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Showing posts with label W G Broughton in England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W G Broughton in England. Show all posts

Wednesday 15 May 2024

Dr Keate’s Curate. A Letter from William Grant Broughton (1788 – 1853), later Bishop of Australia

 



 

 

In Great Britain, the technology which made possible the production of cheap, machine-made envelopes was developed in the 1840s, also the decade in which postage stamps came into general use. The habit of early stamp collectors was to tear stamps from envelopes which were then discarded. The letter enclosed might be kept but for future readers the identity of the “Dear Sir” or “Dear Mother” might be lost forever; the envelope would have answered the question instantly. By the end of the Victorian period millions of envelopes had been binned in pursuit of the most popular of the century’s many destructive hobbies.

Prior to the 1840s letters were sent as folded sheets of paper (now called entires) with the addressee’s name written on the outside. There was no stamp to tear off and, usually, no sheet to discard though sometimes a letter might be enclosed within a wrapper and might also be separated from the contents.

It requires little knowledge to conclude that the name and address on this entire letter of 31 January 1827 makes it worth looking at more closely. Dr Keate lives on in the book of records as the headmaster who on just one day succeeded in flogging eighty Etonians.. Who would write to such a man and what might they write about?

The contents are cross-written and when transcribed come to a Microsoft total of 1082 words. They begin “Dear Sir” and close “Your faithful humble servant W.G.Broughton”. He was Dr Keate’s curate in the Hampshire parish of Hartley Wespall where the letter was written.  Dr Keate was a pluralist, awarded this particular living in 1818 by the Dean and Chapter of Windsor and held until his death; he is buried inside its parish church, a prominent tomb much polished. His son succeeded as Rector.

The curate begins by reporting on the discharge of his duties:

previous to leaving home I made an adjudication of the 30 blankets and though they did not arrive until after my departure Mrs Neville distributed them according to my directions. This was before the cold weather set in and from such of the poor as I have yet had communication with I have received very grateful acknowledgements to you for your charitable consideration of their wants.

Both vicar and curate were High Church Tories who accepted that they had duties to the deserving poor. Married with two children living, Broughton also had duties to his family; he was conscious that lack of funds had obliged him to forego an Exhibitioner’s place at Cambridge in favour of a job in London with the East India Company. Only an unexpected legacy from an uncle enabled him much later to enter Pembroke College to study mathematics, graduating in 1818 at the age of thirty. In the same year he took Holy Orders and married a childhood sweetheart. He has been at Hartley Wespall since then.

But now he is leaving and the rest of the letter runs through the arrangements he is making or suggesting to Dr Keate. As for his replacement, he offers several names but concludes by recommending Mr Procter despite the fact that the Bishop (of Winchester) is against him, suspecting Evangelical tendencies, a canard which Mr Procter repudiates:

As the best mode of disproving the charge brought against him, and of undeceiving the Bishop, he is about to publish by subscription a Volume of Sermons, which will explain his real sentiments.

Mr Procter got the job but did not last and I cannot promise you that he published any Sermons. But Mr Broughton did and, more importantly, in 1826 had published a reluctant defence of the view (supported by the methods of the new German philology) that Bishop Gauden and not Charles the Martyr was the author of the EIKON BASILIKE. This impressed the equally reluctant Bishop of Winchester who then offered Broughton the curacy of the parish of Farnham, equipped with a fine residence and grounds being prepared for the bishop’s own eventual retirement. Broughton accepted and is about to leave Harley Wespall..

Farnham is just sixteen miles from Stratfield Saye and Broughton was soon introduced to the Duchess and then to the Duke of Wellington installed there by a grateful nation. Wellington was impressed by this new but no longer young curate and as Constable of the Tower of London added the chaplaincy there to Broughton’s portfolio. In 1828 Wellington – now Prime Minister – told the Colonial Office that the Reverend Broughton was just the man needed to replace the outgoing Archdeacon of Sydney. Broughton, who had never travelled farther abroad than the East India Company’s London offices, accepted. The salary of £2000 per year promised financial security for his family and offered some compensation for what would be a long and still hazardous journey. He became the first (and only) Bishop of Australia and a significant and controversial figure in the history of the colony, the subject of a full-length biography by G P Shaw (1978) – on which i have drawn - and more recent discussions focussed on his involvement in policy towards Aboriginal populations.

