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.