missing curate. "The affair is altogether wrapped in mystery."

Detectives were employed. "A Thousand and One Rumours" were circulated. Reported sightings in London and Ireland were busts. It wasn't until December that Farmar was traced to America. The Gloucester Chronicle reported, "Some expression fell from the lips of the intended bride during the last interview which was misconstrued by the gentleman into something like regret at the step she was about to take." Farmar despaired; his only plan was to flee, an act he will ever regret. He wanted all the friends of Miss Lysons to know that the blame for this unhappiness was all his.

The sequels to the wedding mystery are equally interesting. The Lysons name was well-known in Gloucestershire, a family of clergymen, physicians, and antiquarians. Jilted Alice Lysons did eventually marry; in 1861, she wed a young man named George Hacker. George was the son of a local railway porter and he was being educated in Cheltenham at the Rev. Lysons' expense. Alice, apparently, couldn't wait for the schooling to be finished. That May, the papers reported, "This week, she left home secretly to be married to him."


As for the Rev. Farmar, he joined the Episcopal church in the midwestern state of Illinois. He invested well, mostly in agricultural land, and became quite wealthy. He left the clergy and settled near Springfield, Missouri on a 300-acre farm. In January 1890, he was found dead in his burned-out log home. One of the local papers speculated the fire was set by some of his "negro tenants" angry over recent evictions. If he was murdered, it was never solved. Farmar kept to himself, he was an eccentric. All the locals knew about him was he came from England about forty years earlier. "Great excitement prevails," readers were told. Farmar never married. 

If you have not yet checked out Clerical Errors, A Victorian Series, Vol. 2, please go here. Thank you. Comments, criticism, additions, and suggestions are welcome below.

Monday, September 9, 2019

Charles Darwin & the Curate

The Rev John Warburton Robinson was an Irishman, educated at Trinity, and ordained at Oxford in 1864. In August 1868, he arrived in the village of Downe, Kent. Robinson was the new curate at St. Mary's church. The Rev J.B. Innes, the absentee vicar of Downe, wrote to his most famous parishioner, the great Charles Darwin, to say, "I hope you and the other parishioners like him." Robinson set about his clerical duties, including a fund drive for a new village school. But, in late November, the curate abruptly announced he was returning to Ireland for three months to attend to family affairs.  

Charles Darwin and Rev Innes were old friends and regular correspondents. Thus, Darwin wrote Innes to share some gossip, "Rumours are very common in our village about Mr. Robinson walking with girls at night." The naturalist had heard this second hand from his wife. A neighbour, Mrs. Allen was said to be "very indignant about Mr R's conduct with one of her maids." Darwin said one of his own servants at Down House had been hear to say, "They do not believe that hardly anyone will go to Church now." 

Innes was shaken by this news; Robinson had presented testimonials that "painted him to be little less than a saint." The old vicar clearly did not have the greatest trust in the residents of Downe. "I know too much of reports in general and Downe reports in particular to credit anything which people say behind a man’s back & are afraid to say to his face." Would Darwin dig into this and report back to him? Innes needed to know more. "I can only say that, though I do not know Mr. Robinson, I would try to protect him from malicious accusations but if he is immoral I will do all in my power to get him out forthwith."  

The 60-year-old Darwin agreed to find "The Origin of the Rumours." About a week later, the impromptu sleuth reported back that "Rumours certainly are rife against Mr R." The hottest gossip linked the curate with a young lady named Esther West, formerly a servant with the Allens. They were seen talking quietly in the road and elsewhere 'round the village at odd hours. The Allens gave Esther the sack and she'd left Downe. But Darwin did question Mrs. Allen. "Judging by her manner, [she] knew a good deal, but said she was nervous & wd not commit herself— accordingly she said she cd not remember who had told her any one single thing; or the name of the girl in the village; & further that her cook did not want to commit herself & declined to say whether it was in the daylight or after dark that Mr R. talked with the girl." Hardly conclusive. The Robinson case fell to the ground. Detective Darwin didn't care for his new role, "I feel in an awkward predicament. I do not feel sure, owing to my ignorance of law, whether I may not be exposing myself to an action for defamation of character." He closed the case, if you will, "I am most sincerely sorry for all this vexation & trouble." 

Rev. Innes still considered his curate unsuitable and would bring the matter to the Bishop. But, in the end, Rev. Robinson never returned to Downe, resigning in February 1869. 

The Rev John Warburton Robinson obtained more work as a curate in the 1870's. His career ended in 1876 when he was arrested for an indecent assault with a guardsman in an alley near London's Knightsbridge Barracks. That charge was reduced but Robinson was involved subsequently in two similar cases. According to one report, he emigrated to Melbourne, Australia.   

Darwin died in Downe in 1882, having spent the last 40 years of his life in the village. There was a family vault at St. Mary's but - not without controversy - Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The letters quoted here can be found in full in the Darwin Correspondence Project at the University of Cambridge. (darwinproject.ac.uk)

This Darwin story is now included in my 2020 collection of clerical errors, How the Vicar Came and Went available at Amazon. 

Monday, August 19, 2019

“A Vicar and His Housemaid”

One April day in 1891, the vicar of Wilmington, the Rev. William Augustus St. John Dearsley, known as Sinjin, was in his study with his wife. Also present was their pregnant housemaid and her stepmother. Jenny Levett accused the vicar of being the father of her child. Mrs. Dearsley blurted out, “We had to go through this all before with poor Sarah. Am I never going to be able to have a servant?”

Dearsley was 52 and had been vicar there for 16 years. The parish patron was His Grace the Duke of Devonshire. The old Norman church of St. Mary & St. Peter was overshadowed – literally – by a famous ancient yew, variously estimated to be more than a millennium old. The vicar was active in restoring the famous turf-carving - the “Wilmington Giant,” on the Downs. Many believed it to be some sort of fertility totem. The Rev and Rose Dearsley had no children. Hers, anyway.

