The Henson Journals

[137]

Saturday, June 3rd, 1922.

I looked an old Whitsuntide sermon, & revised it for use tomorrow in S. Anne's. Stephenson went back to Gateshead about 11 a.m. William motored him there, & went on to Newcastle to buy a set of bowls! I wrote to Headlam, inserting a copy of my letter into this journal.

After lunch Caröe and I motored to Lanchester, where we visited the church, and he took some photographs. I was more than ever impressed by the dignity and beauty of the building. The country everywhere is amazing in its opulent & vigorous loveliness.

On my return to the Castle, Mr Milner who for the last 8 months has been doing the duty at Pittington, where Hughes has broken down so calamitously, came to see me. I suggested the possibility of his going to South Hylton: but I think the old gentleman dreams of Pittington!

Then 4 citizens of Auckland came with the plan of a town memorial to the fallen soldiers, & requested me to give them an inscription for it! I promised to send them something. It will at least be short enough.

When these gentlemen had taken their departure, I went into the garden and played bowls for an hour with William.

After dinner I walked in the garden with Caroe, who expounded to me the evil effects of ivy on walls. The poisonous parasite thrusts its roots into every crevice, which becomes through its action a depository of water, & thus susceptible to the weather. I thought the aesthetic services of the plant compensated for its material ravage!

[138]

June 3rd, 1922.

Dear Mr Lee

The wages paid to my servants – 7 male & 6 female – now amount to £864 yearly. The half could therefore be £432. Rates & House Duty amounted to £293.3, of which one eighth is £35.12.10 1/2 . The cost of the Motor car, exclusive of the chauffeur's wages, has certainly reached £350. My chaplain, who acts as my secretary, receives £150 with Board & Lodging worth £100 more. Stamps & Telegrams will not exceed £50: & Diocesan Expenses (Examining Chaplains £10.10.0. Bibles & Greek Testaments for Ordination Candidates £22.2.0. Crockford & Kelly's Directories £3.16.0) £36.8.0

Ought there not also to be included a claim on account of the Insurance of the Castle & the Plate £64.14.8?

The figures marked in pencil on the Income Tax Claim appear to be correct: but I don't know what the item "Queen Anne's Bounty (under Gilbert's Acts) £50" refers to.

However I have signed the papers.

Yours sincerely

Herbert Dunelm:

[139] [symbol]

June 3rd, 1922.

My dear Headlam,

I have read your memorandum with much attention, and am glad you have drafted it. It expressed my own mind very fairly on almost every point raised.

Dibdin ought not to have been on the Committee. Both his record and his temperament disqualify him. The first gives him a properly irrelevant parti. pris viz: the defence of all hazards of the Ecclesiastical Commission in its constitution, methods, and present policies. The last makes him pertinacious & tiresome to an inconvenient extent. His place shd. have been in the witness's chair, & nowhere else.

I am entirely agreed as to the soundness of strengthening the diocesan unit, and the wisdom of giving increased powers to the diocesan boards. I do not think the large question of raising the incomes of the parish clergy can usefully be dealt with until we have a clear knowledge of the number of independent cases to be provided for, & what resources from endowment are available. Dibdin's slap–dash method of accepting the existing parishes, & raising them all by small progressive increments seems to me unintelligent, wasteful, and incapable of rational defence. If any considerable amount is to be raised by way of voluntary contribution to the increase of clerical stipends, I judge that a settlement of the question of what cures are really necessary is primary & unavoidable. People will not contribute to keep clergymen in evident idleness.

I think the Funds of the Eccl: Com: ought to be administered with a due regard to their origin, & to all the needs of the Church. Dibdin assumes that the parochial clergy have an indefeasible moral title to all the surplus left over when the sums now provided for bishopricks & cathedral bodies have been set aside. He treats the early Victorian arrangements as forming a 'law of the Medes & Persians' immutable through all time. I hold him to be mistaken. In my judgment the first charge on the episcopal & capitular properties is the due provision for the episcopate & the cathedral Foundations: & only the surplus left over when this provision has been made is in my judgment rightly available for parochial purposes. That first charge was defined with reasonable care by the early Victorian arrangements: but these arrangements are now quite inadequate. It is a matter of evident wisdom that they shd. be revised, & if such revision be not legally possible at present, I shd. press for an alteration of the law.

The whole subject of the Episcopate needs thorough examination. To what lengths the advocates of small bishopricks can go, you may see from the enclosed article by Lord David Cecil. [141] I am at present, & the more strongly as I get a larger acquaintance with episcopal work, definitely opposed to the fashionable policy of multiplying bishopricks.

Generally, I shall gladly give you all the support in my power.

Yours aff.

Herbert Dunelm:

Welldon is really not a fully responsible creature. He is a grave embarrassment.

To the deathless Memory,

of the Men from this

town (of Bishop Auckland)

who fought and fell in

the Great War (1914–1918)

their fellow citizens,

proud and grateful

have dedicated this

Monument.

Something of this kind might suffice: or even more shortly it might run. "To the Men of Bishop Auckland who fought & fell (for England) in the Great War (1914–1918) their fellow Citizens have dedicated this Monument".

---