velvethummingbee

Posted on January 16, 2016 by David Steers · 2 Comments

Chowbent Chapel

The building of Chowbent Chapel in 1722 speaks volumes for the determination of Lancastrian dissent in the early eighteenth century. Having retained possession of the chapel of ease after the ejections of 1662 it wasn’t until the 1720s that the local landlord managed to expel dissenters from the essentially Anglican chapel, allegedly because of the part played by the minister ‘General’ James Wood and his congregation in suppressing the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

The eighteenth-century three decker pulpit

The new chapel was built on land owned by the Mort family who appear to have been generous supporters and benefactors and who had a great importance in Lancashire non-conformity in general. But the chapel, to me at least, always has something of the sense of a fortress about it – the solid, square walls, the ancient oak pillars, the studded door into the church, the large memorial to ‘General’ Wood above the pulpit.

But it is also full of interesting details that would be easy to miss. There is a large amount of stained glass but I had forgotten about the appearance of an image of the chapel itself in the window depicting Jesus and the children. The three decker pulpit is incredibly impressive and with the traditional pulpit cushions very much looks the part still. You can’t miss the pulpits and reading desk but you might miss the small section of panel cut out from behind the top pulpit. Here it was said they had to make space for the door to open wider in order to admit the well-fed frame of the Rev Thomas Belsham when he visited in the nineteenth century!

The Victorian stained glass window featuring the picture of the chapel

It has been some years since I was last at the chapel and I had a recollection of seeing the grave of the Rev John Taylor laid flat in the grounds of the chapel. John Taylor being the first Tutor in Divinity at the Warrington Academy. But this is not the case – John Taylor is certainly buried there but his gravestone was removed when the front of the church was extended to make way for the organ and vestibule in 1901. There is however, a touching memorial to him and his wife.

The reason for my visit in January was to be part of the congregation to celebrate 25 years of ministry by the Rev Brenda Catherall and I was delighted to play a small part in that special service. Brenda has been minister there since 2007 following ministries in Bank Street, Bolton and Monton and has given 25 years of devoted service to the Unitarian ministry and touched the lives of a great many people through her outstanding work. There is something so appropriate about her ministry in the congregation in which she grew up and which has always had a special place in her affections.

The chapel encapsulates the proud tradition of dissent and non-conformity in the town and it is so encouraging to see the congregation in such good heart and in such good hands.

The studded door from the vestry to the chapel

Posted on January 14, 2016January 14, 2016 by David Steers

Ordination and Induction at Ullet Road

It was a tremendous privilege and pleasure to take part in the induction and ordination of the Rev Philip Waldron as minister of Ullet Road Church, Southport and Wirral Unitarians as part of the Merseyside Partnership at Ullet Road on Saturday, 9^th January.

It was an impressive service that drew on the traditions and ethos of Unitarianism on Merseyside and which resonated effectively with the august building that is Ullet Road Church. It is testimony to the high regard in which Phil is held by his colleagues that so many ministers took part and that so many people were present. The music supplied by the organ and the singing by the choir Liverpool Voices were also of a very high standard and added greatly to the service.

Refreshments after the service in the hall

Ullet Road is certainly one of the most remarkable sets of buildings within the Unitarian tradition in England and ranks highly amongst all branches of dissent. The hall, designed by Percy Worthington and built slightly later than the Church at the start of the twentieth century, is a delight in itself. On occasions such as this (with appropriate winter decorations left over from a wedding) it really comes into its own with the feel of something like a medieval hall, not least because of the open fire that provides such a focus.

The fireplace in the hall which stands beneath the Arms of Sir John Brunner and Sir Henry Tate

In the course of his own statement Phil quoted the Rev Stanley Mellor, the highly successful minister of Hope Street Church in the first half of the twentieth century, which encapsulates some of his own aspirations for ministry:

“[the purpose] of the Christian religion, is the awakening of the soul to the discovery of its own eternal character, the conversation of the heart to knowledge of its other-worldly destiny and duty.”

The congregation are much blessed to possess such a building that reflects this quest so effectively and Merseyside District can look with satisfaction upon such an auspicious start to a new ministry.