Jenny was 20, a wheelwright’s daughter, who'd been with the Dearsleys for five years. She was a special favourite of the vicar who often tried to steal kisses in the pantry. “Please, Vicar, I have my work to do,” Jenny pleaded. In September, 1890, according to Jenny’s recollection, the Rev. Dearsley came uninvited into her bedroom. The result of this "improper intimacy" was the talk of the village the next April.

Rev. Dearsley flatly denied that he was the father of the unborn child. Despite Mrs. Dearsley’s quoted outburst, she stood by her husband. They let Jenny go, of course, but gave her 30s for her confinement. Mrs. Dearsley supposedly said, if it was up to her, she would have rather shot her! Jenny gave birth to a healthy boy on 20 June 1891.

The village gossip continued. Jenny wrote directly to the vicar: "You know how I used to tell you of going in the pantry & chattering and kissing me, but it was no good, you would do it.  I did not think you were so hard-hearted as what you must be not to have wrote or done anything for me after bringing me to ruin and disgrace." In August, the scandal had become so open that Dearsley was ordered to attend the Sussex magistrate’s court. The case of “A Vicar and His Housemaid” filled columns of newspapers across Britain. "It is wonderful the interest that is taken in the peccadilloes and sins of “the cloth."


Mr. Gill, a London criminal barrister, painted a picture of seduction. Little kisses followed by “letters of the most extraordinary familiarity.” As a witness, Jenny detailed it all. She resisted her employer at first, but, in the end, she surrendered to him willingly. There was no force. She didn't cry out. She didn't tell Mrs Dearsley. When she eventually confronted the clergyman, he replied strangely, “I am not prepared to confess to such a charge.” 

Henry Dickens, son of the great novelist, represented the Rev. Dearsley. The vicar was a largish man, heavy-set. He swore that he was not the father of Jenny’s son; in fact, he had never been intimate with her. In the box, he admitted a previous servant (Sarah Mepham) had left Wilmington in a family way but she “freely" signed a letter stating that the vicar was not the father of her child. As for Jenny, Dearsley admitted his fondness for her. He did playfully beg her for kisses. He wrote some silly letters - not love letters. Dearsley listened while the prosecutor read from those letters; they certainly sounded like love letters. He admitted he gave Jenny 30s but only to help her family. He'd also given Jenny’s father 20s. The vicar denied telling Jenny's father to "go to London" where such matters can be “taken care of.”

As a witness, Mrs. Dearsley said she knew all about the kisses and the silly letters. Foolishness but there was just too much gossip in Wilmington. She broke down while being questioned, crying, "This is too much. I cannot stand it. I will do anything for my husband."

In cases like this, the defense will always try to find another possible father and Robert Butcher, the son of a Hailsham publican, was brought into the frame. Dearsley had no use for the lad and told him to stay away from the vicarage but he knew that Jenny and Robert frequently went "romping on the Downs together." Robert was called as a hostile witness. He had known Jenny for many years. He'd walked out with her, etc, even proposed to her. They were seen about Hailsham during the time frame in which he could have been the father. But he denied everything. 

The Dearsleys claimed the entire prosecution was plotted and paid for by Robert Lambe, a wealthy parishioner. Generations of Lambes had been powerful landowners on the Downs. Relations between the vicarage and the Lambes were obviously not cordial. Lambe did not deny it. The prosecutor admitted that Lambe was paying the bills, because “He wants to get this man (pausing – for dramatic purposes - to point to the vicar) out of the parish.” 

The magistrates needed only a few minutes before unanimously deciding the Rev. Dearsley was the father of Jenny Levett’s son.  The vicar was ordered to pay all her court costs, confinement expenses and pay child support of 5s per week until the lad turns 16. (The vicar dropped a planned appeal and settled with Jenny for a lump sum.) There were cheers in court and jeers in the streets following the verdict. Rev. Dearsley resigned as vicar and left Wilmington. He lived in Bosham for some time as “a clergyman without cure of souls.” In 1900, he resurfaced as chaplain at a church in the tiny Cambridgeshire village of Reach where he remained until his death in 1913.

For full-length stories of Clerical Errors, please visit here.



Sunday, July 28, 2019

A "Midnight Spree" at the Vicarage

For centuries, the crocketed pinnacles of the tower of St. Goran's church, though a mile in from the sea, have been one of the landmarks to mariners sailing the often stormy waters of south Cornwall. In 1862, the Rev. David Jenkins had been vicar in the remote parish for nearly forty years. His vicarage was at Polgorran House, a fine home built of slatestone rubble and a short distance from the church. The main rooms overlooked a large garden. In the rear of the house, connected by a hallway, was the servants' cottage. On a Cornish night in early May 1862, the Rev. Mr. Jenkins said the evening prayers for the household, that is, his daughter and their two female servants. At ten o'clock, he locked up for the night. 

The vicar had been recently troubled by noises. Before midnight, he heard them again. Grabbing his (unloaded) gun, the vicar sent his daughter to the village. She soon returned with five stout men. Meanwhile, Jenkins had traced the noises to the bedroom shared by the servants. From the lawn outside, the vicar demanded the door be opened, threatening to shoot anyone who came out the window. There were the sounds of a mad scramble within. When the door was finally opened and all the occupants accounted for, there were six people in the room: the two servants, including Caroline Solomon, the cook, the village schoolmistress and three local men: James Huxtable, Mr. Gully's butler, Sam Kerkin, the grocer and George Colenso, a local constable, no less. Quite a party had been going on, apparently. The vicar was furious to find what were called "the fragments of an entertainment," including the remains of two pasties (made of pork and eggs), a piece of pork, bread and butter, part of a rhubarb tart, cups and saucers, a tea canister, cream and milk and a teapot warming on the fire. 