He died on a visit to England in 1853 and is commemorated in Canterbury Cathedral with a chest tomb on which he lies as if a medieval knight at rest from his labours; an exact copy can be found in Sydney’s Anglican cathedral.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

Hartley Wespall January 31st 1827

Dear Sir

The severity of the weather and the state of the roads in Kent prevented my returning hither till Saturday last and on Monday I was again on the wing to Farnham and back again yesterday. It has therefore been out of my power to reply sooner to your letters of Jan’y 6th and 27th. First of the first previous to leaving home I made an adjudication of the 30 blankets and though they did not arrive until after my departure Mrs Neville distributed them according to my directions. This was before the cold weather set in and from such of the poor as I have yet had communication with I have received very grateful acknowledgements to you for your charitable consideration of their wants. From what occurred yesterday at Farnham I have reason to think that I shall be required to be there for the first time on Sunday February 18th . Mr Procter who is to make way at Bentley for Mr Austen will take my duty here on that day and the 25th. I am quite in the dark as to Mr Hadow’s [ sp?] present intentions. In answer to the letter which arrived when you were here I sent him an exact account of the emoluments of the curacy, house & premises, duty &c (with which however I should have thought him already acquainted from having lived here with me) and in an answer to a subsequent letter I replied to his enquiries as to the probability of obtaining a supply of pupils in the neighbourhoods. Since this I have not heard from him; but you are probably by this time acquainted with his final decision. I have not the slightest knowledge of Mr Kerr or of his family As however I found from the Bishop’s communication yesterday that they are known and noticed by him I conclude they are acceptable. This however is now unimportant, as Mr Kerr writes to me that he wishes to withdraw his application thinking the house & premises too extensive for a single man. Mr Dobson some times ago told me that upon the same grounds that he should decline it even if you made him the offer. Mr Bricknell has taken the curacy at Hartley Wintney, nor do I think that there is any clergyman in the neighbourhood who could undertake regularly for the period you mention. Mr Procter, whom the late arrangements at Farnham have cast out of house and home, requests me to make you the offer of his service, for as many weeks as you desire; that is until you have got … a permanent curate or until it may be convenient to the gentleman appointed by you to enter upon the duties of the parish. His charge is 2 guineas a Sunday and he will relinquish the employment at any time at [tear in letter from when the seal was broken] week’s notice from you. I must not omit to say that the Bishop declined to license Mr P to the Curacy at Farnham. He assigned no reason of course; but the impression upon Mr Procter’s mind is that his Ldship had been persuaded that he was of the Evangelical school. This however he strenuously denies and assured me that he had a decided dislike to their tenets The circumstance which has given rise to the imputation he thinks can be only that he has in preaching a naturally energetic manner (which indeed shows itself in his conversation & ordinary deportment) and that this has attracted to church some persons who before he came went always to chapel.  As the best mode of disproving the charge brought against him, and of undeceiving the Bishop, he is about to publish by subscription a Volume of Sermons, which will explain his real sentiments. As far as a single interview to be depended on Mr Procter certainly gave me the impression that he was a man of talent & honesty. He is one of the Bye-Fellows of Peter House; and a gentleman residing in his parish spoke of him to me as exemplary in his moral character, in the discharge of all his duties and especially in his attention to the poor. I have thought it right to inform you of all I knew about him good or bad in order that you might better be able to decide whether you would avail yourself of his services or not. I shall see him again next Monday and hope in the mean time to receive your answer. It was my intention to have left Canterbury last Monday week and taken Eton on my way down to Hartley but the great fall of snow which we had in Kent, by obliging me to postpone my departure til the end of the week, frustrated this plan and as I expect tomorrow to have my two pupils with me I really am afraid it will hardly be in my power to have the pleasure of coming over at this time. If you would be so good as to make a memorandum of any further questions you wish to ask concerning the parish I will send you the best answers in my power.  Next Sunday I am to preach a Sermon for the Relief of the Manufacturers and the next day we shall collect what we can in the parish. If you have not already contributed to the full extent of your intention I should be happy to put down your name for a small sum at the head of the list. I have not yet received any communication from the lady you mention respecting her son. I beg you to be assured that I have never for one moment doubted of your inclination to serve and assist me in the matter of pupils, or in any other manner as far as circumstances would admit and my thanks I am sure are due to you for these our good wishess. There are a few fixtures here belonging to me: which the best way will be to have appraised and send to you a list of them and a valuation. They are such as my successor would most probably wish to take. I left Mrs Broughton and children quite well: I shall be very happy to hear as good an account of Mrs Keate and yours. With best remembrances to all I am Dear Sir Your faithful humble servant W: G: Broughton [he uses colons not stops after his initials]