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 Henry Whitehead
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, 
 
 {.inbliehcra to the Ktnibcrattt). 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO.. LTD., LONDON. 
 New York, The Macmillan Co. 
 London, Simpkin, Hamilton and Co. 
 Cambridge, - Macmillan and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh, Douglas and Foulis. 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII.
 
 Henry Whitehead 
 
 1825-1896 
 
 A Memorial Sketch 
 
 By the 
 
 Rev. H. D. Rawnsley 
 
 Hon. Canon of Carlisle 
 
 Author of "Life of Bishop Goodwin," 
 'Literary Associations of the English Lakes," etc. 
 
 Glasgow 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 to the glnibersitp 
 1898
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEIIOSK AND CO.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THIS memorial sketch, the preparation of which 
 has been entrusted to me by Mrs. Whitehead, is 
 an attempt to give some idea of the character 
 and work of a man of rare qualities of mind and 
 heart, who impressed all who knew him as a 
 unique personality from whom they were ever 
 learning new lessons of wisdom and charity. I 
 have endeavoured, by aid of the particulars 
 placed at my disposal, to exhibit the outward 
 influences that moulded his early years, and to 
 give some picture of his life's work in the 
 different spheres of labour wherein his lot was 
 cast. I have felt, however, that my task might 
 be best fulfilled by letting him, as far as possible, 
 speak for himself, and reveal his own character 
 in written and reported words. My thanks are 
 due to the many friends who have supplemented 
 my own account by reminiscences, and specially 
 to Mrs. Whitehead, who has furnished me with 
 
 2067945
 
 vi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 much material and with suggestions and notes 
 while these pages were passing through the 
 press. 
 
 The portrait reproduced on the frontispiece 
 represents Henry Whitehead at the age of fifty- 
 nine, and was taken on the occasion of the 
 Church Congress held in Carlisle in i 
 
 CROSTHWAITE VICARAGE, 
 KESWICK, 1897. 
 
 H. D. RAWNSLEY.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 EARLY DAYS. 
 
 Chatham House School, Ramsgate Henry Whitehead's Parents 
 Religious Education Old Coaching Days i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 COLLEGE DAYS. 
 
 Lincoln College, Oxford Tutors and Friends Latin Parodies 
 Life at Oxford - - - 18 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 LONDON CURACIES. 
 
 Curate at St. Luke's, Soho Daily Life Cholera in Berwick 
 Street Reformatory Work Letter in the "Times" Curate at 
 St. Matthew's, Westminster - - 29
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 CONTINUATION OF WORK IN LONDON. 
 
 ' Devil's Acre,' Westminster Curate at Clapham Parish Church 
 His Sermons Literary Work Marriage Curate at St. 
 Anne's, Highgate Rise Cholera in East London Curate at 
 St. Peter's, Stepney At St. Peter's, Hammersmith Vicar of 
 St. John's, Limehouse "St. John's Chronicle" Living of 
 St. Martin's, Brampton, offered Farewell Dinner - 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 BRAMPTON. 
 
 Work in the South and North Letters to Friends Work at 
 Brampton Archaeological Researches Brampton Church 
 Farewell Sermon The Historian of Brampton Notes by 
 the present Vicar Club Work - 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 NEWLANDS, NEWTON REIGNY, AND LANERCOST. 
 
 A Year at Newlands Life at Newton Reigny Vicar of Laner- 
 cost Researches and other Work Death Funeral at 
 Brampton - 130 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS. 
 
 Letters and Articles from George MacDonald, Brooke Lambert, 
 and other Friends - 151
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES; WHITEHEAD AS A 
 WRITER. 
 
 Personality of H. Whitehead An Estimate of his Literary 
 
 Characteristics by a Friend 166 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Experience of a London Curate : Reprint of Farewell 
 
 Speech at the Rainbow Tavern 197 
 
 II. 
 
 Latin Poem quoted in Chapter II., with Notes by Henry 
 
 Whitehead - 235 
 
 III. 
 List of Writings 242 
 
 INDEX 246
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY DAYS 
 
 HENRY WHITEHEAD, the eighth child of a family 
 of ten, was born September 22, 1825, at Rams- 
 gate. His father, Thomas Whitehead, was the 
 master of Chatham House, a celebrated school 
 in its day, which sent forth several pupils who 
 distinguished themselves in after life in various 
 professions and scientific pursuits. 
 
 The school still exists, but it would be hard to 
 recognize in the palatial edifice of to-day, with its 
 university-college appearance, the older academy 
 in which Henry Whitehead was brought up. 
 
 His father, a remarkable man in many ways, 
 was, from the accounts of those who came under 
 him in the thirties, and were fellow-scholars with 
 Henry, a disciplinarian of the old type, but one 
 who was just and righteous in all his ways. Out 
 of school tender and kind, he was in class hours 
 a dominie stern and uncompromising ; withal an 
 enthusiast for education, an untiring worker, and 
 one who expected master and pupil alike to be as
 
 2 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 exact and strict, and as wholly devoted to duty, 
 as he was himself. 
 
 " It was with us," writes an old pupil, "a case 
 of early to bed and early to rise ten minutes 
 past five A.M. during the bathing season, so that 
 the visit to the sands should not diminish aught 
 from the tale of bricks to be delivered before 
 breakfast." 
 
 "The curriculum," writes another old pupil, 
 "was much varied, and thorough, and liberal, 
 and all the teaching was excellent. The master 
 tolerated no second-rates. He used to give ad- 
 mirable lectures on history, ancient and modern, 
 and a w.eekly talk on a scientific subject illustrated 
 with experiments. Even on Sundays there was 
 little escape from the round of toil. We were 
 required to take sermon-notes in church, and 
 were examined on the subject discoursed upon, 
 later in the day. We were expected to take 
 notes of all lectures, and had to show them up 
 afterwards, and undergo regular examinations in 
 all subjects, and woe to the boy whose note-book 
 was scantily filled or untidily kept. 
 
 " A weekly essay was set and carefully looked 
 over. All work was appraised upon a system 
 of tickets, for which there was an exchange of 
 prizes at the end of the half-year." 
 
 " I feel persuaded," adds the writer, " that the 
 father's vigorous rule and thorough system must 
 have contributed in an unusual degree to the
 
 EARLY DAYS 3 
 
 formation of the striking qualities which char- 
 acterized his son." 
 
 It is clear from an old school list or weekly 
 report, dated 1838, that as early as the age of 
 twelve Henry Whitehead showed a capacity for 
 English composition, in which he stood top of 
 the school ; and from his place at the head of his 
 class in Latin, French, and Mathematics he had 
 evidently more than an average share of brains. 
 It is impossible not to connect the love of 
 careful writing, the indefatigable wish for ex- 
 actness and untiring energy in pursuit of detail 
 which characterized him all through life, with 
 that early home training at the Chatham House 
 School. 
 
 Whitehead's father was indeed a memorable 
 man. Coleridge once described him as a 
 "heaven-born schoolmaster"; and when, after 
 nearly forty-five years' hard work, he retired 
 from his profession and took up public work 
 as a magistrate and as " Deputy," 1 the people 
 at Ramsgate found that he was a "heaven-born" 
 Chairman also. 
 
 In politics a staunch Liberal, he was a patriot 
 to the backbone. " I can forgive a man any- 
 thing," he would say, "if he loves England, and 
 rejoices in its success." Of blameless private 
 life, temperately abstemious, and of a nature 
 guileless and unconscious even to the end of 
 
 1 As the Chief Magistrate of Ramsgate was then called, before it was 
 incorporated.
 
 4 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 much of the depravity of the world around him, 
 he was in public life of unflinching moral recti- 
 tude, and at times seemed almost proud of 
 standing alone in what he conceived to be the 
 
 o 
 
 cause of right. In this respect he was the true 
 father of a true son, for it was one of Henry 
 Whitehead's pithy sayings, " Mind you, the man 
 who is in the minority of one, is almost sure to 
 be in the right." 
 
 We get a glimpse of this simple-hearted 
 Puritan from a letter written at the time of his 
 death, in 1877, by his son, 1 then Vicar of 
 Brampton. It is worth quoting, as showing 
 how much of the father the writer had inherited, 
 and how closely, as life went on, perhaps how un- 
 consciously, he followed in his father's footsteps. 
 
 My father was, beyond doubt, a remarkable man a strange 
 mixture to superficial observation, yet with a consistent law 
 underlying all he said and did; and this came to be known 
 and recognized. Thus he was by nature an intensely religious 
 man. You will know what I mean by that. He did not 
 take to religion. He could not help being religious. In 
 his speech, his creed, and his personal habits there was a 
 strong element of Puritanism; yet put him in the chair at a 
 public dinner, and he was the life and soul of the party. 
 But whatever the meeting, he was always at home in the 
 chair; and during the years in which he took part in the 
 public life of the town, he was the indispensable chairman, 
 whether of public dinner, Local Board, noisy gatherings of 
 ratepayers, or Bible Society meetings. It would be difficult 
 to say which kind of meeting he handled best. But, for 
 my own part, I do not think that he was ever seen to better 
 
 'The subject of this Memoir.
 
 EARLY DAYS 5 
 
 advantage than when presiding over a ratepayers' meeting. 1 
 The way in which he would single out prominent individuals 
 in the crowd, to chaff them, was admirable; for his humour, 
 though very keen, was utterly devoid of unkindness, and 
 the victim would laugh as heartily as the rest. 
 
 He had considerable political insight. I dare say you 
 have heard me repeat his dictum on the Reform Bill of 
 1832 it is amongst my earliest recollections, 2 certainly the 
 earliest recollection of political matters I have : " Henceforth 
 it matters not who are in power in this country. They must 
 now always govern on liberal principles." I can remember 
 his saying this as far back as I can remember his often saying, 
 with unerring prophetic inspiration, "/ shall probably not 
 live to see the day, but the Irish Established Church must 
 go." Yet he had an intense dislike of Popery. 
 
 He had an almost passionate fondness for municipal institu- 
 tions, and would frequently say that the greatness of this 
 country was based upon them. 
 
 In his lectures on English History to the boys, he used 
 to wax very warm in praise of Stephen Langton, and all 
 men who had stood up for liberty, and I have heard him say 
 again and again of Edward I. and Elizabeth, "These two 
 sovereigns had one sure instinct of the greatest rulers of men. 
 They knew when and how to give way." 
 
 In religious views he was an old-fashioned evangelical 
 Churchman. But, unlike evangelicals in general, he could 
 put life into an Old Testament character; and that long 
 before Maurice and others had shown the way to do so. 
 
 He had great facility of religious expression, but he would 
 not stand the extempore prayers at religious meetings. He 
 was chairman of a Ragged School Committee, and as such 
 had to call upon this or that member to open the meeting 
 with prayer. One day I found him with a sheet of notepaper 
 in his hand, on which he had just finished writing, and he 
 
 1 This was equally true of the writer himself, who had an inborn gift for 
 the management of a meeting. 
 2 sEtat. six years.
 
 6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 said, " Harry, I am going down to the Ragged School Com- 
 mittee, and I am tired of the manner in which they waste 
 time in long prayers about everything else but the matter 
 in hand. So I have written a short prayer asking for guidance 
 in the business in which we are engaged, which I shall read 
 myself, without calling on any one else for prayer, and I 
 shall, for the future, always read this same prayer." 
 
 His guilelessness and innocency of life was a marked 
 characteristic. He was in the world and not of it. Some- 
 thing my mother once said to me illustrates this, although 
 I did not completely understand it at the time. It was 
 this : " Harry, your father is going to be made a magistrate, 
 and I am wondering what will be the effect upon him of much 
 that he will see and hear, for he knows no more than a child 
 about much of the wickedness that goes on in the world." 
 
 Of course when a man of this unique simplicity of mind 
 does take part in public affairs, and has any sort of aptitude 
 for them, he comes inevitably to exercise great influence, 
 and the lesson to be learnt from his career is a very instructive 
 one. What has been said of his moral courage is true to 
 the letter. No fear of consequences ever deterred him from 
 taking an unpopular line, yet no man in the town was more 
 popular. 
 
 It was very gratifying to the family to see the universal 
 respect paid to his memory. We dispensed with all the usual 
 paraphernalia at the funeral no hearse, coaches, hat-bands, 
 scarves, etc. but it seemed as if all the town followed him 
 to the grave. 
 