The Rev Mr Jenkins sacked his servants on the spot but opted to press charges against the three men under the Vagrant Act. At the petty sessions in St. Austell, the men were tried for entering the vicarage for an unlawful purpose, i.e., feloniously converting the vicar's property (the food, cutlery and crockery) to their use. They were all found guilty and given a month's hard labour at Bodmin gaol. 

The little tale of the "Midnight Spree at the Vicarage" aroused considerable interest, far beyond Cornwall. Many felt the punishment was overly harsh. The verdict was stayed while the case was appealed. It took most of a year before Kerkin et al v Jenkins was heard in London before the Lord Chief Justice and a panel of High Court judges.

This minor fracas in a distant village presented an interesting and important domestic issue. Not for nothing were servants warned that "no followers" were allowed below stairs. The vicar's cook certainly had no right to sanction this private supper party from her master's larder. While that was plainly true, the court was reminded that the cook had been fired. The men were going to prison. The counsel for the threesome argued that their intent on going to the vicarage that night had simply been a romantic one: they went a-wooing their lady friends. Surely it was improper for them to be there but they had not gone to the vicarage with any felonious intent - the snack board that had been put out for them by their hostesses was only "incidental to their lovemaking." 


The Lord Chief Justice, Sir Alexander Cockburn, himself a "notorious ladies man," seemed to enjoy the argument. He said if it was a crime for a lady to invite a policeman in for a piece of cold meat and a cuppa, English magistrates would be kept quite busy. In the end, the Lord Chief convinced his colleagues, amid some grumbling, to quash the convictions. [Constable Colenso was actually promoted to Sergeant in the Cornish Constabulary.]

The Rev. Mr. Jenkins remained vicar of St. Goran's until his lamented death in 1869.

Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series Vol. 2 is available here.

Monday, July 8, 2019

"The Love Trials of a London Curate"




On 30 May 1878, an announcement appeared in the Births column of the London Standard

DUCHESNE— May 24, at the house of the Rev. G. Vasey, 47, Highbury Park, Mrs. Robert Duchesne, of Highbury-hill, of twins, baptised George and Robert.
The clergyman mentioned was the Rev. George Vasey, curate of St. Saviour’s, Highbury. He had had enough. This had to stop.

The 32-year old curate had been in the North London parish since 1873. In addition to his church work, assisting Canon Moore, Vasey had started a private prep school for boys which had achieved some excellent results. He had been assisted financially by Robert Duchesne, a merchant grocer in the City. Mrs. Mary Duchesne and her daughter, Florence, had been helpful in other ways, fitting out the school with linens, crockery and the like. The previous December, the Rev. Mr. Vasey and 20-year old Florence Duchesne were married at Christ Church, Highbury.

It was a well-known fact that a young bachelor curate would always be “a considerable attraction to the young ladies of the neighbourhood.” Upon word of his engagement, the Rev. Vasey received a visit from Miss Maud Cooper. Maud insisted that the curate had previously pledged himself to her sister, Lucy, who was understandably heartsick. Vasey denied any such courtship and, certainly, Lucy's feelings were not reciprocated. Anonymous letters began arriving around Highbury a short time later. 

These “abominable libels,” not only targeted the clergyman but also his new mother-in-law, Mrs. Mary Duchesne. “Your wife is still going on in her old habits,” read a note sent to Mr. Duchesne. The sender threatened Duchesne: put a stop to it or “you will be hissed in the streets.” One of the teachers at the school received a letter asking why she would work at an institution where such “shameful conduct” was allowed. The writer accused Mrs. Duchesne of “walking out” with Mr. Vasey whenever her husband was away. Canon Moore, the patron of the parish, of course, would get a letter. Why had he not put a stop to this “grievous scandal?” No man was safe with Mrs. Duchesne whose house was known as “the bad house on Highbury Hill.” After services one Sunday, Lucy Cooper actually confronted Mrs. Duchesne and asked, "Aren't these scandals terrible?" Then came the "twins" announcement in The Standard.

The merged cases of Duchesne v. Cooper and Vasey v. Cooper took place at the Law Courts in May 1879. The plaintiffs asserted that the sisters Cooper, spinsters in their 30’s, were behind all of it. Vasey testified that he only met the Cooper ladies through his church work. He had no relationship of any kind with Lucy Cooper. Both Mr. Vasey and Mrs. Duchesne testified before Judge Sir Henry Hawkins, denying any improprieties had occurred between them. Vasey presented to the court one signed letter in which Lucy berated him and declared that she never wanted to see him again. Charles Chabot, London’s go-to man for handwriting analysis, was examined. He had compared the anonymous letters with Lucy's letter and other items written by the sisters, he concluded that the offending letters were mainly in the hand of Miss Lucy, but some had been written by Miss Maud Cooper.

The attorney for the sisters Cooper assured the court his clients did not write the letters, moreover, they wished to make clear for the record that they absolutely repudiated the improper and immoral imputations contained therein. Lucy and Maud each took the stand to deny sending any of these offensive notes. In fact, each sister claimed to have receive similar offensive letters.  

Two days into the trial, Judge Hawkins met with lawyers for each side. He clearly felt the Cooper ladies were guilty. He was sure the jury would agree with him. To allow the case to go to the jury for a verdict would expose the sisters to perjury charges and no one wanted that. The evidence had fully contradicted the abominable imputations against Rev. Vasey and Mrs. Duchesne, which was why they came to court in the first place. Let's leave it at that, Hawkins suggested. The case was allowed to end without a verdict. A kindly outcome managed by the judge they called "Hangin' Hawkins."

The Rev. and Mrs. Vasey, with their growing family, remained in Highbury for several more years. Their in-laws (eventually) moved to Essex.

St. Saviour's is now an art studio. It is a listed building, remembered as being once the subject of a Betjeman poem, the "great red church of my parents."
  