Posted on December 31, 2015January 6, 2016 by David Steers

Some corner of a foreign field

The Faith and Freedom Great War project continues to expand and now contains around 75 separate items. One recent addition is the video made in 2014 by John Featherstone with input from Peter and Kath Faulkner, the then minister, the Rev Patrick Timperley, and members of the Old Meeting, Mansfield as a tribute to the memory of the war dead of their congregation in the First World War.

Some twenty-two chapel members are listed on the war memorial as having given their lives in the First World War. As other churches have done in this time of the centenary of the Great War the current congregation have researched the lives and circumstances of the men who were killed and tracked down the last resting place of each one of them. The Mansfield folk have also gone one step further and visited the grave of each soldier wherever that was possible. In 2014 a group of Mansfield members travelled to each grave or memorial of a chapel member and placed a poppy there while speaking the words:

We place this cross in thanks and in memory of….a brave son of Mansfield, whose name lives on, and is recorded on the wall of the chapel he attended.

The whole project was also recorded and can be seen on a beautifully put together video. As is so often the case with such research it is deeply poignant. Many of the soldiers were very young, their ages are given on the video along with their address and pre-war occupation – miners, colliery men, a pork butcher’s assistant, a hosiery hand, a farm labourer, and so on. Where there was no known grave the group from Mansfield visited the memorial – such as those at Thiepval and the Menin Gate – which bears the name of those killed in those battles and they placed their poppy there. They visited all the soldiers’ graves and memorials in France and Belgium. One soldier was killed in Iraq and his grave lies in the Baghdad North Gate War Cemetery, he was remembered by a poppy being placed on the Iraq Roll of Honour in the head office of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maidenhead.

In carrying out this act of remembrance they followed in the footsteps of others from the chapel who had gone before. One mother whose young son was killed at Ypres visited the battle site with a party of bereaved mothers in 1920. She returned with a stone from the ruins of Ypres which was incorporated into the wall of the chapel as a memorial.

The circumstances of all the soldiers who were killed were traced, with the exception of one who proved elusive yet is still remembered, as the video says. The grave that is closest to home is in Nottingham Road Cemetery, Mansfield. Here was buried Ernest Davenport a private in the Notts and Derby regiment. Aged just 20 when he died, before the war he had worked in an iron foundry. He had been wounded in the Easter Rising in Dublin and had died of his wounds on 28^th May 1916. It was at his grave, near the anniversary of the outbreak of the war one hundred years before, that the chapel members as a whole gathered for an act of remembrance of all those killed.

The video can be viewed here:

The Faith and Freedom Great War Project can be visited here:

http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/GWindex.htm

The detail at the top of this page is from the Cenotaph, Liverpool, designed by Lionel Budden and Herbert Tyson Smith.

Posted on December 18, 2015 by David Steers · 3 Comments

Blue Plaque for the Rev Henry Montgomery

A good number of people braved winter weather, heavy traffic and seasonal busy-ness to attend the unveiling of the Ulster History Circle Blue Plaque commemorating the Rev Henry Montgomery (1788-1865) on the walls of his old meeting house in Dunmurry on 18^th December 2015. Appropriately enough the unveiling was done by the Very Rev William McMillan, Henry Montgomery’s successor for 45 years and undoubtedly the person most knowledgeable about his life and career.

People gather outside the meeting house in anticipation of the unveiling of the blue plaque

The premises and grounds of Dunmurry have always been immaculately kept and the meeting house provided a very suitable space for the speeches immediately after the unveiling. This has been a year of commemoration marking the 150^th anniversary of Henry Montgomery’s death and, as Ian Crozier observed in his speech, the Ulster Scots Agency had assisted in the republication of Bill McMillan’s booklet on Montgomery, A Profile in Courage, first published fifty years ago and still the most useful introduction to his life and work.

As was also pointed out in the speeches this is not the first blue plaque to a Rev Henry Montgomery (the other one being the founder of the Shankill Road Mission), and it is certainly not the first blue plaque for a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian, but I think it is the first blue plaque for a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian minister (although at least two sons of the manse have already made it onto a blue plaque).

Rev Mac unveils the plaque

In his speech the Rev Bill McMillan quoted comments made by the Banner of Ulster, a newspaper not sympathetic to Montgomery’s religious position. At the time of his death it said:

Never did his powers of eloquence shine out more conspicuously than when he was denouncing tyranny, in other lands or his own; or pleading for the rights of humanity. He contended that a man’s religion should never subject him to penalty or inconvenience and he claimed liberty alike for Protestant and Catholic, for Christian, Jew and Deist.