 Now I did not intend, when I began this letter, to write 
 all this. But I know that I have written it to one who 
 will appreciate the sort of character here described." 
 
 Henry is described in his school-days as a 
 "restless lad." Doubtless this was an inherit- 
 ance from the keen, resolute, constantly energetic 
 father, of whom it was said that " he was just
 
 EARLY DAYS 7 
 
 the man to lead a forlorn hope," and who, years 
 after, when he had retired from the active school- 
 master's life at Chatham House, was chosen by 
 his fellow-townsmen to steer their ship of civil 
 state as " Deputy " of Ramsgate. 
 
 If however, from the father he inherited his 
 mental energy, his zeal for inquiry, and the 
 keen enthusiasm of the hunter in out-of-the-way 
 fields of knowledge, he owed to his mother 
 that marvellous quietude and power of silent 
 sympathy, that contemplative and far-sighted 
 patience, that capacity to bide his time, and to 
 feel that his strength lay in " sitting still," 
 which made him at an early age seem wise 
 above his years, and won him in after life the 
 trust of men who looked to him for counsel 
 and for cheer. 
 
 Of Henry Whitehead's mother Mary Williams 
 was her maiden name it may be said that 
 she was the exact opposite or complement 
 of her husband. Very calm, quiet, and re- 
 served, she was a woman who counselled 
 patience even in the most unbearable circum- 
 stances ; one who, in cases where resistance 
 would have been justifiable, would calmly say, 
 " Tide on, child tide on/' 
 
 How many a time have men, plagued and 
 vexed beyond endurance, heard in other words 
 from her son the same sage counsel, " Let 
 patience have its perfect work ; tide on, tide on." 
 
 It is remembered of her that when the news
 
 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 came of a favourite daughter's death, who died 
 in childbirth in the first year of her married 
 life, and it was felt the blow would kill her 
 (for she was then well stricken in years and 
 very fragile), she gave no sign of emotion, but 
 just rocked herself quietly to and fro as she 
 sat in her chair, though the news was really 
 her death-blow. 
 
 This patient-hearted woman had a kind and 
 tender soul, and much sympathy for her poorer 
 neighbours, for whom she daily took thought ; 
 and whilst looking well to the ways of her own 
 large household, never neglected to make arrange- 
 ments for food to be dispensed to the poor who 
 came to her doors for homely help and doctor- 
 ing : and on most days a warm meal would go 
 from her own table to some invalid in the 
 neighbourhood, to whom she had constituted 
 herself a personal friend. 
 
 Those who ever heard Henry Whitehead talk 
 of his mother, must have been struck with the 
 likeness to her in many points of his character 
 that he unconsciously revealed. The gentleness, 
 the kindly benevolence, the lovability, and the 
 shrewd common-sense he spoke of as her char- 
 acteristics, were part and parcel of the son who 
 praised her. He would recall with pride how, 
 when going back on a visit to the old house, 
 she would take his arm for a walk down the 
 Ramsgate High Street. "A walk," he would 
 say, "which would be interrupted at every turn
 
 EARLY DAYS 9 
 
 with a stopping to give a kindly greeting to all 
 she knew : none was too humble to be noticed 
 by her she had a special inquiry and friendly 
 word for everyone." 
 
 Whatever else young Whitehead learned at 
 home, he learned that " the poor we have 
 always with us." The sympathy of his great- 
 hearted love for the poor and needy, which was 
 so strikingly manifested in after years, began in 
 early days. 
 
 The religious atmosphere in which the young 
 boy grew up was not perhaps calculated to affect 
 him quite as favourably in all respects as were 
 these practical lessons of mercy and loving-kind- 
 ness. It is, indeed, when we hear of the family 
 wont of Sunday observances, something of a 
 wonder that the boy ever entered the ministry. 
 On Sunday the routine was as follows : 
 
 Breakfast at eight, followed by catechism, 
 hymns, and collect till church time, then after 
 church a brisk walk (no dawdling allowed) till 
 dinner. After dinner, hymns and catechism 
 again, till church, to be followed by another walk. 
 Then tea, then reading of the Bible, verse by 
 verse (a rite at which the servants of the house- 
 hold assisted), and then escape at last from the 
 dreary monotony of such a day to their own 
 bedrooms, or a garret they called Philippi, where 
 the pent-up steam of the weary Sabbath was 
 allowed to explode. 
 
 Away from home on a holiday things were not
 
 io HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 much better. Henry Whitehead used to speak 
 pathetically of a certain Sunday he spent with 
 his father and a younger brother at Oxford. The 
 father occasionally took his boys pilgrimages of 
 instructive sight-seeing, a habit which gave Henry 
 such a distaste for it in after life, that unless some 
 archaeological interest was promised he would not 
 go on any sight-seeing expedition whatever. 
 
 They had reached Oxford, and it was the 
 Sabbath. There were many pleasant gardens 
 open to them, but paterfamilias was bent on going 
 for a second time to church. 
 
 They sallied forth to find an afternoon service ; 
 untiringly they hunted from church to church. 
 At last one was reached just in time for the 
 discourse, and to the end of his life Henry remem- 
 bered the way in which his own heart sank, and 
 the disappointed look in the face of his brother, 
 when, after a weary time, the preacher, drawing 
 forth a great silver turnip watch, asked solemnly, 
 " Have we time to take the fourth head?" and, 
 after glancing at the watch, answering his own 
 question with the solemn affirmative, "Yes, 
 brethren, there is time," proceeded with his 
 sermon. 
 
 It would not have been surprising if this rigid 
 system of religious education, to which Henry 
 Whitehead was subjected, had led to something 
 like a revolt against devotional observances. 
 Indeed, in after years he confessed that the 
 remembrance of those Sundays in early days had
 
 EARLY DAYS 11 
 
 for long considerably marred his pleasure in the 
 services of the church. But there was such an 
 intense reality about his father's faith and religious 
 observances, that while the boy rebelled against 
 them, he secretly held them in reverence. The 
 deep spirit of devotion in his father behind it all 
 remained with him as a constant memory, even 
 though he groaned under the yoke at the time. 
 The real religion of the father became in the son 
 as real and as abiding a possession ; and the 
 harshness of its exhibition in the older generation 
 was a warning to the younger. If it had not been 
 for the bitterness of that well-meant Puritan 
 training in the early evangelical Sabbatarianism, 
 we should probably not have had the tolerant, 
 wise, broad-minded churchmanship which char- 
 acterized Henry Whitehead in after days ; we 
 should certainly not have found in him the 
 champion of the truth, " Many men many 
 minds." In matters religious, " Don't drive 
 men to church/ 1 he would say, "but lead them 
 there. Don't think them bad because you do 
 not find them in the pew." 
 
 We get few glimpses of his home childhood. 
 A picture, however, remains to us of a little lad 
 seated on a stool in the big drawing-room 
 delighting to practise the catching up of the airs 
 which his sisters one of them an accomplished 
 harpist used to play to him. In this way he 
 laid up a store of the quaint old ballad tunes of 
 the time, which he never forgot ; and in later
 
 12 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 days he would often be heard to whistle the air, 
 though he had well-nigh forgotten the words, of 
 some old song he wanted his daughters to learn, 
 the fragrance of which still lingered in his 
 memory. He was in those days no mean player 
 on the cornet, of which instrument he was very 
 fond. 
 
 That love of music thus cultivated in early 
 days stood him in good stead when in after 
 years he turned his attention to bells and bell- 
 ringing. His exact ear would pick out a false 
 note or half tone in a bell in a moment. 
 
 We find him taking his cornet up to keep him 
 company to his Oxford rooms in Lincoln College, 
 and bringing it away with him to London when 
 he enters upon his first curacy. But it was 
 characteristic of the man that he should deter- 
 mine that a London lodging was not the place for a 
 cornet player. He said, " Many poor neighbours 
 might object and not like to tell me," and so the 
 cornet was laid aside, and he never played more. 
 
 His tender consideration for others was part 
 of his nature. When in East London, at St. 
 John's, Limehouse, a man (not too shy) came 
 to complain one day of " them doves, which," 
 he said, " made such a noise of a morning, a 
 fellow couldn't sleep." They were a pair of 
 tame doves, pets of his little girl's (the only pets 
 she had), but they had to go and coo their 
 morning orisons elsewhere, since they disturbed 
 the rest of a labouring man.
 
 EARLY DAYS 13 
 
 As Whitehead grew, other things beside his 
 cornet had interest for him. The coachman's 
 horn and all the melody of the old coach roads 
 and coaching days, the spanking teams, the 
 quaint inns, the skill of the coachmen, became 
 for him a fascinating study. 
 
 Years after, he was moved to write of that 
 time, by an article by Mr. W. O. Tristram on the 
 " Brighton Road," which appeared in the Eng- 
 lish Illustrated Magazine, and he jots down his 
 memories of the sight of the coachmen wheeling 
 their coaches out of the ' Spread Eagle ' Yard, 
 Gracechurch Street the 'Dart' at 2.45 P.M., 
 with its incomparable driver, Bob Snow; the 
 'Sovereign,' at 6.45 A.M.; the 'Vivid,' with its 
 post of honour, etc. We give these notes in 
 full, they are so fragrant of an older time. They 
 enable us to see how clearly the boy's mind 
 began to take delight in accuracy of observation, 
 and to learn that larger sympathy which comes 
 of an intimate interest in the lives of his fellow 
 creatures of "all sorts and conditions," which 
 was so eminently his characteristic. 
 
 How well I remember that sight! My father, who regularly 
 came to London twice a year on business, always stayed at 
 the ' Spread Eagle ' ; and, as these visits occurred during 
 our holidays, he often brought with him two or more of his 
 sons, to whom the coachyard afforded a deal of amusement. 
 What a number of coaches went in and out of that yard 
 during the day ! To us boys they became like familiar 
 friends. We knew their respective reputations, and the 
 names of several of the coachmen. The stables, which stood
 
 14 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 all round the yard under the quaint old galleries, were a 
 great attraction; we even ventured, though not without 
 hesitation, into the subterranean stable, a place of much 
 awe and mystery to us, in which the horses of the Bath 
 Mail were kept when not out on duty. From the bridge 
 which spanned the neck of the yard we used to watch the 
 putting-to of the horses, the passengers taking their places, 
 the guard spelling out the way-bill, the coachmen mounting 
 the box. But the special object of interest, to witness 
 which we had to run to the window of a front room, was 
 the emerging of the coach from under the archway, at right 
 angles, into the crowded street. We may not have had the 
 critical judgment to understand the superior skill of the 
 accomplished coachman of the ' Dart ' ; but, at least, we were 
 not ignorant of his reputation. My eldest brother went to 
 school at Brighton, and had much to tell about the coaches 
 on the Brighton way; for which reason those of them which 
 started from the ' Spread Eagle ' particularly engaged our 
 attention. 
 
 Besides the 'Vivid,' 'Dart,' and 'Sovereign,' mentioned 
 by Mr. Tristram, there was the ' Comet,' which was com- 
 paratively slow; and great was our vexation on one occasion, 
 when my father took all his family to Brighton, at finding 
 that we were to go by the 'Comet' instead of the 'Dart' 
 or 'Vivid.' It was a 'family' coach, the driver of which, 
 Mr. Waterhouse, as we always heard him called, a most 
 respectable-looking old gentleman, was just the man to in- 
 spire confidence in heads of families. The pace of the 
 ' Comet ' was not such as to elicit from the most timid the 
 observation of an elderly and somewhat nervous friend of 
 my family to a fellow-passenger on the ' Dart,' " What a 
 reckless driver ! " The man thus addressed sternly replied, 
 " Do you know, sir, of whom you are speaking ? Are you 
 aware that our coachman is the celebrated Bob Snow?" 
 
 I do not think that my father had any distrust of the famous 
 driver of the ' Dart.' But the ' Dart ' was not a ' family ' 
 coach. As a boy I was not aware of the distinction between
 
 EARLY DAYS 15 
 
 'family' and other coaches. I only knew whether they were 
 fast or slow. It was not until long afterwards that I became 
 acquainted with the fact that some of the Brighton coaches 
 seldom carried luggage or any other passengers than men. 
 I learned this from Bill Crunden, the well-known driver of 
 the 'Vivid,' whom I found, when the 'Vivid' had become 
 a thing of the past, driving a Clapham omnibus. What a 
 descent from the box of the 'Vivid' to that of a suburban 
 'bus ! i 
 
 I had often occasion to use this omnibus, from the box 
 of which Crunden dearly loved to discourse with any one 
 who took interest in the subject, on the glories of the Brighton 
 Road. Whoever has heard him describe the breaking of the 
 pole of the ' Vivid ' once when going downhill, when he 
 saved the coach by instantly sending on the horses at full 
 speed, will not easily forget either the story or the man. 
 "I can feel 'em under me now," said Bill, as he finished 
 the exciting narrative. "But what am I talking of?" he 
 presently added with a sigh ; " I've now hardly the nerve to 
 drive this pair." 
 