Thursday, June 13, 2019

Revolting Cruelty to Children

Ruyton of the XI Towns is one of the more curious names in an English gazetteer. It is a cluster of Shropshire villages that a young doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle once described as "not big enough to make one town, far less eleven." In 1893, the Rev. William Backhouse Gowan became the new vicar of the ancient red stone church of St. John the Baptist. With his wife, Isabella, and their four children, he settled in to the large vicarage over the road. 

Almost immediately, owing to the sequential death of the vicar's sister and her husband, Rev. Gowan agreed to take in their two daughters, Charlotte and Beatrice Harris. Their father left the vicar £650 to house and school the Harris girls. According to all reports, the arrangement began well; the cousins all got on nicely. 

It should be said that Mr. Gowan's tenure in Ruyton had not been trouble-free. He clashed with a local grandee. On another memorable Sunday, police had to be called to Ruyton church when Gowan tried to fire the incumbent organist and replace him with his son. It did not go well. But few could have anticipated the sensation when Mr. and Mrs. Gowan were charged by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) with cruelly treating their two adopted nieces. 

In the fall of 1898, the Gowans were tried in Shrewsbury at the Quarter Sessions. The NSPCC's Inspector George Luff testified that when he showed up at the vicarage, Mr. Gowan tried to block his entry. But Luff insisted and made his way inside, only to find Mrs. Gowan furiously scrubbing two naked girls. The girl's clothing, piled up nearby, was taken away. Shown in court - "dirty, black, and ragged" - this created a great sensation. Charlotte May, 12, and 8 year old Beatrice had been examined by doctors. They found Beatrice's hair was thick with lice and other vermin. Her uncut toenails resembled claws. Charlotte was in slightly better condition, but her hands were red and swollen, "extraordinary hands for a child." 

According to Inspector Luff, it was the systematic habit of Mrs. Gowan to beat these children "with practically any instrument that came to hand." Charlotte told the court that Mrs. Gowan hit her with a frying pan, a cane, a bread-board, a whip, a broom-handle and more. The two girls were questioned closely. Charlotte, the elder, said that she and Beatrice were given all the drudgery chores. They had to be up at 5:30 to make breakfast for the Gowans. If anything was amiss, the Harris girls would get no breakfast. Food was regularly used to discipline the girls; Charlotte once went hungry for 29 hours. When Beatrice was caught eating a potato meant for the pigs, she was beaten and kicked by Mr. Gowan. Several former Gowan servants: a housemaid, groom and governess, supported the girls' horrific stories.

The Gowans needed a daily police escort to get through the hissing and hooting crowds drawn for the three day session. Inside, the vicar assured the court that discipline was only used when required. Alas, he stated, these two recalcitrant girls had not been properly raised. They were habitual liars, had filthy habits, especially at the dinner table (thus they ate with servants) and they were thieves who would eat every "dainty" in the larder they got their hands on. Mrs. Gowan admitted she sometimes kept the children without food as a punishment but never for 29 hours, a "pure invention." She never hit the girls with a pan, but admitted to using a wooden cane when required. She blamed this overblown story on their village enemies, and vengeful discharged servants.

In the closing arguments, the NSPCC described the Harris girls' existence as a "hell on earth." The Gowans' counsel conceded that Mrs. Gowan may have been "stronger than necessary" in her discipline, but consider her provocation. As for Mr. Gowan, the jurors were told that the evidence against the vicar was very slender. However, the Shropshire jury took only twenty minutes to return with two guilty verdicts. The Sessions Chairman denounced the Gowans; their position and education made the offence more heinous than otherwise. He sentenced each to four months' imprisonment, "with such hard labour as they could do." The outcome was cheered "by the many thousands of people congregated outside the court."


The Harris girls were handed over to Benjamin Waugh, founder of the NSPCC, who was hopeful that other relatives might come forward to take charge of them. [Thanks to Phil Poole with the Shropshire Family History Society for the following: After their ordeal with the Gowans and the trial, the Harris girls were placed with St. Scholastica's, a small "Anglo-Catholic" school for girls in Oxford. Phil believes Charlotte lived to be more than 100 years old; Beatrice would later be a nurse in London but has been harder to trace.]

As for the Rev. Gowan, the Bishop of Shrewsbury quickly stripped him of the Ruyton vicarage. Gowan certainly couldn't go back to a village where people were calling him "an incarnate devil." After serving his sentence, Gowan found clerical employment rather quickly in the Diocese of London. He was a curate in Bromley-by-Bow and then later in Bethnal Green, living well in to the 20th Century. Isabella Gowan died in 1903.

Full length accounts of such Victorian scandals can be found in Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Volume 2.


Friday, May 24, 2019

Notorious All Over Exeter

Holy Trinity Church, Gidleigh
“If there be any man to whose happiness marriage is more necessary than to that of another, it is a country clergyman.” A line from Trollope's novel, The Bertrams. Trollope was spot on. This, however, is the story of the Rev. and Mrs. Arthur Whipham of Gidleigh, Devon.

On the edge of Dartmoor, Gidleigh has long been one of the most inaccessible but celebrated beauty spots in the realm. The Whipham family had owned the park property for many years. In 1835, fresh from Oxford, the Rev. Arthur Peregrine Whipham arrived to be the new rector at Holy Trinity.  He resided at Gidleigh Park and spent a considerable sum restoring the church. In 1843, he married Frances Huxham, a solicitor's daughter from Bishopsteignton. Within a decade, they had eight children; alas, the Whiphams were not happy and there were "frequent differences.” 

Amid mutual accusations of infidelity, the Whiphams separated in 1858. He would provide her with a guinea a week. By 1859, however, financial worries arose. A defaulted bond put Mr. Whipham in jail; he had to rent out Gidleigh Park and lived in a shabby cottage on Holles Street in Chagford. Those guineas a week stopped coming and Mrs. Whipham and their youngest child showed up in Chagford. They moved in; he moved out. Frances found the cottage completely unsuitable and instead took rooms at Southernhay in Exeter. The rector, believing that he had left his wife in a perfectly good home, refused to pay the upcharge for Mrs. Sparshatt's hospitality. The landlady sued him for £47, his wife’s room and board for the previous six months.