Very much a pioneer and champion of what today would be called human rights it seems fitting that he should be remembered. Henry Cooke, his old opponent, after all has a prominent statue, Henry Montgomery certainly deserves his plaque.

Rev Henry Montgomery (1788-1865) . Minister, teacher, reformer

Posted on December 10, 2015 by David Steers

Faith and Freedom, a journal of progressive religion

This latest issue of Faith and Freedom has a special cover. Taken from the above photograph by Márkó László it shows a scene from a Thanksgiving celebration at the Unitarian congregation in Oklánd, Hargita county, in Transylvania. This is a first for Faith and Freedom and ties in with a number of reviews in the Autumn and Winter 2015 issue which deal with the faith and practice of the Hungarian-speaking Unitarian churches in Romania. Márkó László’s photographs very effectively capture something of the cultural identity of the Unitarian folk there as well as their deeply held faith. There are more of his pictures in the 2016 Calendar.

The cover of the Autumn and Winter 2015 issue of 'Faith and Freedom', Vol. 68 Part 2, Number 181 — The cover of the Autumn and Winter 2015 issue of ‘Faith and Freedom’, Vol. 68 Part 2, Number 181

Once again Faith and Freedom itself contains illustrations this time with a portrait of founding editor Eric Shirvell Price found inside and a photograph of the Rev Percival Godding, whose account of his time as a prisoner of war during the First World War also features.

An annual subscription costs £15 per annum (US $30 in the United States and Canada) and you can pay by post or online via PayPal. All details can be found on our website at:

http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/

The cover of the 2016 'Faith and Freedom' Calendar - 'Faith in the World' — The cover of the 2016 ‘Faith and Freedom’ Calendar – ‘Faith in the World’

If you are an individual subscriber you will also receive a copy of our 2016 Calendar. These are also being sold in aid of the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund. A £5 donation will have one wing its way to you. Again information about the Calendar (and a preview) can be found on our website.

Service of Thanksgiving, Oklánd church, Transylvania (Photo: Márkó László)

Posted on December 4, 2015December 4, 2015 by David Steers

Faith and Freedom latest issue and Calendar

FAITH AND FREEDOM, Autumn and Winter issue, (Volume 68, Part 2, Number 181) will be on its way to subscribers very soon. In it you will find:

Finding God in Strangers

John Navone

On Reading the Gospel of Mark with Two Eyes

George Kimmich Beach

Grace and Disgrace: a Social Pilgrimage

Yvonne Joan Craig

The Unitarians of the West and the Brahmo Samajees of the East

at Manchester College, Oxford 1896 –1948 Part II

Victor Lal

Six Months in a Prisoner of War Camp

David Steers

Manchester College, Oxford during the First World War

Evelyn Taylor

A Bible for Neo-Liberals

Barrie Needham

Bridging the Years in Marriage

Sue Norton

As well as reviews by Pat Frankish, Ernest Baker, Peter B. Godfrey, Lena Cockroft and the editor, and a review article by Graham Murphy on Sarah Shaw, The Spirit of Buddhist Meditation, The Sacred Literature Series, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2014.

Other books reviewed include

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: a Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, SPCK, London, 2014.

Sam Harris, Waking Up: Searching for spirituality without religion, Bantam Press, London, 2014.

Mária Pap, Hungarian Unitarians in Transylvania, 2015.

Zoltán Fülöp, Emőd Farkas (eds.), Humble in Front of God, Words for Worship from Transylvanian Unitarians, International Council of Unitarians and Universalists/Hungarian Unitarian Ministers’ Association, Kolozsvár 2014

Emma Percy,”What Clergy Do”: especially when it looks like nothing, SPCK, London, 2014.

Marcus Braybrooke, Peace in Our Hearts Peace in Our World a meditation for everyday, Braybrooke Press, 2015.

John Pritchard, The Second Intercessions Handbook, SPCK, London, 2015.

Individual subscribers will also receive a copy of our Faith and Freedom 2016 Calendar. These are free to personal subscribers but extra copies can be ordered at a cost of £5 each, all of which goes to the charity the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund.

If you would like a sneak preview of the Calendar it can be downloaded on the Faith and Freedom website.

