The Henson Journals

[33]

Saturday, October 27th, 1923.

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The Diocesan Conference was mortally dull. My own speech was no exception. It bored me, and no doubt also my hearers. In the afternoon session the proceedings were lightened by a tragic episode. An old stout lady from South Shields had some kind of seizure, & was removed with the disturbance inseparable from that process. The dullness of his subject, Dilapidations, was not to be conjured away even by the skill with which the Archdeacon of Oakham handled it. In the desultory discussion of the Electoral Rolls, nothing was more conspicuous than the evident dislike with which the clergy regard the Enabling Act.

After tea at the Castle, I returned with the Bishop–designate of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich to Auckland. After dinner I had much talk with him on ecclesiastical matters. He asked me many questions as to episcopal work, and disclosed a mind very candid & unsophisticated. He likes the Bishop of Peterborough but does not approve his flirtations with the Anglo–Catholics. He says that Woods is a man of moods, rather than of intellect, a facile speaker with strong sympathetic leanings towards Socialism. In spite of the decision of the National Assembly to divide the diocese of Winchester the new Bishop is going to live in Farnham Castle!

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