Mrs. Whipham told the court that she had suffered for years from her husband's "cruel and unmanly conduct." The Chagford rooms were deplorable; he left his wife and their youngest child with neither food nor farthing. None of the local shops let them have any food “on trust,” the Whipham's credit was no good. She was forced to seek better lodgings. She denied any accusations of her immorality, calling them “rumors spread by wicked men.”  

In court, the rector of Gidleigh explained that he had formerly been a man of some means but an unfortunate speculation and ensuing legal problems had forced him to live with the greatest frugality. He was fully prepared to escort his wife back to Chagford that very day. He simply could not live there with her.  

Judge Tyrrell thought that the rector’s decision to abandon his wife and child in such a cottage, without provision or protection, fully justified Mrs. Whipham’s decision to lodge elsewhere. Whether she could have found a place more affordable than Mrs. Sparshatt’s was not the question. The bill was fair and the rector must pay it. 

The landlady was followed into court by drapers and milliners - with more bills. This time, Mrs. Whipham was not successful. “What does a woman living in a farmhouse,” the judge inquired, “need with silk scarves and pearl buttons?” The tradesmen should have known to be cautious, after all, the Whiphams were "notorious over all of Exeter.”


This public rockfight between a clergyman and his wife was an embarrassment to the Church. Trewman’s Flying Post headlined their columns, Scenes of Clerical Life, a wry reference to the new stories from George Eliot. It got worse. In the summer of 1862, Mrs. Whipham was lodging with John Rowe, a Dartmoor farmer, with five sons including 26 year old Philip. The Rev. Whipham had placed "watchers" on the case, and soon, “the local police constable surprised the paramours in bed together,” in the rectory!

The proceedings in Divorce Court were brief. Mrs. Whipham chose not to deny her "unlawful intimacy" with young Rowe. Several of the Gidleigh “observers” came to London to delight the court with the required salacious details and the decree nisi was issued. Soon after the divorce the Rev. Whipham left Gidleigh church. Attendance at his services had been very poor for some time. According to one of the clerical guidebooks of the day, Holiness in the Priest’s Household is Essential to Holiness in the Parish, Whipham had signally failed. "The Clergyman and his house is as it were a light placed in the parish."

The Whipham story is excerpted from my book, Blame it on the Devon Vicar, a collection of stories of Victorian clerical scandals published in 2008. The book is available here.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

A Woman Who Has Done Me Grievous Wrong

Queen St, Derby (St. Michael's) [PicClick UK]
On Sunday, March 27, 1881, the Rev Thomas Howard Twist MA, vicar of St. Michael's church in Derby, did not preside. His curate relayed the vicar's thanks for the great support throughout the parish during his recent "affliction." As everyone knew, the Rev. Mr. Twist had just been arrested in connection with one of the strangest clerical scandals of the period.

Just 36, out of Cambridge, Twist had been vicar in Derby for five years. He was an excellent preacher and published devotional books and music. Alas, his personal life had not been a happy one. His first wife died within a year of their wedding. He then married Emily Harding, a surgeon's daughter. After a difficult pregnancy and childbirth, Emily was diagnosed with puerperal mania and placed in an asylum by order of the Lunacy Commissioners. The decision had occasioned a great deal of bitterness between Rev. Twist and Mrs. Harding, his widowed mother-in-law.

The child had survived and, for some time, Mrs. Harding lived at the vicarage with Mr. Twist and her granddaughter. But in 1880, the woman found some letters the vicar had exchanged with a "young lady" in his  congregation. The letters - according to Mrs. Harding - suggested that the vicar considered himself engaged to this new lady - though his poor wife, of course, was still alive. There was a last dispute and Mrs. Harding took the child and went home to Buxton. Word of all this soon got out and Twist traced the gossip back to Mrs. Harding. In February 1881, she received a telegram from Col. Delacombe, Derbyshire's Chief Constable, advising her to hold her tongue. He threatened her: "You have been making trouble and my evidence is strong against you. My advice is be quiet or I must arrest you." Mrs. Harding consulted her nephew, a London solicitor, who wired Delacombe for an explanation but received only a curt reply: "Mrs. Harding has done too much in Derby and her course and yours is to be quiet." 

When Col. Delacombe was finally made aware of the telegrams (and others) sent in his name, he denied writing any of them. The Rev. Mr. Twist was arrested at the seaside in Cromer, where he had gone "for his health." He wrote to Delacombe, pleading, "For God's sake, stop the case." He admitted all. "I was persuaded to frighten a woman who for years has done me grievous wrong. The cause lies in a very sad trouble and the sooner the case is over the better for all of us."

This naturally caused a great sensation in Derby. Mr. Twist was only charged with a misdemeanour: fraudulently intercepting a telegram. His defense was funded by supportive parishioners; his counsel argued that the clergyman was guilty of nothing more than "a stupid practical joke" on his bothersome mother-in-law. At the Derby Quarter-Sessions, clerks and messenger boys were subjected to an excruciating discussion of postal regulations and procedures. In the end, the vicar was acquitted but the finding was not universally accepted. The Derby Mercury thought that Twist had "committed indiscretions which have not only brought great humiliation upon himself but have inflicted injury upon the Church." Plainly, Twist would have to resign his vicarage and he did, a decision which reportedly "afforded intense relief to the minds of Churchmen." He also was sacked as the chaplain at a local training school for governesses. 

As for public opinion, Twist seems to have retained a good deal of support. Notwithstanding, he left Derby but was unable to find regular church employment for some time. Eventually, he wound up in the Blytheswood section of Glasgow as a minister with the Episcopal Church in Scotland. He outlived his mother-in-law but not his poor wife, who lived another forty years. 

