Hale is a pretty little place close to Liverpool and now in Cheshire, although traditionally located in Lancashire. Without doubt though, its most famous son is John Middleton, the ‘Childe of Hale’.
Click on the video above to discover the story of the Childe of Hale
Visiting the village recently I made this video to record the story of John Middleton who was said to have been 9 feet 3 inches tall, so tall that at night his feet were said to protrude out of the windows of his house.
John Middleton’s house
His life story is bound up with that of Sir Gilbert Ireland, whose body guard he was, and through whose connections he visited Brasenose College, Oxford and was presented to King James I in London.
Brasenose College, Oxford which has a number of portraits of John Middleton and still names the eights boat of the rowing club ‘The Childe of Hale’.
Modern statue of the Childe of Hale by Diane Gorvin
Although the village pub is named after him it used to be that there was a lot less visibly connected to him there, apart from his grave. Nowadays there is a plentiful supply of plaques and notices and a more than life size statue. But his grave is still the object of everyone’s visit to Hale. Strangely lettered the inscription reads, once you have worked it out, ‘Borne 1578 Dyede 1623 Here Lyeth the Bodie of John Middleton the Childe Nine Feet Three.’ Locally, in recent decades, he was always more associated with Speke Hall because his most famous portrait was long displayed there, but he had no direct connection with Speke Hall. The Ireland family, the local landowners whom he served, lived at the long demolished Hale Hall.
The grave of the Childe of Hale
Hale Hall, now demolished
Hale still has its Manor House, which once inspired John Betjeman to verse, and the local church is well worth seeing but you can hear the full story of the Childe of Hale by clicking on the video at the tope of this page.
The Manor House, Hale
St Mary’s Church, Hale with John Middleton’s grave in the foreground
Until 1867 there were two Unitarian churches in Dublin. Both could trace their history back to at least the mid-seventeenth century and both had a succession of distinguished ministers and comprised congregations that had a significant role in Dublin life. After the restoration of 1660 the English Independent and Presbyterian clergy who had occupied the prime positions in religious life in Dublin during the Cromwellian interregnum were removed from their posts. This really was the start of the congregations of Wood Street, which later moved to Strand Street and ultimately to St Stephen’s Green, and New Row, which later built a new church on Eustace Street in 1728. In 1867 the congregations of Eustace Street and St Stephen’s Green amalgamated at St Stephen’s Green and have been a single congregation ever since. But the building on Eustace Street remained, for most of its history being used by Brindley’s the printers, and it is still there today, although today it is really little more than the façade.
The history of this building deserves to be better known and properly understood. I first went to see it in the early 1990s when it was empty but looked intact and was still recognisable as an old meeting-house. I took this picture which was published in the Inquirer at the time.
Within a few years, however, the whole area around it in Temple Bar underwent massive refurbishment and changed from a run down backwater to a busy cultural quarter. In about 1995 the building was turned into the Ark, a children’s theatre space.
The meeting-house today
Undoubtedly this is a good use for the building although it is a shame to think that so much of the original building had to be demolished to allow it to happen. Only the façade and the two side walls remain from the building of 1728. All the rendering from the old building has been removed to expose the brickwork both inside and out. But it is still a very impressive building.
One of the two entrances to the building
Christine Casey, in her book Dublin in the Buildings of Ireland series, says of the building: ‘The C18 facade is a handsome essay in retardataire Carolean classicism…A red-brick two-storey six-bay front with entrances in bays two and five and large segment-headed sash windows.’ It’s always good to see a bit of retardataire Carolean classicism. But it is a very fine frontage and even if the rest of the building is gone, it remains as an impressive testimony to the people who built the church.
Not everyone approved of it when it was built. According to Thomas Witherow a Quaker remarked (there was also a Quaker meeting-house on the same street) that ‘When there is so much vanity without, there cannot be much religion within’.
Visiting Eustace Street over the summer I took some pictures of the interior. We can see the bare brickwork which once echoed to the sound of the sermons of such luminaries as John Leland and James Martineau.