 Once having missed him some days from his box, I called 
 at his house, and found him ill in bed. I sat talking with 
 him the better part of an hour, and the whole of the con- 
 versation was about the ' Vivid.' His father had partly 
 horsed the coach, and therefore he (Bill) knew everything 
 connected with its affairs, of which he spoke with an enthus- 
 iasm no lapse of time could quench. He gave me an interest- 
 ing description of the racing with opposition coaches, and 
 especially of the rush to be first through a turnpike when 
 two coaches were abreast. "Of course one of them must 
 give way," I said. "Yes," said he, "but it was well known 
 on the road that I was not going to be that one." 
 
 1 There were at that time several other ex-stage-coachmen driving 
 Clapham omnibuses ; the most notable of whom was Cracknell, formerly 
 of the Oxford ' Tantivy,' whose accidental discovery of the great benefit 
 of dispensing with the bearing rein is related at page 232 of the Rev. 
 J. G. Wood's book on Horse and Man.
 
 16 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 It was during this conversation that he told me the 'Vivid' 
 was "not a family coach," and explained what he meant by 
 the term. He said there was such demand for places on 
 his coach that they had to be booked a very long time in 
 advance. His horses, he said, used seldom to be out of his 
 thoughts, except when he was asleep, and not always then. 
 
 On my asking him what he made by fees, he told his 
 daughter, who was in the room, to fetch an old account 
 book, from which I found that they annually amounted to 
 between three and four hundred pounds. I think that this 
 conversation must have been like a tonic to him; for I met 
 him next day out walking on Clapham Common. Some 
 time afterwards he left London, and the last I heard of him 
 was from the guard of the modern Brighton coach, 'The 
 Light of other Days,' on which about twenty years ago I 
 went one day to Horley, when, seeing "Crunden Cottages" 
 painted on a row of buildings in front of a yard, by the 
 road side, a little beyond Croydon, I said I remembered it 
 as a place where the 'Spread Eagle' coaches used to change 
 horses. "Yes," said the guard, "it was built for that pur- 
 pose by Bill Crunden's father who horsed the 'Vivid.'" 
 
 "And where is Bill now?" I asked. 
 
 " I saw him," he said, " the other day at Brighton." 
 
 I dare say poor Bill was then near the end of his last 
 stage. 
 
 The ' Spread Eagle,' in its latter days but a shadow of 
 its former self, has long since gone the way of its once 
 famous coaches. My acquaintance with it had ceased for 
 some years before I settled in London. But one day, 
 happening to be in Gracechurch Street at five P.M., and re- 
 membering it was the hour of the 'Ordinary' at the familar 
 old inn, I went into the coffee-room, where I found no one 
 but the waiter, who asked me if I was going to dine there. 
 " Certainly, William," I said, " but where is the company ? " 
 
 "Seldom any company dines here nowadays," said William. 
 
 All the same he instantly brought in a hot sirloin. "Why," 
 I asked, "is the dinner got ready, if no one comes to eat it?"
 
 EARLY DAYS 17 
 
 He explained that it was wanted as cold meat for break- 
 fast next morning. 
 
 I dined there alone that evening, and on other evenings 
 occasionally as long as the house stood. William having 
 known me from childhood, was always good company; we 
 liked to talk of bygone days. When the rumour came that 
 the house was to be pulled down, to provide a site for 
 offices, William, who had been there forty years, became very 
 disconsolate. I doubt whether he ever smiled again. One 
 evening, not long before the final catastrophe, I found 
 another waiter in his place. " But where is William ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Dead, sir," was the answer. " He couldn't endure then 
 to await the destruction of the old house?" "No, sir, that's 
 about the truth." Sorry as I was for the loss of an old 
 friend, I could not help feeling that the best thing he could 
 do under the circumstances was to die. 
 
 I suppose that each succeeding generation has its own 
 reminiscences and early associations, which are peculiarly 
 dear to itself; but it is difficult for me to imagine that any- 
 thing connected with railways and new monster hotels can 
 be as pleasant to my juniors to remember, as to me are the 
 'Dart' and 'Vivid,' Bob Snow, Bill Crunden, old William, 
 and the ' Spread Eagle,' Gracechurch Street.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 
 
 FOR family reasons Henry Whitehead went up to 
 Oxford rather later than is now the custom, and 
 matriculated at Lincoln College in 1847. He 
 had previously acted as assistant master in the 
 Chatham House School for two or three years. 
 
 It was a golden time he spent at Lincoln. Its 
 'grove' had not yet been cut down. Its eight 
 were rowing high upon the river, with Barras 
 and Frank Simmons as leading oarsmen. Dr. 
 Radford was head of the College ; young Mark 
 Pattison, who afterwards became rector, was 
 beginning his vigorous tutorial career, and R. 
 Mitchell and William Kay were lecturers. The 
 Lincoln men of his time were a bright genial set, 
 of more than average ability and much individu- 
 ality of character. 
 
 In one element they were at this time strong. 
 It was an element dear to the heart of White- 
 head : it was humour not horseplay, nor only 
 practical joking, but real delight in clever fun
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 19 
 
 and mother-wit. Amongst the scholars of Lin- 
 coln the names of Bampfield, Cox, Tidman, 
 Charles Morris, Walker, Alfred Church, the well- 
 known author and translator of Tacitus, occur at 
 this date ; others of his friends were Felix 
 Verity ; Espin now Chancellor Espin ; Stilwell ; 
 F. Barlow Guy, late headmaster of Forest School, 
 Walthamstow ; T. Kebbel, barrister and journ- 
 alist ; J. Healy; R. Ogle; W. Gurdon Lee, a 
 famous amateur boxer ; Gowen Evans, after- 
 wards editor of the Melbourne Argus ; J. S. 
 S. Sidebotham ; Howard ; Hodgson, in those 
 days a famous mimic ; and Austin of Exeter 
 College, brother of Alfred Austin the poet, 
 and an inveterate practical joker. 
 
 Whitehead, though he was reserved, had a deep 
 vein of humour in him, which at the least pro- 
 vocation declared itself, and he was soon one of 
 the most popular men of the College. 
 
 This was partly owing to his geniality and 
 ability to take provocation kindly, partly to his 
 quiet ability to endure fools gladly, partly again 
 to his wide sympathies with men of all sets, his 
 quaint independence of the opinion of others, and 
 his hatred of all sham or pretence. He looked 
 on men as books wherein to read character, and 
 men who were voted 'bores' by others found in 
 him a kind and interested listener. 
 
 Many years after, one of his College friends 
 then the editor of one of the great colonial papers 
 reminded him of old Lincoln days, saying :
 
 20 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 " Ah ! I always had to complain of you as an 
 encourager of bores." " Perfectly true accusa- 
 tion," replied Whitehead, " but I look on bores 
 from a different point of view from you, and as 
 raised up for two useful purposes (i) to serve as 
 trials of patience, (2) as means, when properly 
 handled, of bringing about humorous scenes and 
 situations." 
 
 In the old Lincoln days, this sense of the 
 ridiculous always kept him in high spirits. His 
 laughter, and no merrier laugh was ever heard, 
 pealed in Hall, and was heard in the quadrangle ; 
 whenever a good story was told, Whitehead could 
 cap it with another ; and he won a considerable 
 name for ready wit among his contemporaries by 
 his epigrams and terse sayings. Such phrases as, 
 " An infringement of the liberty of the subject," 
 " Masterly inactivity," became current coin in the 
 College, but men forgot the inventor, and White- 
 head took out no patents. 
 
 His musical ear had helped him to become 
 a verse maker ; and hardly anything of import- 
 ance occurred in College that did not gain some 
 amusing colour from the hand of the poet and 
 parodist of the College. For example, the under- 
 graduates subscribed in his time for a brass 
 lectern, and found when their turn came to read 
 the lessons that the brazen bird prevented their 
 being either seen or heard. A parody on a 
 passage in Byron's English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers, which ran :
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 21 
 
 So the brass eagle rears his ugly wing 
 Raised by the cash deluded freshmen bring, 
 Themselves the first to rue th' obnoxious bird, 
 Mounting the rostrum hoping to be heard, 
 
 delighted the freshmen, and the suggestion that 
 they had far better have bestowed their money on 
 the needy boat-club was agreed to when it was 
 too late. 
 
 A musical society, which died almost still-born 
 in 1847, gave Whitehead another opportunity 
 which he utilized for the production of a parody 
 of " On Linden when the sun was low." 
 
 But the poem which gave Whitehead a fame 
 not yet passed away from Lincoln, was a copy of 
 Latin hexameters, made up of extracts from 
 Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, and other poets, cleverly 
 pieced together and supplemented by himself, in 
 which he satirized a new movement in Hall of 
 standing up when certain dons passed out of Hall 
 from the high table, and by which he effectually 
 suppressed the innovation. 1 
 
 The poem is chiefly interesting as a record of 
 most of the leading men of the College at the 
 time, whose names he has skilfully Latinised. 
 Thus for example, Bampfield, Cox, Tidman, 
 
 1 " In Lincoln College," writes a friend and fellow-undergraduate of 
 Whitehead's in those old days, "the men always sat down immediately on 
 the conclusion of grace and probably do so now ; a certain clique in 
 College, however, insisted on standing till the Fellows had made their exit, 
 and tried to induce others to do likewise. Whitehead's clever satire frus- 
 trated the new movement, of which a man named Bampfield was the 
 originator. "
 
 22 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Walker, Church, appeared as Bampager, Callus, 
 Tidvir, Viator, and ^des-sacra. It began : 
 
 Consedere duces, nee consedisse pigebat; 
 Cum subito surgit coenae septemplicis ultor 
 Bampager impavidus; clamat, sociosque sedentes 
 Increpat impatiens ; " Nunc, nunc insurgite amici, 
 Illos nunc animos, illas nunc promite vires 
 Quae totidem vicere, iterum quse vincere possunt." 
 
 These verses were full of pungent hits at the 
 men whose names had been Latinised. Thus for 
 example, there was a man in College whose 
 Christian name was Felix, who had " put off," as 
 the term went, when the time came for 'greats,' 
 knowing well that he would never get through. 
 Whitehead applied to him most happily the 
 lines from Juvenal : 
 
 Felix nimirum, qui tot per saecula mortem 
 Distulit atque suos jam dextra computat annos. 
 
 It appears that F. Barlow Guy wrote a letter 
 under the title " Pacificator," urging his fellow- 
 undergraduates to adopt the new system, but with 
 no avail, for the clever satire ends thus : 
 
 Jamque minis frustra fatuis iratus Atrides 
 Myrmidones tentat. Blando vox mitior urget 
 Admonitu; verbosa et grandis epistola venit, 
 Sed frustra venit, nam surdior ilia caterva 
 Rupibus Icariis sedet aeternumque sedebit. 1 
 
 1 The poem, which ran to fifty lines, is printed entire in the Appendix.
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 23 
 
 Whitehead placed a copy on the bachelors' table 
 and on each undergraduate's table. Shouts of 
 laughter arose from the scholars' table. The 
 dons sent to ask the cause of the unwonted 
 merriment. A copy was handed to them, and 
 they in their turn were convulsed. Some of its 
 lines were quoted at high table for years. And 
 more than a generation after an oldish-looking 
 man came up to the satirist at the Carlisle Con- 
 gress and claimed acquaintance. 
 
 "You have the advantage of me," said White- 
 head. 
 
 " Nulla magistrorum Capiti reverentia Cano" 
 replied the other. 
 
 " Ah, now, there is no mistake about that. 
 That was the description of myself in the Lincoln 
 poem," answered Whitehead; and the two old 
 College chums were friends again in a moment, 
 and great talk they had that night, at the County 
 Club, over the days that were past. 
 