If you haven’t taken out a subscription and would like to do so you can also do that from the Faith and Freedom website:

http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/

The photograph at the top of this page is a picture by Transylvanian photographer Márkó László who has kindly contributed a number of pictures to the 2016 Calendar.

Posted on November 23, 2015 by David Steers

Fr John Navone’s ‘Theology of Failure’

In the Spring and Summer 2014 issue of Faith and Freedom we were very pleased to have something of a scoop with two articles by Fr John Navone SJ, the leading Italian American theologian whose theology has been acknowledged as a major influence on Pope Francis.

In that issue we were delighted to have John Navone write exclusively about the challenges and priorities of Francis’ papacy. In his first article on the subject for a British or European audience Professor Navone explained the Pope’s interest in his thinking and gave a resumé of his own ‘Theology of Failure’.

Just prior to the Pope’s visit to the USA in September 2015 Fr Navone was interviewed by CNN and featured in a long and thoughtful online article on the CNN website by Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor. The author discusses Fr Navone’s theological influence on the Pope and carries part of the interview with him. In the piece he quotes Fr Navone as saying:

“There was a blessed juncture between my theology and his crisis…It was a kind of light in the darkness to him.”

And among other things himself says:

As it happened, Navone and I spoke on the day Francis made it easier for Catholics to annul their marriages, and about a week after he encouraged priests to forgive women who have had abortions.

Navone and I talked about mercy, and how it’s hard to forgive others if you aren’t intimately acquainted with your own failures. We talked about a Pope who travels to the peripheries because he himself was sent there. And we talked about Francis’ apparent internal freedom, his refusal to resign himself to others’ expectations.

The full article, ‘The Pope’s Dark Night of the Soul’, can be read here:

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2015/09/specials/pope-dark-night-of-the-soul/

Faith and Freedom is also delighted to announce that the Autumn and Winter 2015 issue, due out this week, also carries another timely article by John Navone entitled ‘Finding God in Strangers’.

Faith and Freedom is a print journal but it can be ordered online here:

http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

Posted on November 20, 2015 by David Steers

Faith in the World 2016 Calendar

For the second year running Faith and Freedom is producing a full-colour Calendar in aid of the charity, the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund.

After the success of last year’s Calendar we invited readers to send in their own images celebrating the theme of ‘Faith in the World’. This produced an excellent response with many more pictures being sent than we could use. The Calendar is now ready and will be sent out free to all subscribers to Faith and Freedom. An annual subscription costs only £15 and can be done online here: http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/subs.htm

With the Calendar you not only get the images covering people, places and religious celebrations from all around the world but an extensive record of dates and events covering all major religions and for all sorts of religious occasions and anniversaries in 2016.

A big thank you to everyone who sent in pictures. The volume and quality of images we received was overwhelming, making the final selection a very difficult task. We will try to include a range of images which didn’t appear in the Calendar on our website: www.faithandfreedom.org.uk.We also hope to upload the full Calendar for all to see on that site.

One of the images that we weren’t able to use in the Calendar is this picture, taken by John Hewerdine, of the five mile walk undertaken by Unitarian children each week to get to their Sunday School in the Khasi Hills, India.

Walking to Sunday School, Khasi Hills (Photo: John Hewerdine)

If you are not already a subscriber to Faith and Freedom you can purchase a copy of the Calendar for a suggested donation of £5, all of which will go to the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund to enable it to continue its invaluable work in giving disadvantaged children a much-needed holiday at the Nightingale Centre, Hucklow in the Peak District National Park.

If you would like to order a copy of the Calendar for yourself or for a friend email Nigel Clarke at faithandfreedom@btinternet.com

Posted on November 4, 2015November 6, 2015 by David Steers · 2 Comments

Mill Hill Chapel Cenotaph, Leeds

Back in June I asked the question on this blog whether the Cenotaph outside the modern Bury Unitarian Church which commemorated members of the three congregations of Chesham, Heywood and Bank Street, Bury, was the only Unitarian Cenotaph:

https://velvethummingbee.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/the-only-unitarian-cenotaph/

Neville Kenyon sent a number of photographs depicting the Cenotaph which are now published on the Faith and Freedom Great War Project site:

http://www.faithandfreedom.org.uk/GWindex.htm

Neville wondered if this was a unique memorial in Unitarian church circles and I did suspect that he might be right. However, we can now be sure that it is not unique. The Rev Jo James has sent me some pictures of the Cenotaph at Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds which stands very prominently in front of his grand gothic church in the city centre. All these pictures will also appear online on the Faith and Freedom Great War Project.