Upstairs window brickwork
Looking through one of the downstairs windows
Apart from the windows there is nothing remaining that tells us how the interior of Eustace Street looked. However, about 110 years ago the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian magazine published two engravings of the interior without giving any source for these interesting views. The first showed the position of the pulpit.
The Eustace Street pulpit as it may have looked
The foyer of the building today
The windows that look on to Eustace Street are topped by a gentle arch but according to the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian images the now demolished windows at the back of the building were flat topped. At the back of the church there was a gallery which housed a clock and the organ.
The organ and gallery of Eustace Street as they looked before 1863
When Eustace Street was built times were difficult for Dissenters, they could frequently be the target of violent attacks, and from the earliest days there was a wall in front of the meeting-house. At some point before 1835 this was changed to the low wall and attractive railings which still stand there to this day. But neither the walls nor the railings were of much use when James Martineau added his name to a declaration in favour of Catholic emancipation which resulted in the windows being smashed by a mob.
The wall and railings today
It is good that this much has survived and that the space is obviously put to such good use. However, there has not always been such a clear understanding of the historical place of the meeting-house. Not long after the Ark was opened in 1995 members of Abbey Presbyterian Church were invited to hold a special service on the premises complete with baptisms of children as a way of connecting with the original history. This was a nice thing to do but rather misunderstood the nature of the history of the premises.
Inside the foyer today
James Martineau was ordained in this meeting-house on 26 October 1828. Back in 1992 I contributed an article to the Inquirer entitled ‘Martineau’s First Ministry’. If you would like to read it click on this link: Martineau’s First Ministry
Recently, when in Oxford, I visited the Christ Church Picture Gallery where one of the exhibitions, entitled ‘WISH YOU WERE HERE!‘ (1 July – 30 October 2023) The attraction of Christ Church in early photographic postcards, caught my eye. It is always interesting (and rare) to see a serious art exhibition that contains items that you could afford to buy yourself. There are around 70 postcards in the Christ Church exhibition but seeing them encouraged me to start my own small collection. Prices can vary but generally cards like this should be quite cheap, they were produced and sold in vast quantities by a variety of printers and are hardly rare. So I decided to create my own small collection and focused on cheap examples of pictures of the West Front/St Aldate’s view of Tom Tower. I picked this view because although every postcard from 1900 to 1950 (or indeed to the present day) looks superficially the same you realise when you investigate closely that this is not the case. Since Tom Tower is situated on a main thoroughfare there are plenty of social changes that can be observed and a multitude of minor small details that are worth exploring in the foreground. I will work out the best way to display these images of the West Front.
But I allowed myself a small diversion into a handful of pictures of Tom Tower itself. Mainly this was because I managed to get one picture that I had seen in the exhibition which must be quite rare and was accordingly slightly more expensive than the others. This is it:
‘Christ Church Oxford under Repair, Aug. 17th 1909’. No publisher named.
I think this is a wonderful postcard. All the pictures of Tom Tower alone, largely taken from over the road, somewhere near the entrance to Pembroke College, are basically the same. There might be a vehicle of some sort somewhere in view, or a bowler hatted figure standing under the entrance to the college, but not much more.
This picture, however, is very different. The publishers give us the exact date and show us Tom Tower, not as you would expect, but covered in scaffolding. If you had turned up in Oxford to do the touristy thing and saw the tower covered in scaffolding I imagine you would be disappointed. I don’t think you would want to buy a postcard that also obscured the view. If you turned up after the work was completed and the scaffolding had been taken away I don’t think you would want to buy a picture of how it looked during restoration, unless you were very interested in scaffolding. It can’t have had a long shelf-life and it can’t have been many people’s favourite view. And yet it is a compelling image, intriguing and lively. I am glad the unnamed publisher took this view and glad to get a copy for my collection.