St. Michael's church in Derby has been redundant since 1977. The building (circa 1858) has survived several "permissions" to tear it down and has been recently remodeled for office space.

Should you enjoy such stories, please consider Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Vol 2, available exclusively here. Thank you.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

The "Reverend Scamp" Elopes

Holy Cross Church, Uckfield, East Sussex
The Rev. William John Thomas Hill Brooks-Hill brought that magnificent name to the Sussex town of Uckfield in 1877. Newly ordained from Durham, he had come south to be a curate at the Holy Cross church. The rector was the aging Rev Mr Cardale, who'd been there for over thirty years. Uckfield was a considerable and growing place but - according to an 1877 guidebook - "there is not much to see." Even the old church was built of plain stone which the rector had recently touched up "in what was intended to be Gothic style." Thus, it was probably no surprise the young curate didn't stay long, leaving Uckfield in 1879. What was surprising, however, was that he left in the company of "a rich widow lady," abandoning his young wife. 

“For some days the village has been in a mild state of commotion,” reported the Times of London. The woman was never publicly named but in the National Archives divorce records, she was identified as “Emily ----- Duncan, a widow.” The couple was last seen October 13 at Isfield station, the nearest stop on one of the branch lines of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Earlier that day, on some pretense, Rev. Brooks Hill borrowed £50 from Bannister, the grocer. Days later, Bannister received a wire from the curate announcing that he would not be returning to Uckfield and, to cover his loan, he authorized the grocer to sell all his property and effects.

The wire had come from Clapham Rise in London. With that information, Inspector Peerless of the Sussex Constabulary went to the capital and eventually traced Brooks Hill to a two-room flat on Warwick Road in Pimlico. The woman in the case was released but the curate was returned to Uckfield to be charged with "deserting his wife, whereby she became chargeable to the common fund of the Union." On October 30, Rev Brooks Hill was sentenced to the maximum penalty: three months at hard labour in Lewes prison.


Apparently, the "reverend scamp," as one of the papers had called him, had soon repented of his action and wished to return to his wife, Mary, and leave the country. Mrs. Brooks Hill, in fact, dropped her divorce petition and became the leader in a letter writing campaign to the Home Secretary seeking her husband's release. She insisted that he had not left her destitute and was therefore not guilty of the charge brought against him. Her petition, at first, was unavailing. She was supported by many parishioners; more letters followed . The advocates made clear that "although the moral impropriety of his conduct cannot be defended," Mr. Brooks-Hill should not be in jail for it. The Home Secretary was assured that the curate's wife was “thoroughly satisfied that her husband’s repentance was not only sincere but deep and heartfelt, and that she was quite prepared to leave the country with him as soon as he was free.” On December 16, a month early, Brooks Hill was released and met at the jail gates in Lewes by his forgiving wife. 
Despite the somewhat romantic ending (except, perhaps for the widow Duncan), Brooks Hill's conduct was widely condemned as “a great scandal to the Church and to society.” In Uckfield, the community rallied round their old rector who had been greatly distressed by the whole affair. Rev. Cardale remained there until his death in 1893.

As expected, Mr and Mrs Brooks Hill left England for Canada, settling in London, Ontario, where he found employment as a teacher of classics at Helmuth College. It seems as if the scandal of his Sussex escapade had not followed him. By 1881, he was once again a practicing clergyman. From 1888 to 1911, he was the rector of St. John the Evangelist, the Anglican church in London (Ont.) The present rector, the Rev. Lyndon Hutchison-Hounsell, kindly sent me the details of Rev. Hill's tenure.

Another Victorian clergyman sent to jail, the Rev Richard Marsh Watson, was not released early from his prison sentence. His story can be found in Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Vol II, available only thru amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. 




Tuesday, February 26, 2019

The Pre-quel: Slander the Midwife

As a young clergyman, the Rev Gordon James Henry Llewellyn served the Free Church of England, a strict and evangelical offshoot of the state church. In 1888, he was ordained in the Church of England and spent the next decade ministering amongst the "necessitous poor" in London's East End. He'd been chaplain at several schools, workhouses and infirmaries and, since 1894, he was vicar of St. Matthew's on the Commercial Road in Stepney. 

Among his duties was to serve as director of the Tower Hamlets Dispensary and Infirmary in White Horse Street. Founded in 1792, and supported entirely by charitable donations, the facility served roughly 4000 patients per year, with admission by recommendation only. Depending upon the size of their donation, supporters received a certain number of passes to allow the needy to use the infirmary. The services available included beds for maternity; there were attending physicians and a team of certificated midwives headed by Dorothy Coulton.

In 1896, the vicar and Coulton fell out over her willingness to receive young unmarried women. Llewellyn believed such cases, many of which were of the very poorest classes, were best sent to the local Union. Further, he suggested that her open door policy was "lending itself to the encouragement of sin."

Returning from a holiday, Coulton was stunned to learn from one of the other nurses that the vicar had been talking about her in her absence. He had joked that she was "off on her honeymoon with Dr. Huddlestone," the local medical officer. MRS Dorothy Coulton went to the directors for an explanation. In a stormy session, Llewellyn explained that he'd merely repeated gossip. He never believed it. Then why hadn't he stopped it, she demanded to know, adding. "I have a great mind to resign." To which, the vicar replied, "I think you'd better." The directors were agreed but she left with a small testimonial and a solid reference. 


Mrs Coulton began to attend some private patients but when they were referred to the infirmary, they were turned away. Word got back to her that the Rev. Llewellyn had discouraged at least one woman, telling her that Mrs. Coulton had been dismissed from the Infirmary because she was not a fit and proper person. The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand are a long way from Stepney but in March 1898, before Mr. Justice Grantham, Mrs. Coulton sued the Rev. Mr. Llewellyn for slander. 