 Retiring man as he ever was, Whitehead 
 nevertheless became a power in the College. 
 Men discovered his deep fount of humour, his 
 sagacity in counsel, his generosity of heart, and 
 he was sought out by men in very different sets 
 who desired his friendship. He spent much of 
 his time with his friends, delighting them with 
 his quaint remarks and shrewd wit; a kind of 
 genial moderating presence always welcome, and 
 a man who absolutely refused to allow a quarrel 
 to be picked with him, or to bear a grudge. It
 
 24 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 was a very favourite saying of his, that " nothing 
 is rude which is not meant to be rude." An 
 example of this trait in his undergraduate char- 
 acter is given by a friend and contemporary. 
 
 " One who was very intimate with him once 
 had a difference with him; for a day or two 
 they did not meet. Soon afterwards the friend 
 came to him with a note in his hand. ' I daresay, 
 Whitehead, you know what's in this note.' 
 
 " ' I know what ought to be there.' 
 
 "'Very well, it is there.' 
 
 "'Then,' said Whitehead, 'there's an end of 
 it'; and, taking the note, he generously tore it 
 to pieces before his friend's eyes, and they were 
 as fast friends as ever." 
 
 He was not, however, at one time a favourite 
 with Kay, a man of warm heart under a cold 
 exterior; but who had failed to recognize and 
 do justice to Whitehead's sturdy qualities. 
 
 Kay left Lincoln to become Principal of 
 Bishop's College, Calcutta ; but Whitehead would 
 not let him leave Oxford without bidding him 
 a hearty God-speed. He called upon him the 
 evening before he left. He found Kay alone, 
 and the two men not only speedily came to an 
 understanding, but discovered in each other the 
 beginnings of a mutual appreciation which lasted 
 for life. 
 
 Whitehead read steadily and worked well, not 
 perhaps as hard as a man with less wide interests 
 in his fellowmen might have done, but hard
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 25 
 
 enough to make his tutor think he was safe of 
 his First Class. He once said he got more 
 good out of men than out of books. As to 
 subjects, his mind turned more willingly to philo- 
 sophy, and he delighted in Mark Pattison's 
 lectures on Aristotle's Ethics. 
 
 Often in class, when no answer could be ob- 
 tained, Mr. Pattison would turn and say to the 
 most silent member of that class, "Well, Mr. 
 Whitehead, we must come to you." 
 
 There grew up a bond between these two men, 
 and at a time when things were not all smooth 
 sailing with Pattison, when, for some technical 
 error in not having taken a B.D. degree, he lost 
 his fellowship, the sympathy so sure, so true, 
 which he found in Whitehead, was of inestimable 
 value to him. The tutor who really knew and 
 understood the pupil, found that the pupil really 
 knew and understood him, and would stick by 
 him through fair and foul, as he did till the 
 last sad day when, after a short interview, Mark 
 Pattison said quietly, " You will never see me 
 again, my dear friend, I am dying." The affec- 
 tion between these men, each so individual in 
 character, and of such diverse tastes and pursuits, 
 was unbroken as it was affectionate and sincere. 
 
 Doubtless there were affinities of character 
 between Whitehead and Mark Pattison. Both 
 men were keen to see the absurdities of a situa- 
 tion; both were fond of satire; both were critical 
 and nice as to details ; both were courageous
 
 26 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 and original thinkers, with a certain taciturn 
 introspective reserve. Yet there was a difference 
 in them, the difference between optimist and 
 pessimist. The younger man had a strong belief 
 in the possibilities of human nature and the good- 
 ness of men, was large-hearted and full of faith 
 in his fellow-creatures. There was no bitterness 
 in his satire, and he generally had a distinct 
 purpose in his taciturnity. When he was self- 
 absorbed it was to help his comrades, not to 
 withdraw himself from them, and he did not 
 refuse to speak in season. It was in part this 
 self-command and power of silence that formed 
 a mutual attraction between the tutor and the 
 pupil in Lincoln days. Whitehead was not able 
 to re-visit Oxford after his College days, as he 
 would have liked to do. Hard work, little leisure, 
 and narrow means all combined to make such 
 visits difficult; but in 1874, when he was on 
 the eve of quitting London for the north, he 
 fulfilled a long-cherished desire, and took his 
 wife to Oxford to show her its ancient colleges, 
 
 O ' 
 
 and especially his own. They spent a week 
 with his old tutor and Mrs. Pattison l at Lin- 
 coln College: a visit which was a great joy to 
 him, and the remembrance of which is still a 
 most fragrant memory in the mind of his wife. 
 
 A story is told of him having joined a club, 
 and of having attended regularly at its delibera- 
 tions for a year, watching its mismanagement, a 
 
 1 Now Lady Dilke.
 
 COLLEGE DAYS 27 
 
 quietly observant spectator. A crisis came, the 
 members argued and wrangled and fought. Still 
 Whitehead held his tongue. At last they turned 
 to him and asked what he thought. " You have 
 asked for my opinion," he answered, "so you 
 shall have it." And without mincing matters, 
 he gave it them straight from the shoulder, and 
 with such convincing power that though they 
 felt half indignant, they took his advice, and 
 acted upon it. 
 
 One of his Lincoln contemporaries writes : 
 
 " I was in Pattison's Tacitus lecture with him : he was 
 thought to distance all competitors in construing that trouble- 
 some author. I have not retained in my mind many anecdotes 
 of his College days. He was then, as afterwards, a great 
 smoker, and used to attribute his knowledge of Herodotus to 
 that habit. He was not much of an athlete, but as became a 
 'man of Kent,' he took a great interest in cricket, and 
 thoroughly understood the game, and was an excellent field. 
 At billiards he was a very fair performer ; but my own opinion 
 is that he cared little for any game that interrupted conversa- 
 tion. His chief delight then, as all through life, was to get 
 together a few chosen friends, and sit far into the small hours 
 talking of whatever came uppermost, and letting the conversa- 
 tion drift whither it would. He was one of those men of 
 whom there were some in every College who were rarely seen 
 out of doors. Nobody ever met Whitehead ' taking a consti- 
 tutional.' He was seldom visible in ' the High.' He did not 
 much affect the river, and certainly he never mounted a horse 
 at Oxford, though he was not ignorant of horsemanship, and 
 used to ride at home." 
 
 Fond of horses he certainly was. The paper 
 on the old coaching days bears witness to this.
 
 28 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 One of his friends who has sent interesting remin- 
 iscences writes : 
 
 " I first met Whitehead at the Henley Regatta, 
 and I well remember how, on the drive home, he 
 interested me in the graphic account of the life of 
 a racehorse." 
 
 Aye ! and he knew the pedigree of every 
 winner of the Derby from those early College 
 days down to the most recent times, and could 
 nearly always correctly name the winner from 
 this knowledge before the race was run. 
 
 Whitehead took his degree in 1850. The 
 College fully expected he would take a First 
 Class, his Ethics were fully up to a First, but 
 other parts of his work pulled him down ; his 
 class was more of a disappointment to others 
 than to himself. He took honours in what was 
 considered a stiff year ; that is, only four men 
 were put into the First Class, and many good 
 men found themselves in the Second Class, 
 Henry Parker, the winner of the Latin Essay, 
 afterwards Fellow of Oriel, Crumpton of Corpus, 
 and others, amongst them Liddon and Henry 
 Whitehead. But he had taken honours that 
 were more dear to him than a place in the Class 
 List. He left Oxford, as he once told the writer, 
 knowing a great deal more about men than he 
 had ever hoped to know ; and he carried down 
 from the University the good will of a larger 
 number of friends who followed his walk in life 
 with interest, than he at the time was aware of.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LONDON CURACIES 
 
 WHITEHEAD went down from Oxford determined 
 to carry out the idea of becoming a parish clergy- 
 man, that he seems to have had in his mind from 
 early days. At that epoch the demand for curates 
 was less than the supply, and titles to orders were 
 not as plentiful as blackberries. 
 
 Mr. Stocks however, then vicar of St. Luke's, 
 Berwick Street, Soho, offered him a title, saying, 
 "It is a place for such as care more for the 
 approval than the applause of men," and having 
 taken deacon's orders in 1851, and having found 
 lodgings in Soho Square, which his brother Jack 
 (who afterwards went to Australia) could share 
 with him, he at once entered heart and soul upon 
 the work of a London curate, one who more by 
 accident than choice saw work east, west, north, 
 south, and who made up for the proverbial in- 
 ability of the rolling stone to gather moss, by 
 gathering what was much better, many friends. 
 
 When after serving the Church in seven differ- 
 ent parishes for nearly twenty-four years, he was,
 
 3 o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 through the kind offices of the present Earl of 
 Carlisle, presented to the living of Brampton upon 
 the Cumberland border, these friends gathered 
 together to do him honour from the various 
 parishes in which he had worked from St. Luke's, 
 Berwick Street ; St. Matthew's, Westminster ; 
 Holy Trinity, Clapham ; St. Anne's, Highgate 
 Rise ; St. Peter's, Stepney ; St. Peter's, Ham- 
 mersmith ; and St. John's, Limehouse. 
 
 At that gathering, held in the famous ' Rainbow 
 Tavern,' in Fleet Street, Henry Whitehead made 
 a record after-dinner speech of three hours 1 (it is 
 said to be the longest after-dinner speech on 
 record, and is quoted as such in a weekly news- 
 paper devoted to such scraps of fact), in which he 
 told the " experiences of a London curate." From 
 that speech, full of racy humour and pathetic fact, 
 much of interest about Whitehead's London work 
 can be gathered, and as one rises from the perusal 
 of it, one cannot help thinking how short-sighted 
 is patronage in a church that could have allowed 
 a man of such individuality of character, such 
 saintliness and heroism of life, to be tossed from 
 parish to parish, and eventually to be entirely lost 
 to the London of his heart. 
 
 It is true he was once offered a living by the 
 Daily Telegraph, but the editor took it away from 
 him the next morning by a paragraph in which he 
 announced that he had been 'requested to state 
 that the clergyman to whom the living of 
 
 1 This speech is printed at the end of the volume.
 
 LONDON CURACIES 31 
 
 Avington, Hants, had been presented, was the 
 Rev. W. Whitehead, curate of Camberwell.' It is 
 also true that after sixteen years' work as a curate 
 in London, the Chaplain-General, on the recom- 
 mendation of Dr. Tait, then Bishop of London, 
 wrote offering him the appointment to the Arsenal 
 Chapel at Woolwich, but on going down to in- 
 spect the house that was to be his headquarters, 
 Whitehead saw a suspicious looking hat-box and 
 portmanteau in the passage, and found another 
 clergyman already in possession, appointed by a 
 rival patron, and it is needless to add that he left 
 him in undisturbed enjoyment of his benefice. 
 
 Bishop Jackson of Lincoln, afterwards of Lon- 
 don, once offered him a living in Lincolnshire, 
 but this was declined ; and once a locum tenency, 
 which, knowing his man, he urged him to accept 
 for the sake of the parish, then in a very dis- 
 turbed state owing to the delinquencies of the 
 vicar, at that time suspended. The only piece 
 of preferment Whitehead ever applied for, some 
 years later the Chaplaincy at Lincoln's Inn- 
 he failed to obtain. 
 
 In connection with this appointment the late 
 Recorder of Birmingham, Matthew Davenport 
 Hill, 1 wrote a most kindly letter wishing him 
 success, and adding : " The doctors forbid me 
 to travel, but if you think it necessary to the 
 securing of the appointment for you, my friend, 
 that I should come to town to record my vote 
 
 1 Then living at Stapleton in Bristol.
 
 32 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 in your favour, I will gladly run the risk and do 
 so." It is needless to say Whitehead would not 
 allow him to travel to London. 
 