This card, dated 14th January 1910, was sent by Emily to ‘Mr Hammond, “The Lilacs”, Skipton Cliffe, Andoversford, Glos.’ Mr Hammond appears to have been Emily’s uncle since she also included ‘love to Aunt’ at the end of the message. And it doubled as a birthday card – ‘With every Good Wish for Many Happy Returns of the Day’, she begins. Emily might have been a student in Oxford, she was certainly resident there because she also says ‘I sent you the paper for you to read Mr Whale’s speeches our Liberal Candidate for Oxford’. ‘Mr Whale’ was George Whale who stood in Oxford in the 1906 election and lost by just 100 votes. He stood again in January 1910 but a swing of 6.4% saw him lose by over 1,200 votes to Arthur Annesley his Conservative opponent. George Whale was a freethinker and the chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. A former Mayor of Woolwich he was never successful in getting elected to Parliament.
But this was the card that Emily chose to send to her uncle for his birthday along with news of the freethinking candidate on the eve of the election in Oxford. It was, I think, an inspired choice.
‘Tom Tower Christ Church, Oxford’. Published by Vincent of Oxford. Posted 4th September 1915. Sent to Mrs Ewan Jones of Cricklewood by ‘All’, they were planning to drive to Oxford ‘with little Julian’ in the afternoon.
The other postcards of Tom Tower are all difficult to date precisely, especially when they were unposted, but they were mostly taken before the First World War, although similar examples could remain in print right up to the 1940s.
‘”Tom” Tower Christchurch, Oxford’ by J. Salmon Ltd., Sevenoaks. Unposted.
‘Christ Church, Oxford’. Published by Penrose and Palmer. Posted by Dorothy to Mrs England in Acocks Green, Birmingham on 12th November 1926.
This last photograph, published by the local firm of Penrose and Palmer, is another favourite of mine. The road is wet after a downpour and the photographer has caught a reflection of the building in the road. It’s a fine photograph. It falls somewhere between the direct images of Tom Tower on its own and the wider (landscape) views of the whole West Front but it is actually a more characterful and interesting picture than most of them.
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This memorial near Liverpool’s Pier Head is dedicated in honour of the Heroes of the Marine Engine Room. It is often referred to as the ‘Titanic Memorial’ because the original intention was to commemorate those lost in that disaster. The RMS Titanic was registered in Liverpool and the headquarters of the White Star Line was not far from the Pier Head, indeed the building is still there to this day. Although the Titanic didn’t visit Liverpool there were many local connections with the ship and there are a number of Titanic memorials in the city to this day.
But the original idea of the memorial was to commemorate the 244 engine room staff who remained at their post after the ship struck the iceberg on 15th April 1912 keeping the ship’s systems running as long as possible to help people escape as the ship sank.
However, by the time it came to be erected, two other major naval disasters needed to be commemorated. The first was the sinking of the Empress of Ireland which was another Liverpool-registered ship which had regularly made the crossing from Liverpool to Quebec between 1906 and 1914. On 29th May 1914 it sank after a collision in the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River with the loss of 1,012 lives. The next year, during the First World War, another ship with very close Liverpool connections was sunk by a German U-boat on 7th May 1915. This was the Lusitania which was sunk about 11 miles off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,201 lives. It was a brutal attack on a passenger ship which also included a number of American citizens at a time when the United States had not yet entered the war.
The Memorial to Heroes of the Marine Engine Room in front of the Liver Building
So when the memorial was unveiled in May 1916 it was dedicated to ‘All Heroes of the Marine Engine Room’. It was designed by Sir William Goscombe John and is seen as one of the first memorials to commemorate the heroism of working men who are depicted on the memorial. As Terry Cavanagh puts it in his Public Sculpture of Liverpool it is ‘a rare example in Liverpool of the commemoration not of a single, high-ranking individual but of the “ordinary” workers of the city’.
