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| St. Mary the Virgin, Flitcham |
Flitcham is a small village in West Norfolk, "lying in a picturesque valley.” Sounds lovely but when the new vicar, the Rev. Bryan O’Malley, arrived in 1873, he came to an impoverished parish and his church of St. Mary the Virgin in a dilapidated condition. Flitcham is on the Sandringham Estate, then well known as the country seat of "Bertie," Prince of Wales. It infuriated O'Malley that his 'umble flock worshipped in a derelict pile while the Prince's splendid church (St. Mary Magdalene) was rarely used. Bertie's guests slept in on Sundays, exhausted from their “balls and dances, sporting and general frolicking and affected grandeur.”
Not a man to suffer quietly, O'Malley badgered his Bishop, the local gentry and then, "a mad Irishman with a shillelagh," he walked hundreds of miles across East Anglia begging. By 1880, the needed repairs were made, "by the exertions of the present incumbent who literally tramped the country for the purpose."
Understandably, praise poured in for the doughty Rev. O’Malley. Alas, his private life was a disaster. In 1872, he had married Frances Keppel, a clergyman’s daughter. The Keppels, of course, were an historic Norfolk family of great achievements – in the church, the navy and in the peerage. Mrs. O'Malley would later claim that she and her husband quarreled from the outset of their marriage, usually about money. He was obsessed with raising funds for his church but not with feeding his growing family. The O'Malleys soon had several children, to the point the clergyman "prayed to God to give me no more." Their quarrels were frequently violent. Servants told stories of how husband and wife threw anything to hand at one another, knives, hot water, plates, even barnyard “detritus.”
Mrs. O'Malley left him finally but returned when he promised in writing, "I will beat you no more." She even wrote the Bishop saying everything was going to be fine in Flitcham. Of course, it wasn't. The entente cordiale was, predictably, short-lived. A few months later, on 21 November 1880, after a night's snowfall, O'Malley ordered his wife and children to leave the vicarage. The five O'Malleys – without sufficient clothing for the weather, trudged several miles through the snow to the nearest church at Hillington where the rector, the Rev. Mr. Ffolkes, took them in.
The public scandal had gotten out of hand. In 1881, Mrs. O'Malley sought a judicial separation. In Divorce Court, she described her marriage as "a story of continual ill-treatment with periods of happiness." She was supported by numerous witnesses, including some of the children. No witnesses came forward to defend Rev O’Malley who took the stand on his own behalf. He described their marriage as a "love match," which was greeted with laughter and jeers. He admitted to having “hot Irish blood” but his wife was an extremely difficult woman herself. She resented bitterly O'Malley's lowly position. She, after all, was a Keppel and he was nothing. But her marriage vows were clear: "for better or worse." On that snowy night, Rev O'Malley insisted he didn’t order his family away or lock the door behind them. He did not prevent them from getting proper winter cloaks. She left on her own. He heard her say, "Come along, children." She just wanted to put on a scene; it was more of her "airs."
After the vicar's counsel closed his final argument, the jury foreman said they didn't need to hear from Mrs. O'Malley's Q.C. They had made up their minds: Mrs. Frances O’Malley had indeed been the victim of repeated acts of personal violence and was, in their opinion, deserving of the protection of a judicial separation and custody of her four children. Justice Hannen agreed and made the appropriate rulings.
The Rev Bryan O'Malley remained in Flitcham, alone in his vicarage, although his conduct became more and more eccentric. In 1898, he was arrested for being drunk in the streets of Kings Lynn. The following year, the Bishop of Norwich formally deprived him of his Flitcham benefice and "all its emoluments" (however meager). He died in 1909. His wife long outlived him; Frances O'Malley survived until 1931.
Finally, we should note that Queen Elizabeth II has, on occasion, come across the fields from Sandringham to worship at the recently restored Flitcham Parish Church. What would old O’Malley have made of that? The story of the Rev O'Malley was previously published in Blame it on the Norfolk Vicar (Halsgrove 2008).