In his defense, the vicar of Stepney denied ever making any slanderous remarks. He had always had the highest opinion of Mrs. Coulton's abilities. As for her soul, well, he admitted falling out with the chief midwife primarily because she didn't go to church regularly and gave him only the vaguest excuses. As for the unmarried women, he did not object as long as the women were members of the parish. All the decisions regarding the treatment of enceinte women were as directed by the policies of the St. Matthew's Maternity Society, he insisted.

The jury found for Mrs. Coulton but probably for a much smaller sum than she had been seeking. She was awarded just 20 pounds.

The Rev. Mr. Llewellyn remained in Stepney, both at St. Matthew's and the Dispensary, until 1905. The church and dispensary are both gone today. Mrs. Coulton was soon employed as chief nurse at the Croydon Infirmary.

Map courtesy of the National Library of Scotland (https://maps.nls.uk)

Volume 2 of Clerical Errors, A Victorian Series is available here.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

A Curate Caught Off Guard


St. Michael & All Angels, Great Torrington
The North Devon town of Great Torrington is “pleasantly seated on a bold eminence.” From Castle Hill, the eye can follow the winding wooded banks of the river Torridge. Just below the hill, you will find the celebrated Great Torrington Common. 

On a summer Monday in 1879, the Rev. Herbert Oldfield Francis was out walking on that common. He had been curate at the parish church of St. Michael's since 1876. Mr. Francis was the son of a prosperous London industrialist. He was 40, married and the father of three. On his ramble that day, he happened to meet Miss Lucy Jones. He knew Lucy well; her father was a physician who worked with the curate at the town's workhouse. It also happened that Rev. Francis's wife was also a doctor's daughter and she and Lucy were great friends. 

Wouldn't you know there was a fourth person on that common that day? A passerby, who knew the Jones family, came upon the scene and thought it worth mentioning to Lucy's father. Things quickly spun out of control. The doctor went to the vicar. Rev. Francis, having presumably explained all of this to his wife, also went to the Rev. Buckland. The curate swore to his innocence. He said he had acted out of shock and weakness when he gave the money to Balkwill. Gossip was now rife and - after enquiries from the Bishop’s office from Exeter - the Rev. Francis brought charges against William Balkwill for “making a threat with the purpose of extorting money.” 

Torrington Common covered – and covers still – over 365 acres of rolling terrain. This meeting between Mr. Francis and Miss Jones took place in an area later described as “a hollow or a gully.” They were there for some little while. And, they were being watched. William Balkwill was out hoeing turnips on the Common that day. He was 27 with no record for being a troublesome sort. Nevertheless, once the Rev Francis and Miss Jones parted, Balkwill approached the young woman to make some remarks of a "coarse nature." She cried out and the curate, within earshot, hurried back. Francis insisted that the man's disgusting comments were falsehoods. Balkwill, however, thought the townfolk would have an interest in his story. Rev. Francis, in a moment he would later regret, gave the man a half-crown. "Not enough," was the reply; so, by agreement, the two men met that evening when Francis paid him another half crown. 

In late September, the Great Torrington Petty Sessions at the Guildhall were “crowded to its utmost capacity.” The Rev. Mr. Francis recounted the events of that day five weeks previous.  On the common, he'd taken a circuitous route looping around a cricket game when by "merest chance" he saw Miss Jones. They met in a slight hollow but were never out of sight of the players and others. They briefly chatted as friends will do. When Balkwill suddenly appeared and began making vile accusations, Francis admitted that he was “thrown off my guard as anyone would have been.” He regretted making the payments but did it to preserve the honour of Miss Jones.  

The counsel for Balkwill, Mr. Bencraft of Barnstaple, questioned the curate closely. Wasn't it true that the gossip about his coziness with Miss Jones pre-dated the commons imbroglio? Francis denied it but he did admit that, on one occasion, he went with Lucy by train to Exeter. His wife wasn't present but the train and the city were quite crowded and they returned separately.   

Lucy Jones, described in the papers as a woman “of some personal attractions," firmly denied any improprieties had occurred that day or ever. Mr. Francis was simply a family friend. But Bencraft was up again. Wasn't it curious, he said, that by merest chance, the two had met in a hollow, surrounded by great ferns. Miss Jones had no recollection of the ferns. 

The law precluded Balkwill from giving evidence. The closing arguments were brief. Francis' lawyer called Balkwill an "enemy to society." From the other side, the whole matter was described as nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. The worldly Bencraft suggested that married men are seen talking to women all the time. If word gets out, they get no more than "a wigging" when they get home. It had to have been something more than that for Mr. Francis to be willing to pay for silence. In the box, Rev. Francis had said that he was caught “off guard.” A strange phrase to use, Bencraft closed, if your conduct had been totally blameless.

Balkwill had a great deal of support in the public gallery. The family was a numerous one, During the testimony, the magistrates were frequently forced to silence the "lustily expressed manifestation of feelings of many in the room." The deliberations were brief.  Mayor Mallett declared that owing to the contradictory evidence, there was no reason to send this matter on to the assizes and Balkwill was ordered released. 

The Rev. Mr. Francis had been left in a most awkward position. He stayed in the town for a few more months but the rural dean finally urged him to go. He found it difficult to secure church employment, eventually preaching to railway navvies building the London-Brighton line. In 1883, he died in Streatham, leaving a widow and five children. 

Of course, the scandal had reflected as much on Miss Lucy Jones. In 1884, after five years of presumed public rehabilitation, Lucy married Rawlin Buckland, one of the vicar’s sons.  

William Balkwill's story is interesting, as well. In 1889, Parliament formalized the status of Torrington Common and authorized the establishment of a Board of Conservators.  One of the first to serve was William Balkwill who continued to have an interest in whatever people were getting up to on Great Torrington Common.