The west face of the memorial: Two engineers, one holds a stoking-hatch lever and the other a spannerFigures on the east face: Two stokers, one holding a cloth, the other a shovel. The four figures above, on the corners, represent the elements and, at the very top, four female figures represent the sea
Something like £4,000 was raised from donations around the world before August 1912 to build the memorial. When it was finally unveiled on 9th May 1916 it was done with very little ceremony although it still attracted large crowds, many of them mourners of people who were lost on the Titanic and the Lusitania, although by then the intention was to honour all maritime engine room fatalities incurred during the performance of duty.
Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War
Many more memorials have been added to the Pier Head since the Second World War including the Merchant Navy War Memorial (Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War), the Merchant Navy Memorial dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives in both World Wars and have no other grave than the sea, and an area with a succession of memorials of sailors of different nationalities who served in the Second World War including Belgian, Dutch, Chinese, Norwegian, and Polish merchant seamen and other servicemen and women. In addition there are plaques remembering the sinking of the SS Arandora Star, torpedoed off the coast of Donegal in 1940 with the loss of over 800 people, mainly non-combatants; HMT Lancastria which was sunk while evacuating servicemen at St Nazaire on 17th June 1940 with the loss of about 6,000 people (said to be the worst disaster in British maritime history); and a memorial to the ships that repatriated 20,000 people held in captivity in the Far East up to the end of the Second World War.
Merchant Navy MemorialIn memory of members of the Polish Navy and Polish Merchant Fleet
Video: The Royal Liver Building clock strikes 4 o’clock
I was pleased to be present for the inauguration of the new statue of Frederick Douglass on Monday, 31st July 2023. I only found out about it by chance but it was good to be there for the formal recognition of Frederick Douglass as part of Belfast’s history.
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in February 1818, on Holme Hill Farm, near Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. Although slaves were not supposed to be taught to read he was taught the alphabet, taught himself to read and developed a life-long reading habit.
In 1838, at his third attempt, he successfully escaped from slavery and managed to get to New York where he married Anna Murray (1813–1882) of Baltimore. He became a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and an associate of William Lloyd Garrison and an activist in the anti-slavery movement.
The Lord Mayor introduces the speakers
In 1845 he published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the first of three volumes of autobiography, and became so prominent in the anti-slavery movement that threats were made against him which led to him travelling to Britain and Ireland on a speaking tour. He spent two years speaking all over England, Scotland and Ireland. In Dublin he shared a platform with Daniel O’Connell and British supporters raised $700 to buy his freedom in the United States. This in itself was controversial as many thought it wrong to give any recognition to the idea that a human being could be bought or sold as someone’s property.
Some of those present
In the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, during his speaking tour:
He filled public halls, private homes, chapels, and churches, his audiences sometimes numbering thousands, and he often spoke on different subjects at more than one meeting a day. As well as making the abolitionist case, he spoke on women’s rights (he felt that he could not accept the vote as a black man if it was denied to women), temperance, land reform, education, and capital punishment, issues on which he never ceased to agitate.
Alan Beattie Herriot, sculptor
Of his time in Belfast he wrote:
I shall always remember the people of Belfast, and the kind friends I now see around me, and wherever else I feel myself to be a stranger, I will remember I have a home in Belfast.
Words which are among those inscribed on the plinth of his statue.
At the opening of the statue Professor Christine Kinealy said that in Belfast he spoke in Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church. But this is ambiguous because there were then three churches on Rosemary Street, two non-subscribing and one orthodox. The booklet available at the opening also suggested that he spoke in First Church on Rosemary Street. In fact he spoke at the meeting-house of the Second (Non-Subscribing) Congregation which stood behind First Church and was finally demolished in the early 1960s. He was granted the use of the meeting-house of the Second Congregation on 7th December 1845 ‘to lecture on behalf of the Anti-Slavery Society’. But it is very fitting that he should have such a fine statue erected in his memory so close to Rosemary Street.
