The Henson Journals

[419]

Tuesday, May 7th, 1912.

I attended service in chapel. Stokes breakfasted with me in the Coffee Room. Then I returned to town by the 11 a.m. express. Selbie, the Principal of Mansfield, was in the carriage: we had some conversation on the Disestablishment question. Arrived in Dean's Yard, I found Ernest awaiting me. He went to work on the cuttings–register.

I attended Evensong in the Abbey, when the service was arranged to commemorate the centenary of Browning's birth. A special anthem composed by Parry was sung.

Then I instructed Elizabeth Asquith for an hour. The impudent child asked me whether I would like to be a bishop! This, when a bishoprick is actually vacant, though truly a most uninviting one. Poor Stubbs died at last yesterday, & Truro has lost its 4th Bishop.

[420]

On Saturday, the 11th May 1912, the Welsh Conciliation Committee met in the dining room, and agreed to publish in the papers the resolutions to which they had reached an accord. There was some indignation felt at the action of Baumgarten in breaking away, & letting out secrets.

Then Ella & I went to Cambridge, & put up at St John's Lodge with the Vice–Chancellor. The next day, Sunday, the 12th May, I preached in the Chapel of Jesus College, & afterwards to the University in Great St Mary's. There was a fair congregation of dons, but of under–graduates perhaps 50 or 60. Yet I was assured that this was far above the average attendance, so grievously has church–going declined in the University. After the sermon, we called on the Master of Trinity, and on Mrs Burkitt. Then we had tea with Prof. Bonney, who had collected a party to meet us, including Clarence Stock. We attended Evensong in S. John's Chapel, and afterwards I dined in Hall. There I met Mr Holland Rose, the historian.

On Monday we came away by the 9.45 express, having spent a very agreeable 'week–end'.

[421] [symbol]

Edith Bruce died of heart failure, having had to endure a supplementary operation. The poor woman has been more or less languishing these many months since the former operation. My wife & I travelled to Fairlie on the afternoon of Ascension Day (May 16th 1912), & on the next day, I conducted the Funeral Service. The local Presbyterian minister offered a prayer before the coffin was carried out of the House. The cemetery at Langs is beautifully placed, on the slope of the cliff, commanding the loveliest views of the Great & Little Cumbrae, with the distant Arran hills, & the avenue of islands & promontories which leads to the Kyles of Bute. We returned to London the same evening motoring with Monty Parker to Kilmarnock, & joining the Scotch Mail at Carlisle. We arrived at Euston at 3.50 p.m., & at once drove home, & went to bed.

On Ascension Day, the 16th May, 1912, the 2nd reading of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill was carried by a majority of 81, the final phase of the debate was marked by a characteristic outburst of the Chancellor, in which he fell upon the Duke of Devonshire with much ferocity. There is no real desire that the Bill should pass outside the ranks of the baser–sort of Nonconformist. But the log–rolling necessities of the Government carry it forward as it were automatically.

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Issues and controversies: welsh disestablishment