The Henson Journals

[320]

Tuesday, October 10th, 1916.

799th day

Old Mr Taylor is full of stories about this College, mostly discreditable. It was he says sweetly (as if the formula had commended itself by frequent repetition & now carried universal authority) "a cage of unclean birds". The ill–conditioned arrogance of Dean Lake, the brutal partisanship of Tristram, the pious humbug of Body, the cynical judgements of Farrar, the impractical rhapsodies of Evans, above all, the serpentine duplicity of Watkins are all blended in an ill–sounding story: and when inquiry is made into the evil legend, there emerges little more than the old continuing grievance of patronage. For the rest there is only the ill–natured gossip of neighbours & inferiors. Yet it is humiliating enough that nothing better than this should be the back–ground of the picture which the present Dean & Chapter are presenting. One thing, perhaps, is worth considering. Bishop Lightfoot filled the livings, as far as he could, with young men whom he had lured from Cambridge to the North. This may have been a wise proceeding, but it could hardly have been popular, and, in point of fact, was bitterly resented by the clergy. When Bishop Westcott succeeded to the see, he observed that "he had never seen so great a number of grey–haired curates": and he, preferring equity of professional administration to prudence of ecclesiastical policy, proceeded to appoint these ancients to the parishes. Hence, perhaps, the nerveless and insignificant character of religion in the diocese. The present Bishop seems to be reverting to the Lightfoot policy of promoting young men, but with this important difference. Lightfoot regarded ability, & ignored youth^fullness^ where he could find ability: his successor reverses the process, & ignores ability where he can discover youth!

[318]

I answered Butler's letter, pointing out the extreme difficulty of producing a sketch of the Warden's life which would be tolerable to the College & just to his many–sided excellence, and also the particular disqualifications which attach to myself as his biographer. I added that, if Miss Anson after weighing the latter carefully, still persisted in her request, I did not feel that I could refuse her request.

Mr Taylor told me much about Bishop Westcott, for whom it is evident that he cherished no very warm regard. He affirmed that during the whole course of his episcopate W. consecrated not so much as a single new church, although the need for increased church–accommodation was urgent and apparent, and several private individuals made offers to build & endow churches at their own charges. But such offers always 'fell through' by reason of the Bishop's dislike of private patronage. He had an idée fixé on the subject of such an arrangement of the churches as would correspond with what he conceived to be the model of the primitive church. Bishop Lightfoot was on good terms with the coal–owners & other employers of labour, but Bishop Westcott could not get on with them, and the diocese suffered accordingly. I was assured that under Lightfoot Watkins reigned – he 'led Joseph like a sheep' as men observed at the time – but that Westcott 'was his own Bishop', and Watkins fell into relative unimportance.

Mr Taylor is learned on the antiquities of his old parish – Sadberge. He says that the Bishop of Durham since the time of Pudsey, who bought the manor, have been earls of Sadberge, & that the earl's coronet on the mitre indicates the fact. The Whale's skeleton in our crypt was a relic of the Sadberge earldom, for the Bishop's right to it was derived from the claim of that jurisdiction.

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