The view looking towards Rosemary StreetLooking down Lombard Street
You can’t help but be impressed by Coventry Cathedral, impressed because everything is given such height. The entrance area that connects with the old cathedral; the glass entrance screen featuring angels and saints; the baptistry window; the Chapel of Unity; Graham Sutherland’s tapestry of Christ in Glory; the walls themselves – everything is so high. And it is all so redolent of the cutting edge of art in the mid-1950s. Of course, absolutely every building can only reflect the times it was built in but I think for a building as important as a cathedral some attempt at transcending the contraints of the present day are necessary. Now I may be very naive to imagine that a medieval Gothic cathedral ever did this, or any other type of cathedral for that matter, but if you want to be pointed to some deeper experience of the divine through the medium of a building you need something that says more than ‘This is 1954’ writ large. Even Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, which speaks volumes for the 1960s and the heavy constraints placed by money and circumstances on building a cathedral by that date, still communicates very well a more profound encounter with the truly spiritual.
Coventry Cathedral has developed a living and active ministry of reconciliation which has reached out to the whole world. Its response to the horrors of the blitz and the destruction of the old cathedral has been an inspiration to many. But as a visitor to the building, a very occasional one, I am never really sure how to respond.
The thing I remember most about visiting as a child is Jacob Epstein’s figure of St Michael conquering the devil. I think I found it a bit unsettling as a kid and I am not sure I feel any better about it now. What is it meant to communicate? Of course, I know literally what it is meant to mean, but what did it say to the world in 1962 when it was unveiled? And what does it say now? Outside the cathedral there is a slightly cloying poster which stresses the extent of the welcome given to visitors but what the ‘keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegans, junk food eaters…those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or are here because granny is visiting and wanted to look round’ will make of Epstein’s work is a difficult question. Cutting edge art of the 1950s has now become the imagery of horror, fantasy, comic books, movies, cartoons and anime. Does anyone feel liberated by seeing St Michael with swan’s wings getting one over the character from Hellboy? One thing we know for sure today is that evil in the world does not take that form.
But some parts of the cathedral are breathtaking. The baptistry window, designed by John Piper, floods that part of the building with an explosion of light and colour. Again its immensity hits you full on.
The same is true when you look back at the entrance screen with its dozens of ascending figures flying up in front of the old cathedral.
Again part of this is the scale, and the combination of massive candlesticks, the very high choir stalls and the stained glass that is only visible when you look back from the altar all contribute to this impressive immensity.
Even what might be termed the brutalist elements of the structure continue to impress. The wall that lets light on to the chancel and the tapestry has a grandeur and a solidity still, but if it had been placed out of doors in a housing estate or in a car park or shopping centre it would have had to have been demolished years ago:
The focus of the cathedral is Graham Sutherland’s tapestry of Christ in Glory. Once again this is so impressive because of its size; a massive tapestry, woven by hand in a single piece, weighing around a ton, it’s a remarkable piece of work. Standing between Christ’s feet is the figure of a man, emphasising humanity’s smallness before the grandeur of God.
The great height is continued in the Chapel of Unity
but not so much in the Chapel of Christ the Servant which is lined by walls of plain glass, giving a brightness and an openness to the chapel. When I was there a very moving exhibition of quotations from letters home from Indian soldiers serving in the First World War was on display, one on each window.
The Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane is also different, it resembles a cave and the sculpture on the wall by Steven Sykes shows Jesus being ministered to by an angel. It is viewed through a crown of thorns.
The ruins of the old cathedral emphasise the horrors of the blitz
and fittingly a memorial records the sacrifices of those who served on the home front in the Second World War.
One of the few things to survive the blitz in the old cathedral is the tomb of Bishop Yeatman-Biggs, the first Bishop of Coventry. He holds a model of the cathedral and, curiously, his mitre includes a swastika in its decoration. The guide book doesn’t call it a swastika but names it as a fyflot. But as the guide book also says this was an ancient religious symbol, used in different cultures before it was adopted by Nazi Germany. But it does look strange on his mitre and it has gradually become shiny as generations of visitors have pointed to it in shock or surprise.
