The Henson Journals
Sat 13 July 1929
Volume 48, Pages 199 to 200
[199]
Saturday, July 13th, 1929, Liverpool.
We are traversing a 'heat wave'. The temperature last night was tropical.
I left the Castle at 12 noon, and motored to Liverpool by way of Barnard Castle, Brough, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancaster, and Preston. I took lunch with me, and ate it on the moors in surroundings of exquisite natural beauty. On reaching Liverpool, we had considerable difficulty in finding out where the Bishop lived! At length, I hailed a clergyman, who happened to be passing in the street. He turned out to be the Revd C. E. Sidebotham, Vicar of S. Paul's, formerly connected with the diocese of Hereford in which he had been ordained. He had a vague knowledge of the district in which the Bishop of Liverpool resided, but no personal acquaintance with the actual house which served as residence! He obligingly got up beside Leng, & directed him as near as he could get! Before he parted with us I gave him a copy of 'Disestablishment', which I had in my bag.
[200]
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We did ultimately arrive at Bishop's Lodge, Park Avenue, about an hour after the time I had fixed. I found the Bishop in his garden, and with him an elderly man, to whom I was introduced, Sir Frederick Morton Radcliffe, K.C.V.O., Chairman of the Liverpool Cathedral Committee, & Chairman of the Finance and Estates Committee of Queen Anne's Bounty. We had much interesting conversation in the garden before dinner. Canon Raven & his wife came to dine, and, after dinner, we sate in the garden, and talked. Raven looks very ill, and unfortunately his looks are thought to be no untrustworthy indication of the actual state of his health. He spoke about the Bishop of Birmingham, whom he knew at Cambridge, and who, he thought, had greatly improved since. Unfortunately, Barnes knew no biology, and used when at Westminster to appeal to Raven's superior knowledge of that subject, with which he (Raven) had acquired a certain acquaintance. It was lamentable that [an ignorant mountebank like] Furse should have been allowed to pose as a corrector of Barnes' "manners"!