 Externally, St Luke's, Berwick Street, is much 
 as it was when Whitehead went to labour there. 
 One does not realize as one passes down Regent 
 Street, how small a distance of street and alley 
 separates " the unknown little from the unknow- 
 ing great." But to the person who will dive 
 down such entrance to the unknown land of 
 slums of Soho as Beak Street or Berwick Street 
 provides, there is much that will astonish and 
 interest him, if he is a student of the ways of 
 the poor in London. Your cab is suddenly 
 brought up sharp by a coster's barrow, and you 
 are asked if you are going down to St. Luke's, 
 Berwick Street : if you intimate that that is your 
 destination, you are told politely, but with proper 
 Soho emphasis, that you will get through by the 
 end of next week, and you are soon obliged to 
 believe there is truth in the prophecy. Closely 
 ranged side by side in the narrow street are the 
 vendors' stalls and barrows. The cats'-meat 
 man, the fish salesman, the butcher, the fruiterer, 
 the toy-seller, the old rag-and-bone men, jostle 
 and cry their wares. " Prime meat ! meat ! meat ! 
 buy ! buy ! buy ! Here ! here ! here ! veal ! veal ! 
 fresh veal to-day ! what's your fancy ! Sold, sold 
 again ! fish for nothing ! cherries ripe ! " Your 
 aim is St. Luke's, Berwick Street : you soon see 
 its dim row of dingy semi-domestic, semi-gothic
 
 LONDON CURACIES 33 
 
 windows. A man is standing just opposite the 
 barred gate skinning eels ; you hear a scream, 
 and you know that a poor creature who objects 
 to its fate has slipped from his hand, and is 
 making its way among the crowd. 
 
 You pass on and, if you dare, you go up 
 Black Hall Court, or some other of the courts 
 hard by, and you feel your heart sink within 
 you to think of the squalor and the tragedy of 
 the home-life that can alone be possible in such 
 surroundings. You feel within yourself it needs 
 a brave man to stand for Christ amid the people 
 here. 
 
 Such a brave man was young Whitehead, who 
 in 1851 came hither to live the life of human 
 friendship in this world of friendlessness, want, 
 and woe ; in this home of warm hearts and cold 
 hearts, of good endings and bad beginnings ; of 
 sin, sorrow, and suffering, and of noble patience 
 and brotherhood in adversity. 
 
 Here, under three successive vicars, T. F. 
 Stooks, 1 Harry Jones, 2 and Samuel Arnott, 3 he 
 worked for five years. Here he began to realize 
 the poet's dictum, " The proper study of mankind 
 is man." 
 
 The people of St. Luke's in those days were 
 mostly artizans and workers for the West End 
 shops. Owing to the high rents, whole families 
 occupied single rooms in the once stately houses 
 which in byegone days had been the homes of 
 
 1 Since dead. -2 Since dead. 3 Vicar of Gunnersbury. 
 
 C
 
 34 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 well-to-do people. Single rooms do I say ? aye ! 
 and many of them quarters of single rooms (for 
 this was before the days of the Lodging House 
 Act), under which difficult circumstances they had 
 to make the best of life, if any best could be 
 possible, sharing the one fire in turn for cooking 
 purposes. He has often been heard to relate, 
 when talking over the old St. Luke's days, the 
 pathetically humorous reply of the woman of 
 whom he inquired : 
 
 " Why, however do you manage to get along 
 in such close quarters?" 
 
 " Well, sir," was the reply, " we was comfort- 
 able enough till the gentleman come in the 
 middle," an answer which explained the chalk 
 circle in the middle of the room, which defined 
 the limit within which the aforesaid ' gentleman ' 
 lived and moved and had his being. 
 
 Those were days when the cows lived upstairs 
 on the top storey, conveyed thither by means of a 
 windlass, never to return to earth whilst their 
 milk lasted. 
 
 St. Luke's parish was a great place for shoe- 
 makers and cobblers, mostly of a sceptical turn 
 of mind, as is their wont, in London at any rate, 
 with whom he had many a tough argument which 
 often tended to create no little amount of respect 
 for one another, this possibility being largely due 
 to his tolerant wide-mindedness. 
 
 In St. Luke's, Berwick Street, was fair field 
 for inquiry into human nature. If some of it
 
 LONDON CURACIES 35 
 
 was shady and disheartening, there was much 
 that was good and to be had in honour. Mr. 
 Aldous the church-warden, Mr. Orme the clerk 
 and superintendent of the boys' Sunday school, 
 Mr. Robson the organist, and Gibson the bellows- 
 man were real friends ; and many an evening in 
 the Soho lodgings was made pleasant by the 
 animated discussion on matters political and re- 
 ligious with the brave Scotch Sergeant Richard- 
 son, the scripture-reader of St. Luke's, a man 
 brim-full of metaphysics, and a most fluent quoter 
 of Burns and Scott ; and Joseph Randall, the 
 national schoolmaster of the neighbouring parish 
 of St. James, and a prominent man in his day. 
 
 It was during the cholera epidemic of 1854 
 that Whitehead found the sergeant smitten of 
 the plague. " I knew you would come," he said. 
 " And I knew, " replied Whitehead, " how I 
 should find you when I did come." He then 
 told me of a conversation he had had with a 
 man who had often been rude to him, but whose 
 rudeness had now given way to fear. " And 
 what," said the man, " is the best thing to take 
 for cholera ?" 
 
 " I don't know what to take," said Sergeant 
 Richardson, " but I know what to do. It may 
 neither prevent nor cure cholera, but it will save 
 me from what is worse than cholera, that is 
 from fear." 
 
 " But what is your antidote ?" 
 
 " I shall look up to my God," said the ser-
 
 36 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 geant, " and though He slay me, yet will I trust 
 in Him." 
 
 Speaking of his friend the sergeant, at the 
 Rainbow dinner, Whitehead said, " Mr. Richard- 
 son recovered from his sickness ' to fight a good 
 fight ' in the cause of his Master for many a 
 year to come. But he is now in his grave; and 
 in the long list of my friends I recognize no more 
 honourable name than that of the ex-sergeant of 
 the Grenadier Guards." 
 
 Whitehead lived on in St. Luke's, but kept 
 touch with the world outside of it. His rooms 
 in Soho Square were conveniently central ; and 
 many of his old Lincoln College chums delighted 
 to come in upon him and learn something of the 
 secrets of that other world in which he now was 
 teacher and learner. 
 
 Others there were who made a point of coming 
 to hear him preach on Sundays. One of these 
 writes thus : 
 
 " I went to hear him preach in the early days 
 of his ministrations in St. Luke's, Berwick Street. 
 I was greatly impressed by his tersely earnest 
 delivery, and his incisive but always reverent 
 utterances. I have always felt that as his 
 sermons, 1 as compositions, were marked by wide 
 and careful reading, deeply devotional thought, 
 exceptional power and originality, so his delivery 
 
 1 He published a small volume of these sermons under the title of The 
 Church and the People. London, Skeffington, 1856. Now out of print.
 
 LONDON CURACIES 37 
 
 was such as not to fail to impress any who 
 heard him with his own deep sense of respon- 
 sibility in delivering the message entrusted to 
 him." 
 
 There had been a committee of old Lincoln 
 men formed to present Mark Pattison with 
 some testimonial ; and after having finished their 
 labours, they were so fraternally affected one to 
 the other that they did not dissolve, but deter- 
 mined to form a social club to meet at the 
 ' Edinburgh Castle ' periodically, with solemn 
 agreement that the bill of fare should be rump 
 steak pudding and a bowl of punch. These 
 meetings were bright spots in the hard life the 
 young curate found was his portion; and though 
 the old ' Lincoln Club ' went to pieces after a 
 time, because, as Whitehead put it, ' it deviated 
 from the original bill of fare,' the recollection of 
 the capital stories and comic situations of those 
 pleasant gatherings were to the end of his life 
 a source of great delight to him. A friend who 
 knew Whitehead intimately writes thus of those 
 Soho days : 
 
 It was when he was living in Soho as curate of St. Luke's, 
 Berwick Street, that I first got to know him. He was very 
 fond of having two or three friends to dinner in his lodgings, 
 when the fare was always the same, a roast leg of mutton 
 and sea kale. But it was after he became Mr. Bowyer's 
 curate at Clapham, and lodged in Manor Street, that I began 
 to know what he was really like. His rector, a man of high 
 culture and genial spirit, thoroughly understood him ; and 
 I remember very well when Whitehead took some of us to
 
 38 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 a garden party at the Rectory, how after an hour or two 
 Mr. Bowyer came up to him with a smile, and said, " Now, 
 Whitehead, I know you would much rather be at home 
 smoking a long pipe with your friends, do pray go, and 
 don't stand upon ceremony." So we did go, and after the 
 mutton and sea kale had disappeared, the long clays were 
 produced, and we began to spend the evening in our own 
 way. 
 
 This was what Whitehead thoroughly enjoyed. College 
 reminiscences were the staple of the talk, and as he was 
 decidedly the best teller of a certain class of anecdote whom 
 I have ever met with in my life, such an evening was a treat. 
 He hated prolix arguments, and his political liberalism was 
 so closely intermingled with what I may call his moral con- 
 servatism that he made himself better understood by the 
 sudden utterance of some humorous paradox than he would 
 have done by an hour's regular discussion. Paradoxical as 
 it may seem, he hated changes; never man repeated more 
 heartily than Whitehead Lord Melbourne's famous question, 
 "Can't you leave things alone?" At the same time he knew 
 very well that they could not be let alone, and at this point 
 of course his liberalism began. His friends knew, however, 
 that it was the power of any event or any belief to touch 
 his sense of humour which really attracted him. I remember 
 meeting him at the boat race soon after the Paris Com- 
 mune. "Oh," he said, "how are you? We haven't met since 
 this great outbreak of first principles." Exactly what he 
 meant by this and similar sayings only those who knew him 
 very well indeed could understand, and not one of them 
 could have explained it to anybody else. 
 
 He was very fond of the old tavern life, and it was 
 part of his creed that you must submit yourself implicitly 
 to whatever the waiter chose to do. If your chop or steak 
 was a long time coming, you were not to ask the reason 
 why. You were never to raise your voice in calling for what 
 you wanted if you were not attended to at first. I did not 
 share these opinions, as he knew, and I once tried to ex-
 
 LONDON CURACIES 39 
 
 plain to him how I acted upon them at an inn he patronized, 
 and how I was treated for my pains. I had given my order, 
 but nothing came, and I never remonstrated, only as often 
 as the waiter came near me, I repeated my order in a low 
 voice. After this had occurred several times the head waiter 
 suddenly burst out from the other end of the room, " Go and 
 see what he wants, he's been a-'ollering there this 'arf hour." 
 
 "Oh," said Whitehead, "he saw through you." 
 
 The old taverns in the neighbourhood of the Inns of 
 Court were what he chiefly loved : ' The Cock,' ' The Cheshire 
 Cheese,' ' The Edinburgh Castle,' ' The Rainbow.' 1 I think 
 he knew the last of them the best ; and the old waiter, John, 
 who had been there from ' time immemorial,' knew him well. 
 
 In spite of keen sensitiveness and much natural refine- 
 ment, he expressed great contempt, partly real and partly 
 affected, for fastidiousness of any kind. There was a strong 
 Johnsonian element in his composition, and the book of 
 human nature was what he preferred to any other. 
 
 Of his work as clergyman it is for others to speak, I 
 only knew him as a companion. 
 
 Passing from the outward characteristics of 
 Whitehead, and the circumstances of his daily 
 life in London, we come to the important episode 
 in his early career, which showed the real stuff 
 of which he was compacted. 
 
 It was in 1854 that Whitehead's courage was 
 tried and his sagacity tested, and he won all 
 
 1 It must be remembered that those were the days before the ' Criterion' 
 had come into being, or the 'Cecil' had been born. The "plump 
 head-waiter at the ' Cock ' " had not yet been displaced by the army of 
 German ' Kellners' at the ' Holborn Restaurant,' and old William of the 
 ' Spread Eagle,' in Gracechurch Street, was still good company for all 
 who dined there. Whitehead dearly loved to study the friendly social 
 side of things, and found an occasional dinner at a London tavern good 
 for both body and soul.
 
 40 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 unwittingly, lasting name and fame as the London 
 curate who, by hunting the deadly disease of 
 cholera to its source, did more than any other 
 Englishman (Dr. Snow only excepted) to help 
 the world of science to save the world of men 
 from that dreadful scourge. This at least is 
 the testimony of the well-known expert John 
 Netten Radcliffe, Inspector of Public Health, 
 under H.M. Privy Council, whose researches in 
 the origin of disease had won for him a Euro- 
 pean reputation. 
 
 Writing in 1871, Mr. Radcliffe says: 
 
 In the Broad Street outbreak of cholera not only did 
 Mr. Whitehead faithfully discharge the duties of a parish 
 priest, but by a subsequent inquiry, unique in character and 
 extending over four months, during which time he sat up 
 night after night till 4 A.M. arranging the evidence he had 
 steadily collected during the day in the course of his laborious 
 duties in that densely populated parish, he laid the first solid 
 groundwork of the doctrine that cholera may be propagated 
 through the medium of drinking water, polluted with the 
 intestinal discharges of persons suffering from that disease. 
 