As a building it is somewhere that I find impressive and intriguing. It does represent a positive response to the horrors of war and an affirmation that faith can overcome suffering and reach out where there has been hatred, and this is all for the good. Parts of it are wonderfully impressive and uplifting but I can’t say that, as a building, it really speaks to me in the way other cathedrals do. But it will always communicate a certain kind of optimism and fortitude that came out of the immediate post-war period.
The latest issue of Faith and Freedom (Spring and Summer 2023, Number 196) is now available and will be with subscribers. New subscribers are very welcome, details of how to subscribe can be found below.
Elmina Castle, Ghana (Photo: Aidan McQuade)
The cover picture features a collection of shackles used on slaves in Elmina Castle, Ghana, a photograph taken by Aidan McQuade who contributes our first article – Ireland – slavery and anti-slavery.
Cover picture – Photo Aidan McQuade
Aidan McQuade is a former director of Anti-Slavery International and has worked extensively in development and humanitarian operations, including leading Oxfam GB’s emergency responses to the civil war in Angola from 1996 to 2001. He writes of the horrors of the slave trade looking through the lens of Irish involvement and noting also those individuals who contributed to anti-slavery activism in the eighteenth century.
He writes:
“Over hundreds of years slavery devastated the African interior as wars and raids, encouraged by the European powers, kidnapped millions of people, many of them children, to feed the demand from the Americas for human beings who could and would be worked to death to produce cash crops, mostly for European markets.
As with today, it is easy to ignore the exploitation that occurs within the political economy – the systems that govern business, trade and employment – when the are concealed far away from us.
So, when it was first brought to public attention by Thomas Clarkson, the image of the Brookes ship shocked the world. It presented in stark detail a visceral reality of the slave trade: how slaves would be packed like sardines into the holds of the slave ships. Clarkson’s friend and comrade in the anti-slavery struggle Olaudah Equiano had direct personal experience of being treated as this sort of cargo and he described it in his auto-biography”:
…we were all put under deck …The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, … but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, … almost suffocated us. … many died, …. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the [latrine buckets], into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable… Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites.
The door of no return, through which slaves would leave Elmina Castle for the slave ships. (Photo: Aidan McQuade)
John Maxwell Kerr, is a founder member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. His paper, originally given at Harris Manchester College, examines The Search for Meaning in Nature. It is a wide-ranging and deep study using the author’s knowledge of science and religion, incorporating all the riches of literature and poetry, and reaching a surprising conclusion.
Rev John Maxwell Kerr
Barrie Needham’s article on ‘De-churching’ or To the church no more looks at patterns of belief and church attendance in the twenty-first century. What can churches do to overcome these tendencies, what do they need to offer?
Rev Frank Walker
We have an inspiring sermon by Frank Walker, Outlooks on life that still challenge and encourage us, and Graham Murphy provides a review article and essay on Matthew Teller’s valuable book Nine Quarters of Jerusalem, A new Biography of the Old City, which gives such insight to this troubled city, Graham writes:
“In his book about the Old City he describes a place we can visualise, though we may never have been there. We see in our minds eye a golden Dome set within castellated walls as if true to the plans in history books and illustrated bibles. How we imagine Jerusalem is freighted with biblical notions which Teller’s book tends to undermine with doses of reality. He draws our attention to lesser-known aspects of the city’s past and finds himself fascinated by the religious rituals. He interviews the people who live and work beside the pilgrim routes and sacred sites. He shows us how they regard their city, how they cope with its recurrent crises and the lack of rights for the majority who live there.”