The Torrington Common story was told previously in my collection of clerical scandals set in Devon. See Blame it on the Devon Vicar (Halsgrove, 2008).

Thursday, January 24, 2019

The Scandal in Hanging Heaton

The village of Hanging Heaton in West Yorkshire gets its macabre name not from the gallows but from its topographical position on a steep hillside. The village is old, the pinnacled church of St. Paul's is recent - built in the 1820's. The Rev. Stephen Mathews had been vicar there since 1840.

In the summer of 1851, Mr. Mathews had reason to complain to the local magistrates that some lads had been throwing stones at him. In Hanging Heaton, the vicar had been the subject of gossip.  - not helped by the fact that his wife and children had moved to York. Worse, however, was the tale told that he had fathered an illegitimate child with a village girl of 16.

His position had become untenable and Mathews was required to attend the Dewsbury magistrates court where Mary Halliwell, "a widow's daughter with pretty features" gave her evidence in a modest manner. As a girl, she'd been taught by Mathews at the village school. As a teenager, she was a  "paid teacher." Mary claimed that she and Mathews had been involved for two years, having intercourse on several occasions and she gave birth to their son that May. As was ever the case, Mary Halliwell's innocence was attacked. She indignantly denied being intimate with any other men but there was contrary testimony. Mary was called a "liar and a strumpet." The law required corroboration; without any, the magistrates dismissed the charge. The Rev. Mathews left court, although serenaded with hisses and groans from the dissatisfied public. 

The magistrates, as was the custom at the time, included many clergymen. Pressure mounted and the case was called a second time. Some workmen claimed to have seen Mathews and Mary go into the schoolroom and draw the shades. Mary brought to court several gifts she testified receiving from the vicar. Again, the magistrates declined to act. 

The dispute had reached far beyond a small village. The Leeds Mercury called the action of the magistrates "perfectly inexplicable." The Rev. Mathews had been with this simple young woman "at unseasonable hours, in unfrequented places and in unseemly familiarity," conduct that was "totally inconsistent with his character as a clergyman and a gentleman."

The Bishop of Ripon, at last, agreed to name a commission of clergymen to review the case and Mathews agreed to refrain from his duties in the meantime. The clerical panel concluded that there was enough evidence to recommend the Bishop to take action. In March 1852, in Ripon Cathedral - Mathews was ruled guilty of the foul crime of adultery and deprived of his incumbency and its emoluments.

Mathews departed Hanging Heaton, leaving his former parish sharply divided. Many still believed him to be innocent of the charge against him. After some clerical inactivity, Mathews found new church employment as a curate in Zeal, Wiltshire. He died in 1866, having been rector of Bartlow in Cambridgeshire.

Clerical Errors - A Victorian Series, Vol II is available here.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

A Diabolical Slander


Photograph by Dicky King
In 1872, the Rev John Goodwin had been five years the vicar of St. Mary's in Moston. It was a new church built to serve a growing working-class suburb out the Oldham Road, northeast of Manchester. The bishop was then pleased to offer Goodwin the vicarage in Denton, a larger parish nearby with a higher salary. But Goodwin hesitated, finally explaining that he could not in conscience accept the appointment owing to scandalous allegations made against him by a married woman in Moston. Although he insisted the charges were totally false, he lost the Denton opportunity. Goodwin was told that he had take legal action to clear his name or face a church enquiry.

The Rev Goodwin was 37 and married, He and his wife Ellen were originally from Leek. In St. Mary's parish, there lived a glass-cutter named Henry Standishstreet, with his wife Mary-Ellen and their four children. Henry, to rise in his trade, needed to improve his numbers and the Rev. Mr. Goodwin had been working with him and, as a result, he spent a lot of time in the Standishstreet home. The clergyman was greatly troubled when a friend came to him to report that Mrs. Standishstreet had been spreading the tale that she and the Rev. Goodwin were carrying on something like a torrid love affair.

Confronted, Henry Standishstreet was profusely apologetic; he simply could not control his wife's tongue. He would publish an apology in the Manchester papers. But no advertisement ever appeared and the Standishstreet family abruptly left Moston. In their absence, the Rev. Goodwin was left to file a slander suit against Mary Ellen Standishstreet.

The case was heard before a special jury at the Liverpool Assizes. Several Moston residents, men and women, related the stories they had been told by Mrs. Standishstreet. She had claimed that first, upon a chance meeting in a country lane, Mr. Goodwin took indecent liberties with her. He begged to be allowed to come to her. The very next day, under the cover of his "tutoring," when her husband was at work and the children were playing below, he called and they went up to the bedroom and committed adultery. A neighbour, John Sykes, a clerk, told the court that Mrs. Standsishtreet began keeping an almanack marked with "ticks" on each day she'd supposedly made love with Mr. Goodwin and, the witness admitted, the markings were numerous. Why would she be saying all this if it wasn't true? Sykes testified that Mrs. Standishtreet had developed an intense dislike of Mrs. Goodwin and her supposed "airs." The vicar's wife was a "proud, stuck up woman" who needed to be brought down and she would be the one to do it.

The Rev. Goodwin took the stand to deny, of course, all the claims made by his absent accuser. He acknowledged that Mrs. Standishtreet had been "spitefully disposed" to his wife for reasons he never quite understood. Because of her false charges, however, he had lost the opportunity for advancement in his clerical career. Mr. Justice Lush denounced the missing defendant, describing the case as among the "most damaging and diabolical slanders" that ever came before him. Though there was no chance that Goodwin would ever see a single farthing, the jury awarded him the hefty sum of £1000 in damages. 

Mr. Goodwin's career survived the scandal. The following year, the Bishop of Manchester presented him with the rectory and parish church of All Souls, Manchester. As for the Standishstreets, they can be traced to America, where he found employment in the glass business - with or without any better handle on his sums - in Cambridge near Boston, Massachusetts. 

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