The Henson Journals

[116]

Friday, February 7th, 1930.

Dear Sir

I have to acknowledge your letter of the 3rd February conveying to me the invitation of the President & Council of the English Church House, & I appreciate both the importance and the courtesy of the proposal that I should address the Union in the Albert Hall on July 3rd.

After careful thought I find myself compelled to decline the invitation because, after the role of the Assembly requesting the Abps to appoint a Commission to review the relations of Church & State, it might be thought hardly fair on my part to take a course which might have the appearance of opening a "crusade" for Disestablishment. I do not indeed think that my hands are in any sense tied by the resolution of the Assembly, but I do not care to run the risk of misunderstanding.

Believe me, yours v. faithfully,

Herbert Dunelm:

Revd Arnold Pinchard. Sec: E.C.U.

[117]

I went to Brompton Parish Church, and there joined in marriage Peter Laurence Richardson and Enis Howe – Hugh Lyon was best man. Prebendary Gough assisted, and was almost unctuously affectionate! I don't like the man, though it would not be easy to say precisely why.

Lunching in the Atheneum, I had some talk with Scott Lidgett. He told me that his Free Church friends are going to put forth something about Disestablishment. I replied that they might really effect something substantial in the cause of reunion if they would take up a magnanimous attitude on the subject of Disendowment. He said that his conciliatory attitude towards the Revised Prayer Book had damaged his influence with Nonconformists.

I visited the Exhibition of Italian pictures and was agreeably surprised to find the numbers of visitors nowise excessive. Of course, it is a very amazing and splendid spectacle, but I prefer to see the master–pieces in their own home. The accumulation is overpowering and tends even to become fatiguing.

[118]

I dined in Park Lane. It was an interesting party. The Duke & Duchess of Athol, Miss Haldane, Viscount & Lady FitzAlan, Admiral and Mrs Brook, the Bishop of Durham were the guests.

Mrs Brook is a pretty woman, who works at the films. She talked freely & interestingly about this work.

The Duke of Athol told a story of one of our Durham girls who, through Mrs Headlam's good offices, had entered his service. She enquired of the house–keeper what she ought to do if you she met the Duke or the Duchess. "O you must just stand on one side, & let him pass". "But if they speak to me, what shall I call them?" 'Oh, you must say, Yes. Your Grace or No. Your Grace'. "Is it grace for what we are going to receive, or what we have received?' The Duke was very entertained by this story, & repeated it several times. But it doesn't exactly 'ring true' to my ears. I suspect it is somebody's comment on the perplexity which the conventional address, 'Your Grace' might very naturally create in a young girl's mind. The narrative is a concretised version of a speculation.

[119]

The Duke of Athol is a big, vain, confident man, not very intelligent but very positive in his opinions. He is, as Dukes go, very poor, and he exerts himself to make money by various industrial enterprises, which, however, do not appear to be markedly successful. He described a project for building stock houses in France. The French Government has contracted with him for the erection of a number of these houses: but the main difficulty is the provision of labour. There are no unemployed Frenchmen obtainable: and Englishmen will not accept the rates of pay. So there are none but Italians, Portuguese & such riff–raff of Europe as may float to the spot. These quarrel & fight among themselves, but are willing to take on the job.

Lady Fitz–Alan, a strong Papist, talked to me with much energy about Divorce, &, rather to my astonishment, expressed great disgust at the dissolution of the Duke of Marlborough's marriage. She attributed it largely to the 'stupidity' of the (Roman) Bishop of Southwark. The Fitz Alans belong to the more reputable type of English Roman Catholicks, to whom the rage of "converts" and Vaticanists are neither welcome nor wholly intelligible.

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