And as ever we are blessed by some wonderful reviews. In this issue we feature:
Facing up to Climate Change
Mike Berners-Lee, There Is No Planet B – A Handbook for the Make or Break Years. Cambridge University Press, 2021 (updated edition) pp 316. ISBN 9781108821575, £9.99 pbk. Gaia Vince, Nomad Century – How to Survive the Climate Upheaval. Allen Lane, 2022, pp 260. ISBN 9780241522318, £20.00 hbk. Greta Thunberg, The Climate Book. Allen Lane, 2022, pp 446. ISBN 9780241547472, £25.00 hbk. Reviewed by Professor David A. Williams
A ‘warts and all’ attention to church history
John W. Nelson, A Short History of the Non-Subscribing Church of Ireland including sketches of individual congregations and a Fasti of ministers who served in them, published by The Rev Dr J.W. Nelson, 2022, pp 420, ISBN 9781739978501, £15 hbk. Reviewed by Philip Blair
Praying to an ‘unknowable God’
Bert Hoedemaker, Never-Ending Prayer – A Case for the Christian Tradition. The Lutterworth Press, 2022, pp 136. ISBN: 978 07188 96027, pbk £20. Reviewed by Jim Corrigall
Rev Jim Corrigall
and
Eavesdropping on fascinating conversations
Philip Allott, The Music of Time: Twenty-Four Fables for Today, Matador, 2022, pp 408. ISBN 9781803132228, £7.99 pbk. Reviewed by Frank Walker
Subscription Details
An annual subscription for each volume (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:
Nigel Clarke, Business Manager, Faith and Freedom, 16 Fairfields, Kirton in Lindsey, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. DN21 4GA.
It was good to be at the Old Students Association meeting at Harris Manchester College, where some of the images of contributors seen above were taken. And good to see Rev Dr Peter Godfrey, Editor Emeritus of Faith and Freedom.
On Saturday afternoon, 10th June 2023 a very large congregation assembled at Dunmurry to dedicate the special memorial to their late former minister the Very Rev William McMillan, MBE, MA.
The Rev Mac was minister at Dunmurry from 1970 to 2016 and continued as minister emeritus until his death in 2020. He was also a leading figure in the world of floral arrangements and horticulture and the congregation wished to create a lasting memorial that reflected this achievements.
The Garden was created and designed by Frances Gibson (centre left)
At its centre is a beautiful piece of art made for the Garden by Cork sculpture Tim Mulchinock
Members of the McMillan family unveiled the plaque at the entrance to the Garden, cut the ribbon to the entrance and unveiled the sculpture.
Click on the video below to see the short service in the Church followed by the opening of the Garden.
With thanks to Emma for filming and uploading the video
Below is the text of the address given in the Church by the Rev Dr David Steers:
We are to here to celebrate and commemorate a much-loved minister of this church whose work had such a positive and joyful impact not only here in his church – where he ministered for 50 years -, but in his denomination, and in churches of every conceivable denomination, and not only here in Northern Ireland, but across Ireland, across the British Isles and across the world. He was a minister, a pastor, a preacher, a writer, an expert on church history, all of which made for a most full, multi-faceted ministry that touched so many people.
That in itself would make a day like today such an important and right thing to do but beyond that he had another level of creative achievement that extended his ministry far and wide to so many people, so many groups, so many organisations in so many different countries.
Famously John Wesley, the great founder of the Methodist church, is said to have declared that ‘The World is my Parish’ by which he meant that wherever he was he felt compelled to promote the gospel. But the same thing could be said of the Rev Mac, I think the work which he did in the floral and horticultural worlds was an extension of his ministry, all his work was based on an appreciation of the glory of God’s creation and a desire to describe and explain it to everyone. His unique creativity was borne out of a deep recognition of the beauty of creation, as we heard from the reading before from the book of Genesis where at God’s command The earth brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind. Or as the RSV has it The earth brought forthvegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit. It was this raw material of grass, plants, flowers, leaves, trees and all the wonders of the natural world which Mac took to express God’s love.
Something which he did with such sensitivity and understanding and, with a preacher’s skill, he was able to turn into such eloquent sermons of truth which went ‘beyond mere words’.
