The Henson Journals

[19]

Thursday, June 10th, 1920.

A sheaf of congratulatory letters! The Press–cutting Agency proprio motu sends an article from the Yorkshire Post, with a column of biography!!

My successor–elect, having set Bateman's mind at rest, went off in the course of the morning. I motored to Yockton, & there instituted Chitty, the new Rector. The church was filled with people from Hanwood, the parish he had left, & the new parish in which he was starting. The whole company were entertained at tea afterwards. General Headlam & his wife (née Wilkinson) were there. Philip James acted as Registrar for his father. After taking him & young Chitty (who was returning to Oxford) in [to] Shrewsbury, I motored to Cound Hall, where I had accepted the hospitality of Mr & Mrs McCorquodale. The house bears the date 1704, and is an excellent example of the Queen Anne style. We walked for an hour in the gardens, which are extensive & well–kept. On every hand there are tokens of opulence. Mr McCorquodale, I gathered from his conversation, is a large paper manufacturer, & bought Cound Hall some years ago. He & Fielden (who in like manner bought Condover) are locally known, he told me, as the two fools of Shropshire, land–purchase being accounted in the present state of the world the height of folly! The Vicar of Cound, Lombard & his wife, came to dinner, & some neighbours, Colonel Ramsden (?) & his wife. The son & heir arrived on a motor–bicycle from Liverpool. His conversation was, perhaps, more dogmatic than became his years, for he is not yet 23 years old, if I understood his father rightly.

---