 This doctrine, now fully accepted in medicine, was originally 
 advanced by the late Dr. Snow; but to Mr. Whitehead un- 
 questionably belongs the honour of having first shown with 
 anything approaching to conclusiveness the high degree of 
 probability attaching to it. Only now perhaps can the great 
 public importance of the doctrine be clearly appreciated, and 
 the value of Mr. Whitehead's inquiry properly estimated. 
 
 He published an account of this in 1854, under the title of 
 The Cholera in Berwick Street. 
 
 How the cholera came to St. Luke's, and how 
 impure water may spread cholera, may be read
 
 LONDON CURACIES 41 
 
 in the two articles Whitehead contributed to 
 Macmillaris Magazine, December 1865, and July 
 1866; and the story of the keen hunt for facts, 
 and suspension of judgment, and willingness to 
 correct foregone conclusions when new facts 
 were elicited, is worth reading, if only for the 
 insight into Whitehead's indomitable courage, 
 perseverance, and splendid accuracy of detail, 
 which the papers bring before one. His own 
 account was given at the celebrated t Rainbow 
 dinner of farewell,' and may be read at the end 
 of this volume. 
 
 It may not be out of place to mention here 
 that he was once offered a post on the staff of the 
 Daily News by the editor, who in writing about 
 these articles, somewhat pertinently inquired, ' Is 
 there no small bishopric for such a man?' 
 
 Those who listened to Whitehead's recital at 
 the ' Rainbow ' heard much of the heroism of 
 the sufferers and succourers, and something of 
 the praise due to Dr. Snow; but they could 
 hardly have guessed that he himself had been 
 more than an interested spectator from the out- 
 side. 
 
 What he did we must learn from others. This 
 is what Harry Jones, himself engaged in a skir- 
 mish with cholera as a curate at St. Mark's, North 
 Audley Street, says of him : 
 
 It was in 1854, during the deadly slaughter made by the 
 Broad Street pump, that Whitehead fought like a hero night 
 and day, with hand and lips and brain, helping to strengthen
 
 42 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 the living, heal the sick, and comfort the dying. And putting 
 two and two together, he, along with Dr. Snow, was able to 
 lay the finger of knowledge upon the source of the evil, and 
 show more clearly than had ever been shown before, that water 
 is the surest and deadliest carrier of death, when it has once 
 become tainted. 
 
 No sooner had the fierce blast of this deadly epidemic 
 passed by, than he began that patient and careful inquiry 
 from house to house, and from room to room, which enabled 
 him and his doctor friend to quietly work out a result which 
 has been of incalculable value to the world of science. 
 
 I can't say that I saw much of Whitehead then, for we 
 both had our hands full; but one thought of the man in 
 the thickest of the fight, and a glance at the yellow flag 
 at the top of Berwick Street, or at the dead carts coming out 
 of it, ought to have made one feel that the clergy of the 
 Church had something to do beside 'preaching,' only we 
 didn't think about it at all. 
 
 India as well as England has had cause to 
 thank the brave-hearted follower of " The Good 
 Physician," who fought so well beneath that yellow 
 flag of doom at Berwick Street end. It is not to 
 be wondered at that Mr. Orme, the old parish 
 clerk of St. Luke's, looking back over an ex- 
 perience of fifty-three years, should write : "I 
 must say, that of all the clergy none of them 
 was more self-denying than the Rev. H. White- 
 head; he never thought of himself, but was in 
 season and out of season always doing good." 
 
 The Ragged School and Reformatory question 
 was coming to the front in 1855. Whitehead, 
 from his observation of juvenile crime and its 
 causes, saw that what was wanted was to get
 
 LONDON CURACIES 43 
 
 the lads and lasses under some educational system 
 which, whilst it provided supervision, would also 
 find some useful and remunerative work for idle 
 hands to do. He saw that Ragged School phil- 
 anthropy which was working in this direction 
 broke down, at least as far as the hard-headed 
 business men went, because it was not conducted 
 on a business footing, and therefore failed to pay 
 its way, and was, in a word, unproductive. 
 
 He argued that if the county reformatories 
 could find agricultural operations pay, or help 
 to pay their way, London reformatories might 
 also make two ends meet, if only business men 
 could ascertain what factory work suitable for 
 the young was feasible. His views commended 
 themselves to the working manager of the Belve- 
 dere Crescent Reformatory, Lambeth, in which 
 he was interested, and The Times of Wednesday, 
 December 26, 1855, gave him a whole column 
 in which he was able to formulate his plan of self- 
 support for the reformatory system of our large 
 towns. It may be useful to give this letter in 
 full, even forty-two years after. 
 
 Henry Whitehead's letter was occasioned by 
 a public meeting held at Hawkeston Hall, Water- 
 loo Road, on Thursday, December 13, 1855, in 
 order to consider the desirableness and practica- 
 bility of placing a building in Belvedere Crescent, 
 Lambeth, recently adapted and used as a Refor- 
 matory Institution for vagrant and criminal boys, 
 in a position to deal effectually, so far as the
 
 44 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 South London districts are concerned, with the 
 serious and acknowledged evil of juvenile de- 
 linquency. 
 
 The Rev. J. Lingham, rector of Lambeth, 
 presided, and said that " the object of the com- 
 mittee was to gather together the poor boys 
 who wandered about the streets of the metropolis, 
 many of whom were fatherless, and all friendless, 
 and to teach them some industrial and profitable 
 occupation which would render them independent 
 in their future career and able to earn an honour- 
 able subsistence." 
 
 The Times report ended by saying, " The Rev. 
 Mr. Whitehead informs us that the great neces- 
 sity for increased metropolitan exertions arises 
 from the efforts that are being made in promoting 
 the reformatories through the counties, which 
 materially interfere with the resources at the dis- 
 posal of the metropolitan committee." 
 
 Henry Whitehead's letter was intended to show 
 that the reformatory work could and would be 
 carried on as successfully in London as in country 
 districts. The boys could be put into special 
 factories in London in place of the farms avail- 
 able in the country. In the course of his letter 
 he writes as follows : 
 
 I cannot myself see any valid reasons why the reformatory 
 zeal of the metropolitan districts should not be elicited and 
 directed as effectually and intelligently as that of the pro- 
 vinces. At present a metropolitan reformatory institution 
 originates for the most part in the spontaneous effort of some
 
 LONDON CURACIES 45 
 
 Ragged School teacher. The friends who in due course 
 actively concern themselves on his behalf are generally men 
 of no influence, and but little pecuniary means. The support 
 which from time to time comes to them is from the ' general 
 public.' The ' general public ' is a term which, in its relation 
 to subscription lists, is not so vague and indefinite as it seems. 
 Collect together any half-dozen secretaries of charitable insti- 
 tutions, give each one a blank sheet of paper and tell him 
 to enumerate thereon the ' general public.' I take it that 
 the answers would tally as closely as the logic papers of half 
 a dozen pupils of the same private tutor in the Oxford schools. 
 All honour then, to the ' general public,' whose philanthropy 
 is not made up exclusively of inexpensive denunciation against 
 the contributors to foreign missions. But in a matter such 
 as that upon which I am writing, ought there not to be a 
 special as well as a general public? And ought not this 
 special public to consist of the inhabitants of any district, 
 with the vice and vagabondism of which a reformatory insti- 
 tution endeavours to grapple. . . . Why cannot several 
 large parishes of London combine their energies and act in 
 this matter with all the unity of purpose and concentration 
 of effort that now distinguish any provincial movement of 
 the kind ? The Londoners possess this advantage, if they 
 will but make use of it their reformatory institutions 
 already exist. Few persons however, save those who are 
 intimately connected with them, are aware of the difficulties 
 these institutions have had to encounter, or of the fixedness 
 of purpose and tenacity of faith with which they have been 
 conducted. Doubtless they have had their share of the mis- 
 takes, misadventures, and debts incident to the working out 
 of a great practical idea without capital to fall back upon ; 
 but the probability is that after years of anxious experimental 
 exertion, each of these institutions has devised a plan and 
 method of industrial occupation which is only prevented by 
 want of money and want of certain special information from 
 being developed into something like a system of self-support. 
 At any rate it is surely worth while for the metropolitan public
 
 46 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 to inquire into the matter. If ' juvenile delinquency ' is held 
 to be a nuisance in London, let the great merchants and 
 manufacturers of the metropolis set on foot an inquiry to 
 ascertain whether the existing metropolitan reformatories 
 possess any capabilities, with the requisite assistance and 
 supervision for the conversion of those juvenile non-producers 
 into producers. If the verdict of such inquiry be favourable, 
 let the present institutions be made available and rendered 
 as effective as possible. If the verdict be unfavourable, then 
 surely it is not beyond the means or sagacity of our great 
 business veterans to hit upon some device of their own that 
 will succeed. At least they ought to try." 
 
 The letter was signed Henry Whitehead, Belvedere Crescent 
 Reformatory, Lambeth. 
 
 That he practised what he preached on this 
 subject is proved by the following extract from 
 the memoir of the late Matthew Davenport Hill, 
 Recorder of Birmingham, written by his daugh- 
 ters, who have kindly allowed it to appear in 
 this place : 
 
 Mr. Hill's acquaintance with Mr. Whitehead arose from 
 their common interest in the reformatory cause. Commenting 
 on the part taken by the latter in teaching an industrial 
 occupation to the inmates of a home for destitute boys, Mr. 
 Hill wrote : " In your working dress and shirt sleeves, you 
 are only bringing yourself a step nearer to the Apostles. At 
 least, that is my opinion not being one of those who think 
 'a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.' God bless you 
 and your worthy associates, and all honour to your zeal and 
 pluck ! You are the true Church Militant. What a change 
 in the clergy since my boyhood ! The esoteric doctrine then 
 prevalent was that a beneficed clergyman enjoyed his estate 
 in a black coat with much the same title, and scarcely more 
 duties, than the squire enjoyed his in a blue one." 1 
 
 1 77u Recorder of Birmingham, London, 1878, p. 57, note.
 
 LONDON CURACIES 47 
 
 In this connection there must be mentioned 
 the name of William Driver, originally a working 
 shoemaker, afterwards a Ragged School teacher, 
 one of the first of that devoted band who went 
 out one by one into the byeways of the great 
 city to seek for outcast homeless lads, often to 
 be found sleeping under archways and in empty 
 barrels by the wharves. He was wont to bring 
 such into his own home, where his tender-hearted 
 wife nobly seconded his efforts to teach them 
 by care and loving kindness, that they could 
 make something of their lives, and become use- 
 ful members of society. For many years he 
 carried on very successfully the above-mentioned 
 Boys' Reformatory in Belvedere Crescent, Lam- 
 beth, where he taught the lads first of all to make 
 paper-bags for the grocery trade, and eventually 
 to make the beautiful fancy boxes for dried fruits 
 used in the Christmas season. 
 
 In March of 1856 Whitehead migrated to 
 St. Matthew's, Great Peter Street, Westminster. 
 Some of the parishioners of St. Luke's felt they 
 could not let the hero of the cholera leave without 
 some mark of their gratitude. The organist and 
 the clerk were deputed by the committee to 
 choose a piece of silver-plate, and were busy in 
 consultation with the lady superintendent of the 
 girls' Sunday school as to a suitable inscription 
 for it, when Whitehead was announced. Mr. 
 Orme's account of the interview is as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Whitehead had come to say that he
 
 48 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 had heard. a testimonial was preparing for him, 
 and I said that nobody more than myself thought 
 that there was no one more deserving of one. 
 
 " ' I have come to say/ replied Mr. Whitehead, 
 ' that I will receive no testimonial, unless the 
 subscription to it is not more than a penny 
 each.' 
 
 " We had much difficulty in getting the sub- 
 scribers to take back their subscriptions of more 
 than a penny, but there was no help for it." 
 