So when his church wanted to build some kind of memorial to the Rev Mac there were lots of ideas, lots of suggestions and lots of possibilities. But in the end the decision was taken to create a memorial that was living and vibrant, something natural and also lasting. So we will today dedicate to the glory of God the Very Rev William McMillan Memorial Garden. Created just yards from here and I want to thank all those many people who have had a hand in shaping it but say thank you particularly to Frances Gibson who has designed it. And thank you to Tim Mulchinock the sculptor who has created from beaten copper the centrepiece which is also entitled, like one of Mac’s books, ‘Beyond Mere Words’.
The garden, in the grounds of his church, rich in plant life, living as part of the natural environment with a wonderful piece of art at its centre, is truly a fitting memorial to the Rev William McMillan. Someone whose whole lifetime was devoted to communicating God’s word in all that he did. Someone who, as we heard before from the reading from Acts given to us by Jane: For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord.
The Garden before the unveiling
Sheila and Tim just before the unveiling
Refreshments in the McCleery Hall afterwards
Memorial plaque
Some of the floral decoration in the Hall created by Elma McDowell
The grounds of the First Presbyterian (NS) Church, Dunmurry look particularly impressive at this time of year as the various plants come into bloom. At the moment the azaleas look especially attractive, most notably the well established orange one flowering at the front of the church.
It struck me as something worth catching on video with perhaps an appropriate reading or two. So as well as some lines from Wordsworth I read part of the ‘Litany of Faith’ found in Orders of Worship.
Orders of Worship was published back in 1932 and is possibly mostly forgotten these days. But it has many virtues whether updated into contemporary language or read in the traditional form in which it was written, which still give it value today. ‘A Litany of Faith’ is part of the Fifth Service and can be found on pages 56-57.
Click on the video above
The music is provided by Allen Yarr, our church organist.
As we prepare to mark the Coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, 6th May 2023 I thought I would have a look at some of the ways Non-Subscribing Presbyterians have celebrated previous Coronations over the last 120 years.
Looking through the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian magazine for 1911 (the journal began publication in 1907) I could find little direct reference to congregational celebration. There was plenty going on in the churches in June 1911 but in terms of special services or special events there is not much record of specific events.
However, there certainly was a lot of interest and this video explains some of it:
Coronation celebrations by Non-Subscribers in 1902 and 1911
Filmed at First Dunmurry (NS) Church the video includes music played on the piano by Allen Yarr, the church organist, including Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.
In 1911 the magazine gives a hopeful editorial about the new reign as well as an account of the meaning of the Crown. It also describes the Royal visit to Ireland just a few weeks after the Coronation in July 1911. This was to be the last visit to Dublin by a reigning monarch until the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 2011. While he was in Dublin a loyal address was presented to the King on behalf of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland.
The main focus of the video though is the contribution of the Rev J.H. Bibby, minister at Ballee from 1884 to 1935. Originally from Warrington he was a member of a family connected to the ceramics business which no doubt helped in his gifting to the Sunday School and members of his church of commemorative mugs:
Ballee Commemorative Mugs
The Rev Joseph Henry Bibby was educated at the Unitarian Home Missionary College from 1880 to 1884 and spent the whole of his long ministry in Ballee, where he was closely involved in local life. He was a generous benefactor to the church and on his death left many of his books to the Unitarian College as well as his collection of ceramics and glass to Warrington Museum. Some of what he donated to the Museum can be seen in the video above.
Rev J.H. Bibby
What makes his gifts of the Coronation mugs stand out is that they are lithophanes, that is they contain an image impressed in the porcelain which can only be see when held to the light. Here’s the image of Edward VII as seen in the 1902 mug:
Edward VII as he appears on the Ballee mug
Many subsequent students at the Unitarian College, Manchester also had reason to thank J.H. Bibby because he bequeathed a sum of money to establish a prize for New Testament Greek. For those who could master the intricacies of Greek there was at least the reward of a small prize at the end of the course if you could prove your proficiency, and we have Joseph Henry Bibby to thank for that.
velvethummingbee 