Jo tells me that the list of names on the Cenotaph is that of those members of Mill Hill who were killed in the First World War. Inside the church a second tablet lists all those who served (although it does not include any of the female members who served in different ways in the war. An interesting account of the war service of Mary Cicely Wicksteed, one of three sisters from the Chapel who saw service in the war, by Ruth Allison, can be seen here: https://pelicanroad.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/mary-cicely-wicksteed-and-jogendra-nath-sen-and-leeds-pals-by-ruth-allison/).

The memorial inside the chapel (Photo: Jo James)

The names on the Cenotaph are listed in order of rank and include their regiment as well as three additional names from the Second World War. Of the names listed Jo points out particularly the names of Lupton, who lost four members of one family, and Hirsch who lost two members in the two world wars. Jo also mentions that the name listed as Private Sen J. Nath is believed to be the only non-white combatant from Yorkshire to die in the First World War, J.N. Sen was a member of the Mill Hill Chapel Choir and may also have been a member of the Brahmo Samaj. More on Private Sen can be read on Dave Stowe’s interesting blog:

https://pelicanroad.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/pte-jogendra-sen-a-leeds-pal-and-son-of-leeds-2/

The Unitarian Cenotaph Leeds (Photo Jo James)

The inscription at the foot of the Cenotaph comes from the book of Lamentations – Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? It seems an appropriate quotation when one considers the loss of so many young men such as the four members of the Lupton family. The families of all those men listed on the plaque must have reflected on that passage very often, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.

I didn’t know there was a Cenotaph outside Mill Hill Chapel but I had seen one of the names listed on the memorial before. Captain D.P. Hirsch of the Yorkshire Regiment is listed as having been awarded the Victoria Cross. He must have belonged to a fairly staunch Unitarian family because he was educated at Willaston School and his name also appears on that school’s war memorial, an object which was rescued from the school when it closed by the Rev H.J. McLachlan and placed in Harris Manchester College where it can still be seen today:

Willaston School Memorial - now situated in Harris Manchester College, Oxford — Willaston School Memorial – now situated in Harris Manchester College, Oxford

Willaston School only operated from 1900 to 1937 but was a successful small public school that had been set up specifically to educate the children of Unitarian families.

Captain Hirsch’s citation for the VC reads:

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack. Having arrived at the first objective, Captain Hirsch, although twice wounded, returned over fire-swept slopes to satisfy himself that the defensive flank was being established. Machine gun fire was so intense that it was necessary for him to be continuously up and down the line encouraging his men to dig and hold the position.

He continued to encourage his men by standing on the parapet and steadying them in the face of machine gun fire and counter-attack until he was killed. His conduct throughout was a magnificent example of the greatest devotion to duty.

A brief search online shows that David Philip Hirsch’s letters are now preserved in Leeds University. He was only 20 years old when he was killed. He was a star pupil at Willaston School and became the head boy before winning a scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford. After the war his parents paid for a new swimming pool to be built in the school in his memory. It would be interesting to know if the swimming pool (and the memorial chapel) are still preserved on the site of the former school.

This leads on to another question (or questions) – how many Unitarians were awarded the VC in the First World War? Indeed how many Unitarians have been awarded the VC since it was instituted in 1856?

Posted on October 24, 2015 by David Steers

Harvest in Lecale

In October the congregations of Downpatrick, Ballee and Clough all hold their services of Harvest Thanksgiving.

These are always well attended and important occasions and this year was no exception.

The congregations welcome visiting preachers and choirs or other musical groups and this year at Downpatrick the visiting preacher was the Rev Colin Campbell (of Holywood and Ballyclare) and the visiting choir was the Larne Concert Choir.

At Ballee the preacher was the Rev Cecil Wilson (from the local Church of Ireland parishes) and the PSNI Ladies’ Choir the visiting choir.

At Clough the preacher was the Rev Chris Carson (again from the local Church of Ireland congregations) and the choir the Quoile Area WI Choir. The churches are beautifully decorated, often with local produce, and try to express a sense of appreciation for the beauty of creation. On this page are some pictures from this year’s harvests.