 So, gladdened with a few books which he 
 chose as a memento of his St. Luke friends, 
 Whitehead went off to begin work again in 
 what was then one of the strangest districts in 
 London, known in common parlance as the 
 ' Devil's Acre,' Westminster.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CONTINUATION OF WORK IN LONDON: THE 
 PUBLISHED SERMONS 
 
 THOSE who to-day visit St. Matthew's, Great 
 Peter Street, Westminster, would not recognize 
 church or surroundings, as Whitehead knew 
 them. 1 A brotherhood of High Anglican priests 
 is in possession of the church and its substantial 
 clergy house. The Westminster Free Library 
 has combined with Burroughs & Watts, the 
 great billiard table manufacturers, and the archi- 
 tect of the Church House, to give a look of 
 magnificence to the dingy purlieus, and whole 
 rows and courts of miserable habitations have 
 had to make way for the mighty gasometer that 
 dominates the parish, though a dense population 
 still remains, and crowded courts and alleys too. 
 
 1 Many years afterwards the Recorder of Birmingham, writing to White- 
 head, says: "I know your district. Early in my married life I lived at 
 Chelsea, and often traversed your 'slums' on my way to Westminster 
 Hall. Then, and then only, did I ever see the figures in Hogarth's 
 Bridewell, living and moving. N.B. Hogarth is conclusive evidence 
 that we do not get worse." (See The Recorder of Birmingham, Lond., 
 1878, p. 57.) 
 
 D
 
 50 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 But when Whitehead was working in the 
 ' Devil's Acre ' there was no pretence at noble 
 surroundings. He lived in the midst of a strange 
 people whose life was known only to the police, 
 and whose private life was only to be studied 
 after dark in common lodging-houses. 
 
 It was this private life that was a chapter in 
 the book of human nature which interested 
 Whitehead. 
 
 There is honour among thieves, and I have found it of a 
 certain kind among beggars. One day during the period of 
 my ministry in the Devil's Acre, a man well known to me, 
 with a bundle of tracts in his hand, accosted me and asked 
 me to give him something in consideration of his vocation 
 as a tract distributor. His tracts, I believed, were only a 
 cloak for facilitating the operations of an area sneak, so I 
 took a tract from him, and said I would pay him a visit at 
 the lodging-house where he lived, a notorious resort for such 
 characters. I went there late the same evening, and found 
 him, as I expected, in the kitchen, which served as a common 
 room. A good number of the fraternity were present. Hold- 
 ing the tract in my hand, I said, addressing them all, that I 
 had come to make a complaint How was I properly to 
 discharge my duty as a clergyman in that street, if there 
 were to be practised upon me any of the moves by which 
 some of them were imposing upon the public? What a 
 thing it would be for instance if, whilst I might be upstairs 
 in that very house engaged in prayer with a sick man, the 
 conversation downstairs should turn upon the subject of the 
 best way of humbugging the parson. This protest meeting 
 with general and decided approval, I pointed out the tract 
 distributor as the offender, whose conduct had led to these 
 remarks, and rated him soundly amid cries of " Hear ! Hear ! " 
 for having plied me with cant.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 51 
 
 Whitehead could get no lodgings nearer than 
 Pimlico, where he was fortunate to share a house 
 with old Sir John Ross the Arctic navigator, 
 with whom he soon became great friends; and 
 whose eyes he closed when the brave old hero 
 passed away far beyond the distant Pole he had 
 tried so hard to reach. He was in good hands, 
 the kindest and best of landladies looked after 
 him. " I never had occasion to find fault with 
 her but once," he used to say. " Your charges," 
 I remarked, after running my eye over the 
 monthly account, "are, I am sorry to say, in- 
 correct." 
 
 " Indeed sir," she said, " I had no idea." 
 
 "But," I added, interrupting her, "you had 
 better hear me out. I merely wish to observe 
 that you have not charged me for several things 
 which I have had." 
 
 Certainly this model landlady was blessed with 
 one of the best and most considerate of lodgers. 
 It was his invariable custom to have for dinner 
 a mutton chop and potatoes, and there was a 
 standing order that this simple meal should 
 always be ready at a certain time, whether he 
 were in or no. Of course often the chop was 
 dried hard, and the potatoes spoilt owing to the 
 long waiting, which was inevitable in the case 
 of a man who never gave a thought to his own 
 comfort as long as there was any one to visit, 
 or any part of the day's work to be done ; while 
 he would not give his landlady any extra trouble
 
 52 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 by asking for his dinner, simple as it was, to be 
 made ready at odd times. He had a great dis- 
 like to giving trouble, and was very tender of 
 other people's feelings. 
 
 The following anecdotes are characteristic of 
 the man. On one of the many occasions when 
 a ticket-of-leave man had come to have his ticket 
 signed he had occasion to leave the room ; his 
 watch was on the table, and in telling the story 
 he used to say : 
 
 " I suddenly remembered as I was going out 
 of the door that my watch was there, but I 
 could not go back and take it up and show I 
 distrusted the man. I made up my mind on 
 the instant to trust to his sense of honour, and 
 I did not trust in vain. I am sure it did that 
 man good to see that I trusted him." 
 
 Whilst in lodgings at Clapham he put up un- 
 complainingly for many months with very inferior 
 bread, and when remonstrated with by a friend, 
 who suggested he should change his baker, he 
 replied, "Oh no, I couldn't do that, I should 
 hurt the man's feelings if I took my custom 
 away." 
 
 "He was the most thoroughly unselfish man 
 I ever met," says one who knew him intimately 
 for nearly forty years, and this is no solitary 
 testimony. 
 
 His ministry at St. Matthew's was of short 
 duration, only nine months, but he always looked 
 back upon it as having given him two valuable
 
 WORK IN LONDON 53 
 
 bits of experience, and two life-long friends, one 
 of the latter, Jack Healy, afterwards vicar of 
 Studley in Yorkshire, whom he always looked 
 upon as the one man he had known who might 
 have filled F. D. Maurice's place ; and the other, 
 Brownrigg Smith, the head master of the City 
 of London Freemen's School. 
 
 Of the two experiences he prized, one was 
 the having been obliged to preach to an after- 
 noon congregation, which rarely included more 
 than half a dozen grown up persons. 
 
 "If I had despotic authority in ecclesiastical 
 arrangements," he said in his Rainbow speech, 
 " I would for a time confine the preaching of 
 every young clergyman to a very scanty con- 
 gregation, provided I could ensure that his 
 hearers though few, were fit." 
 
 The other piece of experience was that of the 
 Sunday evenings which he spent in the Pye 
 Street Ragged School on the near side of West- 
 minster Bridge. The scholars at Pye Street 
 were a turbulent lot. "'Really, sir/" he writes, 
 "said a man to me one evening as I passed him 
 on my way to school, ' I do think the police should 
 put a stop to this nuisance. Before this con- 
 founded school came here, a fellow could sit and 
 smoke his pipe in peace on Sunday evening, 
 but there's no peace or quietness now." 
 
 Whitehead explained, but without making much 
 impression, that he looked at the matter from 
 somewhat a narrow point of view, and that he
 
 54 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 must suffer for the good of posterity. The semi- 
 solemn, semi-humorous manner of that exhorta- 
 tion may have been lost upon the smoker of 
 the pipe at the time, but it is more than prob- 
 able that, on the following Sunday evening, he 
 offered his tobacco pouch to the exhorter, and 
 forgot all about the tyranny of the Pye Street 
 Ragged School, in the delight of conversation 
 with a really human and lovable man and 
 brother ; perhaps he became a teacher of the 
 young tyrants himself. 
 
 He left Westminster in December 1856 to go 
 to Clapham as senior curate at the Parish Church. 
 The story of his first interview with his future 
 rector is given at full length in the ' Rainbow ' 
 speech. 
 
 During seven years and a half of uninter- 
 ruptedly pleasant intercourse with his rector, he 
 proves that all rules have exceptions. The 
 skeleton in the cupboard, if it existed for the 
 curate passing rich on ^150 a year, was never 
 discovered by him. Though he rarely, if ever, 
 had a holiday during that time, he never seemed 
 to object to work, or any amount of it, and 
 always cheerfully undertook double tides when 
 the rector took his annual holiday, though after 
 he became senior curate he was often left single- 
 
 o 
 
 handed. 
 
 Those of us who have read with constant 
 profit Whitehead's Sermons on the Saints Days, 
 are glad he went to Clapham, and have to thank
 
 WORK IN LONDON 55 
 
 the present editor of the Nineteenth Century for 
 the hint that brought about their publication. 
 James Knowles, then editor of the Contemporary, 
 was a worshipper on Sunday at Clapham Church. 
 
 " I observe, Whitehead," he said one day, 
 " that if a Saint's Day falls on a Sunday you 
 always make the saint the subject of your after- 
 noon sermon." 
 
 "Yes," replied Whitehead, "I have contracted 
 a habit of preaching on the saints." 
 
 "But how," he asked, "do you find enough 
 to say about them, or, at all events, about some 
 of them ? " 
 
 Whitehead ran through the Calendar and 
 mentioned the leading ideas which seemed con- 
 nected with their lives as suitable to their days. 
 Mr. Knowles listened and urged him to pub- 
 lish a volume. 
 
 The advice was followed, and resulted in the 
 issue in the year 1863 of the book with the title 
 given above. 
 
 One notable characteristic of these brief dis- 
 courses is indicated in the conversation just 
 repeated. The author showed a scientific keen- 
 ness of observation in detecting, in the often 
 slight indications of Scripture, data for the re- 
 construction of the character and life of the 
 personage about whom he was writing. These 
 indications he would interpret and piece together 
 by a process of inference controlled by that 
 true knowledge of human nature, of which so
 
 56 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 many in the course of these pages will be found 
 to speak. A,s each suggestion or conclusion in 
 these sketches of scriptural worthies is in accord- 
 ance with the facts of human nature, they impress 
 the reader as sound and convincing. There is 
 nothing strained or artificial about them. White- 
 head's intellect was subtle without the least touch 
 of whimsicality. 
 
 Another and more important characteristic, 
 both of these ' Saints' Days ' discourses, and of 
 the Sermons, chiefly on Subjects from the Sun- 
 day Lessons, published in 1871, concerns the 
 religious attitude of mind which they reveal. 
 This is hardly the place to enter on any analysis 
 of his views on the fundamental principles of the 
 Christian faith. We are dealing in the current 
 chapters rather with the outward life of the man, 
 and an opportunity will be afforded later on for 
 touching briefly on themes that were after all 
 those nearest to his heart. For it must be always 
 borne in mind that underneath the geniality and 
 humour, the promptitude, the sagacity, that 
 impressed Whitehead's friends, there dwelt a 
 chivalrous loyalty to Christ, and to the principles 
 taught by Him, that made him a single-minded 
 and discerning servant and minister of the faith 
 he lived by. He did not serve a Church or a 
 creed only, he strove to be a follower of the mind 
 of Christ. 
 
 The Sermons on the Saints Days were preached 
 to afternoon congregations, numbering seldom
 
 WORK IN LONDON 57 
 
 more than a dozen, and one who remembers the 
 delivery of these sermons writes : " It is doubt- 
 ful if such careful sermon work was ever preached 
 to such small congregations." 
 
 Another who cherishes the recollection of 
 Whitehead's spoken discourses, says : 
 
 He always went to the root of everything, always gave us 
 principles to act upon, always deprecated change from the 
 surface, always advocated the movement coming from within. 
 In a sermon on "Joseph in Prison," in the 1871 volume, he 
 speaks of the position he made for himself within its walls : 
 " Joseph seems to have acquired a moral ascendency over all 
 with whom he came in contact." . . . He thus learned to 
 have confidence in the great principle that the secret of suc- 
 cessful rule does not lie in the mere exercise of authority but in 
 the manifestation of a kingly soul. 
 
 One of his Clapham friends, writing to his 
 wife of how much she and her father had 
 appreciated him, goes on to say : 
 
 One circumstance I must mention, and it was this. Being a 
 great lover of Jeremy Taylor, I determined to compile a little 
 book of family prayers from his holy prayers, and I asked your 
 husband about it. He quite approved, and I then asked him 
 if I might, as a kind of introduction, copy from one of his 
 sermons the following sentence, which he permitted me to do, 
 ' provided you do not put my name coupled with that of 
 Jeremy Taylor' (just like his innate feeling of retiring self- 
 effacement a true sign of nobility of mind) ; and this was the 
 sentence which introduced my little book : 
 
 " Principles and convictions are readily caught from the tone 
 of a household, which, whether for good or evil, comes not from 
 any outward regulations, methods, or ways of management, but is 
 the inevitable result of a spirit leavening the whole. Be every
 
 58 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 house then, in the true sense of the word, a church of Christ, and 
 each father of a family a priest of God." 
 
