The Henson Journals
Fri 11 April 1930
Volume 49, Pages 199 to 200
[199]
Friday, April 11th, 1930.
A glorious day, mild & brilliant with the sunshine. The birds deliriously domestical, & singing exstatically.
I received Colonel Watson at 10 a.m.: he told me that his grandfather was Dr McCullagh's partner: that the father of the McCullagh's was the Wesleyan minister in Bishop Auckland: & that he approved of his sons being confirmed & becoming Anglicans. He (Colonel W.) thinks that Bircham will shortly resign the benefice of Barnard Castle. I wish I could believe it. I worked at the Edinburgh Sermon.
There came to lunch the Rector of Penshaw, and Mrs Battersby.
I walked in the Park, & there fell in with a young man, Joseph William Alderson (3 Silver Street, B.A.) aged 20, who has just left the R.H.A. He intends to join the Police Force. I took him round the garden, and into the Chapel.
Mr John Anthony Hutton, the son of the Vicar of St James's, Gateshead, came to be inspected as an applicant for a diocesan grant for training. He is now at Leatherhead, & seems an ingenuous youth. He aspires to go to St John's College, Oxford. I approved him.
[200]
Pattinson and I motored to S. Mary's, Tynedock, dropping young Hutton at his father's vicarage on the way. I had an interview first with Garland, and then with Simmonds, shewing both of them the Bishop of Birmingham's letter to me, & its enclosure. Their explanations appeared to me quite satisfactory, and I promised to write to the Bishop & suggest that he should address himself to Garland. Then we motored to the Church of the Venerable Bede, where I confirmed 49 persons viz. 10 males & 39 females. These came from the Parishes of the Ven: Bede (3 males 17 females), Monkwearmouth (4 males 10 females), S. Cuthbert's (3 males 2 females), and S. Columba's (6 females). The congregation brought my address to an abrupt conclusion by coughing: and after the service I called attention to the fewness of male candidates, and asked for some explanation. Of course none was forthcoming, & there was some disposition to resent the suggestion that the real cause of the failure to secure male candidates lay in the idleness of the incumbents. So I went home in a rage.