The Henson Journals

[118]

Tuesday, March 24th, 1931.

The plot thickens. This morning's post brought me a letter from Professor Hutchens himself, directly appealing for my intervention. This was followed up by the arrival of Dr Nattrass bringing another numerously signed letter asking me to order an impartial & independent inquiry!

I saw the good man, & tried to ascertain from him the precise character of the lectureship, from which Hutchens has been dismissed. Was it properly an academic position at all? Was it not rather a merely collegiate office, which as such lays outside the Visitor's jurisdiction? On this point he seems very hazy: but he perceived its importance. He told me that the general opinion in the University was strongly in favour of Hutchens, who has been 23 years in office, & is thought very successful in his work. He appeared to think that, failing any redress by means of the Visitor's intervention, there would be recourse to some legal action, with the result of a regrettable "washing of dirty (academic) linen"!

I hardly see the conditions of an arrangement since there is both a conflict on the issue of scientific method (Sir Thomas Bolam belittling & Professor Hutchens exalting bacteriology), and a bitter personal feud of long standing between the two men primarily concerned.

[119]

I motored to Durham, and received a deputation of the Newcastle professors in my room in the Castle. Professors Briscoe, Thornton, and Harvey attended. They evidently felt very strongly that their colleague had been treated with gross injustice; but it was hard to discover from their statements what precisely was the ground of complaint. The root of the difficulty is obviously a personal quarrel, which has smouldered for years, & now flames forth irreparably. They disallowed the notion that the lectureship was distinct from the professorship. We had tea, & parted civilly enough, but our colloquy left me more perplexed than ever.

We motored from Durham to West Hartlepool, where I confirmed rather more than 100 persons in S. Paul's Church. They came from that parish & S. Luke's. The sexes were reasonably divided.

I am perplexed as to the confirmation addresses which I am now being required to make every day. What is the most edifying form to follow? The clergy, especially the A.C's would welcome some emphatic declarations on "Church principles" which might guard the neophytes against the perilous seduction of "Schism", but I abhor the notion of bringing a polemical note into an experience, which one would desire to clothe with the utmost spiritual significance.

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