"She never more will return."

“If there be any man to whose happiness marriage is more necessary than to that of another, it is a country clergyman.” Trollope wrote that in The Bertrams, one of his many novels that chronicled the Victorian clerical world. Certainly, it was always for the best when marital harmony reigned in the village rectory, if only as an example. In the course of human events, however, it is not always possible. 

One Sunday morning in August 1871, the Rev Richard Hull, longtime rector of All Saints, in the Bedfordshire village of Stondon, stood in the pulpit to announce that his wife of 25 years had gone to London. "She never more will return." In such a small place as Stondon (Upper and Lower), the news would not have been totally unexpected. The rector invited anyone who wished for an explanation to meet him in the vestry on an appointed night that coming week. 

James Long came out that evening. A man of considerable wealth & position, Long farmed more than a thousand acres in Henlow, a village some distance away. Though not a parishioner, his late brother had been a churchwarden in Stondon. The Longs, as a family, were clearly partisans for the absent Mrs. Hull. Before the vestry audience, Long asked the rector, "Are you aware" of the various bits of gossip in the village? Was it true that Mrs. Hull could no longer tolerate her husband's drinking and physical abuse? What of the rumours linking Mr. Hull with two village women, including a former servant. So rife was that talk, Long predicted the rector would likely be the victim of "rough music," the typical rustic way of taunting suspected adulterers. 

According to his Bishop, the rector's domestic unhappiness was no one's business and the vestry meeting had been a terrible mistake. However, with such serious accusations made public, Rev. Hull would have to answer them or resign. A slander action was filed against James Long. 

At the 1872 spring assizes at the County Hall in Aylesbury, the Rev. Mr. Hull stood in the witness box. He couldn't deny the latter years of his married life had been miserable. His wife neglected the proper running of their household, whilst her extravagance and love of fancy company far usurped his income. They quarreled frequently; she was “one of the worst tempered of her sex.” They had agreed a separation was for the best; he would continue to support her and the children. Hull believed Long's real intention was to have the rector removed and replaced by his own son "who plans to go into the church." Under cross-examination, Hull admitted he had struck his wife, once or twice. As he put it, "I boxed her ears." He denied being drunk several nights a week. In fact, he hadn't been drunk since 1839. He and Lucy Cooper, the former housemaid, now a married woman, were just old friends, she helped cleaning the church, etc. He did not know that some believed he was was the father of Lucy's first child. He most assuredly wasn't. As for being seen kissing a local woman named Ashby, Hull scoffed, "We're like brother and sister." 

The defendant, James Long, told the jury his entire role in Stondon was driven solely "out of pure friendship" for Rev. Hull. Personally, he didn't believe any of the gossip but the rector needed to know the rumours generated by his indiscreet conduct. It had gotten to the point that some of the locals were planning for "rough music," which in Stondon's version, would have involved pelting the rector with "dinosaur dung," from a local coprolite mine!  

After several hours of testimony, the jury foreman rose to say they had already formed their verdict. Apparently, Chief Baron Kelly had too. "If you think, as I do not hesitate to say that I think, that the object of the defendant was to induce the plaintiff to pursue a course which should not lead to the increase and exacerbation of these unpleasant rumours, then nothing that was said is actionable." The verdict for Long quickly followed. The courtroom was filled by locals who made the journey and cheered the result.

Despite Rev. Hull's courtroom defeat, the general takeaway was that all the rumours and gossip about his private life had been debunked. He returned to Stondon rectory. His first wife died rather suddenly. Waiting the proper interval, the rector remarried a solicitor's daughter. They soon had two young children capering about Stondon rectory where the Rev Mr. Hull remained until his death in 1890.

No dung was flung at Mr. Hull but other clergymen were treated to some "rough music." The Rev. Mr. Howes of Bracknell, for instance. For more, see my earlier published collection Clerical Errors, Volume 1. Only Kindle editions are available. Thank you.