The Henson Journals
Mon 26 November 1923
Volume 36, Page 72
[72]
Monday, November 26th, 1923.
The bitter weather continues, & the sky is cloudless. After breakfast the Wynne–Willsons went off to Sunderland. I celebrated the Holy Communion in Carissima's room. It being William's Birthdays, I gave him "Martin Chuzzlewit". I ran through the latest statistics of clerical incomes in my diocese, and found that of the 265 benefices
11 were above £1000 net
49 were above 500 net
114 were above 400 net
185 were above 350 net
245 were above 300 net
20 were under 300 net
Do these figures really bear out the tragical statements as to clerical poverty so often made in Church Assemblies? How far is Durham better endowed than the rest?
If the endowments were equally divided every incumbent would receive a net income of £444. If the episcopal income were added there would be about £17 added.
Beyond walking in the Park with the dogs during the afternoon, I stayed in my study, & muddled away the time in letter–writing and reading Byron's Letters. It is always difficult to determine the evidential value of private letters, & in the case of so morbidly egotistic a poseur as Byron the difficulty is particularly great. He was posing to others, and, which was still worse, he was posing to himself. Hence the saving factors in his experience & in his own nature were never able to come into play.