The Henson Journals

[178]

Thursday, September 23rd, 1926.

That extremely foolish and unstable youth, Hill, now assistant curate of Ryhope, writes to me an extremely foolish letter delating old Boddy of Pittington for arranging next Sunday evening a "United Holy Communion" as the climax of an "Annual Week of Prayer" in his parish. The same post brought me an epistle from old Boddy himself acknowledging the enormity. I bit off the assistant curate's empty head, and sent a cautious benediction to his victim!

Mr Albert Mitchell tells me that Sir George A. King will move the Resolution anent the Lord's Day, which I drafted (v. p. 159). I suppose it is now inevitable that, if it is moved, I must support it.

Ella and I motored to Stockton in order to lunch with the Mayor and Mayoress (Mr & Mrs Leonard Ropner) and meet Princess Mary who was to open the new wing of the local Hospital. The Ropner clan turned up in force; Sir John & Lady Ropner came from Yorkshire, and Robert Ropner from Scotland. Harold Macmillan the local M.P. and his wife were there. The function at the Hospital was excellently arranged. Old Sir Hugh Bell made a speech. He sate beside me on the platform, and was most affable. We exchanged compliments on our letters to the Times! After walking round the Hospital with the Princess & having tea, we returned home. The weather, which had been brilliantly fine throughout the function turned to rain about 5.30 p.m.

Sir John L. Green, who wrote the life of Jesse Collings wrote to ask for the authority of the statement in my article on "Slogans" that Bishop Shute Barrington was the original author of the phrase [179] "three acres & a cow". I could but refer him to Bishop Westcott who made the statement in 1899. (v. Life & Letters ii, 279) On what authority Bishop Westcott drew for his information I did not know, but his accuracy and conscientiousness are so well established that none can doubt that he had a sufficient authority.

There is a good deal of interesting information about Bishop Shute Barrington in Nichol's Literary History vol. V p 608 ff. He was a favourite with George iii, who used to call him "his Bishop".

"We have seen at his table Presbyterian Divines, & respectable Quakers: & it is well–known that his confidential conveyancer for many years, & down to the time of his death, was the distinguished Roman Catholic barrister, Sir Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn . . . In keeping up the state of his princely see, there was a sober magnificence, a decent splendour, which singularly befitted that solitary & graceful instance of a Protestant Ecclesiastical Lord. Those who have seen him preside at the assizes at Durham cannot fail to have been struck with the happy union of the Bishop and the Nobleman in the whole of his dignified deportment . . . . It was stated in the newspapers that he sent no less than 674 begging letters to the Mendicity Office for investigation during the year 1825. On the Sunday preceding his death he read the appointed lessons to his family, and intimated that it was for the last time. He died on the 25th of March at his house in Cavendish Square in the 92nd year of his age, and the 57th of his episcopate.["]

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