The Henson Journals

[4]

Tuesday, December 3rd, 1929.

My painter and his wife were taken by Ella to Durham, and shown the Buildings, to which they brought a keen & intelligent appreciation. They returned for lunch, & then returned to London. I spent the morning in writing letters. Among others I wrote to Canon Raven and the Bishop of Oxford. In the afternoon I walked round the Park with the dogs.

Pattinson & I motored to Hartlepool, where I addressed the Parochial Church Councillors in the Town Hall. About 220 attended, the new Rural Dean, Canon Poole, presided. The audience was neither responsive nor hostile, but attentive, depressed, and perhaps somewhat perplexed. The general impression I received was that they resented so large an issue as Disestablishment having emerged from so unpalatable an occasion as the rejection of the Revised Prayer Book, which nobody wanted, & mainly actively disliked. They could not but admit that the issue had emerged, but they disliked & regretted having to face it. There were few questions, not enough to quicken the proceedings!

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