 From inward to outward was Mr. Whitehead's principle, and 
 unless the spirit was right in all that was done, the outward act 
 was worthless. His was a most interesting mind, and now as 
 each of the Saints' days recurs, to his volume of sermons upon 
 them I invariably now turn, and appreciate them, if possible, 
 even more than I did, when I formed always one part of that 
 small but select congregation who listened to them from his 
 pulpit. 
 
 Nevertheless there were some who thought 
 themselves justified in occasionally criticizing his 
 pulpit utterances, and on one occasion a lady 
 ventured to write him a remonstrance on the view 
 he had taken of the character of Jezebel, on 
 whom and by implication, on Jezebel's sex, she 
 thought he had been ' somewhat hard.' With a 
 flash of the wit of old College days, he thus 
 replied : 
 
 Alas ! to have made the fair critic upbraid is 
 
 Good cause for a man to feel vext, 
 Only think, when he ought to have studied the ladies, 
 
 He merely had studied his text. 
 
 Amongst many other friends that Whitehead 
 made at Clapham were Baldwin Brown, the well- 
 known Independent minister of Brixton Hill, for 
 whom he had unbounded admiration which was 
 most cordially reciprocated ; Bishop Ewing, his 
 rector's friend, who so took to and appreciated 
 Whitehead, that in his last illness he entrusted to 
 his hands the task of seeing through the press his 
 book on Revelation considered as Light ; the
 
 WORK IN LONDON 59 
 
 educational authority, now Sir Joshua Fitch, 1 
 and Robert Galland, the well-known parliament- 
 ary solicitor, in whose hospitable house he was 
 always a most welcome and much honoured guest. 2 
 
 The services of all these friends were laid 
 under contribution to the Clapham Gazette, a 
 monthly periodical for which Whitehead and his 
 brother curate wrote, and of which he became 
 a kind of joint editor with Mr. Meaden, the 
 publisher. 
 
 But for that Gazette the clever little " Village 
 Sketches "by his brother, T. C. Whitehead, would 
 probably not have been written. The paper 
 was also the vehicle of the capital lectures given 
 at the Lecture Institute by John Morley, Baldwin 
 Brown, and others, and contained clever topical 
 songs by William Driver, reviews by Alfred 
 Church, Brownrigg-Smith, 3 and Joshua Fitch. 
 It took up local matters in a thoroughly earnest 
 way, advocated reform, noticed interesting books, 
 printed occasional sermons, and became in the 
 hands of the chief editor and his staff an instru- 
 ment for good, a bit of valuable machinery which 
 did work beyond Clapham parish bounds. 
 
 1 One of H. M. Inspectors of Schools, and Assistant Commissioner under 
 the Endowed Schools Commission. 
 
 2 Just a fortnight before his own call came he had been present at the 
 funeral of this, one of his oldest remaining friends (of forty years standing), 
 and had taken part in reading the Burial-service at his grave in the little 
 village churchyard of Welton, Yorkshire. The widow of that day, to whom 
 his presence was no slight comfort, little thought she was looking on his 
 kindly face for the last time. 
 
 3 Sunday evening lecturer at the Parish Church.
 
 60 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 It was not, however, a prophet in its own 
 country. " I suppose," said a lady who sat next 
 him at dinner one day, " that the Gazette is a low 
 vulgar paper " ; and he replied characteristically 
 that he believed it was so regarded by some 
 people, and let the subject drop. But White- 
 head, always happy when he was correcting 
 proof, or superintending the actual type-setting 
 and printing, put his heart into the Clapham 
 Gazette, as he did afterwards into the St. Johns 
 (Limehouse) Chronicle. 
 
 Nor was this all the literary work he did at 
 Clapham. Together with his brother and his 
 friend Driver he published Clapham Lectures?- 
 in which he discoursed on what might be called 
 the politics of education and social improvement. 
 Lecture after lecture was devoted, not so much 
 to questions of how to get hold of the working 
 men, and make them auxiliaries of this or that 
 institution, as of how to get into good fellow- 
 ship with them, and establish a thorough com- 
 munity of interest among all the classes of one 
 neighbourhood in the public institutions of that 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Nothing Whitehead ever wrote showed better 
 his discrimination and tact and genial recogni- 
 tion of variety in the character of the classes 
 he was thus helping to good fellowship, or mani- 
 
 1 Lectures chiefly on subjects relating to Literary and Scientific and 
 Mechanics' Institutes, by H. W., T. C. W., and W. D., London. Bosworth 
 and Harrison, 1860.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 61 
 
 Tested more clearly his careful observation of 
 men and things, and his fine catholic-hearted 
 sympathy. 
 
 His favourite doctrine of principles and in- 
 ternal machinery is seen in the lectures. Take 
 for example his doctrine on the independent 
 intelligence of the average Londoner : 
 
 You cannot work upon the Londoner in the same way 
 as you can work upon a countryman or the factory-men of 
 the north. And, to tell you the truth, I am by no means 
 sorry that you cannot It is just his individuality and 
 isolated independence that stand in your way. And a very 
 good thing too. He is not to be driven in herds by external 
 machinery, and of this, not only the clergyman, the philan- 
 thropist, and the scholar, but likewise the agitating demagogue 
 is very well aware. Of course I do not mean to say that a 
 combination of circumstances may not, and does not here 
 and there in London, reproduce many of the phenomena of 
 a factory town; but on the whole, I am persuaded that 
 there is no such free agent in the kingdom as the Londoner. 
 And it is to this cause, and not to his apathy or stupidity, 
 that I am disposed to attribute the failure of so many well- 
 meant schemes. I refuse altogether to rate the Londoner 
 lower in the scale of intelligence and energy than the men 
 of the north ; and therefore, when any of my friends, whether 
 of the clergy or of the laity, come to me and say, ' How is 
 it that our men stand out so pertinaciously against schemes, 
 and plans, and institutes, whereas we constantly receive such 
 gratifying accounts from the north ? ' it is my custom to 
 reply, ' Very likely it is the express mission of our obstinate 
 Londoner to baffle, perplex, and defeat you and me, and his 
 own stump orator and himself into the bargain, and all our 
 schemes, and plans, and institutes, in order to compel us 
 and himself too into the discovery, and recognition, and 
 employment of some elementary principles which shall work
 
 62 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 silently and surely from within, instead of noisily and showily 
 from without.' 
 
 If one wished an example, of his cheery 
 optimism one could not do better than glance 
 at his lecture on u The Literature of the Work- 
 ing Classes," with its characteristic demand for 
 honesty in facts and conclusions. 
 
 It is obviously unfair to persist in declaring that the 
 London workman does not care to read. It would be nearer 
 the mark to say that at present he does not seem to care 
 about reading, just when, and where, and how we tell him 
 to read. I often think we spend a great deal too much time 
 and money in endeavouring to settle for him a priori his 
 ways and methods of reading, and a great deal too little in 
 the inductive study of the actual facts of his reading. Per- 
 haps, if we were to study the facts, we might occasionally 
 see our way to a much readier solution of some of our 
 difficulties than we are ever likely to find upon our present 
 system. I think for instance, it would lead to a much 
 better understanding between ourselves and working people 
 upon some of these subjects, if there were less wholesale 
 denunciation from platforms of the general tendency of the 
 cheap literature of the day. There would be less denunci- 
 ation if there were more study of the facts. It is very far 
 from true that the pernicious publications outnumber the 
 useful and wholesome. Neither is it true that the working 
 classes on the whole prefer the former. Again, it is un- 
 deniably true that the tone of such publications has gone on 
 steadily improving year after year. I do not merely mean 
 that the new are better than the old. The old have them- 
 selves improved. Whether the readers have demanded the 
 higher tone from the publications, or whether these have 
 educated the taste of the readers, I do not stop to inquire. 
 Probably they have acted and reacted on each other, I only 
 state the fact. I have it on the authority of the principal
 
 WORK IN LONDON 63 
 
 newsagent in Clapham, a man who has been many years 
 in business, that he could not, if he would, now sell the 
 kind of periodical for which there was formerly a very ex- 
 tensive demand among working people. He has told me 
 again and again that there was a time when the demand 
 among the poor for what was decidedly pernicious literature 
 was so general, that he had to debate the question in his 
 own mind whether he would have nothing to do with it, or 
 whether he should act upon his conviction that if they took 
 to reading at all their taste would certainly improve. He 
 did act upon his conviction. The right or wrong of this 
 decision is not the point we have now to consider. The 
 result is all that concerns us. "And now," said he, "there 
 is not anything which I deem objectionable in my shop, 
 and I could not sell it if there were." Of course this does 
 not disprove the present existence of objectionable matter. 
 Doubtless there is quite enough of it still. But it does 
 prove that it has sunk much lower down in the scale both 
 of buyers and sellers, and that a vast quantity of literature 
 of at least a harmless character has sprung up in its place. 
 Look at the penny daily papers; whatever you may think 
 of their views, which, of course, you will like or dislike 
 according to your own political bias, their respectability is 
 unimpeachable. Look again, at the cheap weekly papers. 
 You may differ from them in many points, but for the most 
 part you will be very unfair if you condemn them as unfit 
 to be read. What the poor man demands at the end of 
 the week, and what these papers mainly supply, is a com- 
 plete account of all the facts which you and I have been 
 reading day by day in the Times. However it may shock 
 you on a Sunday morning, as you walk through a crowded 
 London alley, to see at every window a man in his shirt 
 sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth, spelling over his Weekly 
 Times or his News of the World, do not be under any 
 mistake as to what he is actually reading. He is steadily 
 wading through a column of the smallest print, containing 
 sheer news and nothing else. His head is full of the Great
 
 64 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Eastern, or the Channel fleet, or the battle of Solferino 
 things which you have read and done with two or three 
 days ago. These are the subjects which most interest the 
 working man in his weekly paper. Accordingly those papers 
 which give the most news are in the greatest demand among 
 the working classes. I do not deny the existence of violent 
 political newspapers adapted to the state of violent politicians. 
 I only maintain that their circulation, as compared with their 
 more innocent contemporaries, is very far from being as 
 large as is sometimes supposed. And you must make very 
 great allowance for the working man when he happens to 
 be a politician. Very often the real difference between the 
 'leaders' which interest him, and which interest us, is less 
 a question of principle than of taste. If he is of a pungent, 
 sarcastic turn of mind he chuckles over his Lloyd in much 
 the same sort of humour in which the more educated man 
 of similar temperament enjoys his Saturday Review. 
 
 It is difficult to give much record of his 
 active work in Clapham, the necessary data 
 being wanting, but it must not be inferred that 
 his chief and only work at Clapham was con- 
 nected with the Gazette and lectures. Besides 
 much pastoral work, he did good service in the 
 parish by his work at the " Chip Street Library," 
 of which, qua library, he made a thorough 
 study, and eventually a great success, even in 
 days when it could be said by one who was 
 well acquaint with London and Londoners, 1 
 "It is very strange that in London there is so 
 little desire for general reading, whilst in Man- 
 chester and Liverpool the libraries are used by 
 thousands." Yet, from the Chip Street Library 
 
 1 Llewellyn Davies.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 65 
 
 in one year (1859), the whole circulation of books 
 was 8,240 proof that people would read if only 
 the library authorities would provide the right 
 sort of readable books which in this case 
 numbered 1,081, and included fiction, travels 
 and voyages, history and biography, natural 
 history, religious books, and poetry. 
 
 The members of the Clapham Gardeners' 
 Club of that date also could tell how in his 
 genial way he made friends with them, and 
 how they gave him a little round silver ink- 
 stand as a token of their warm appreciation of 
 his presence and influence among them ; and the 
 doings of the Mechanics' Institute, the Working 
 Men's Society, the Benefit Club, are they not 
 written in the Chronicles of Clapham, with the 
 tale of the sympathetic human interest he took 
 in all of them ? 
 
 " One good story," says his wife, " I remember 
 hearing him recount with keen appreciation of its 
 humour. An old lady in Clapham, very well- 
 to-do, who had long been an invalid, finally 
 passed to her rest. Another old lady, also a 
 chronic invalid, but of the humbler classes, on 
 
 hearing that Mrs. was gone, remarked, ' Ah 
 
 well, it's been lucky for her that she was in that 
 station of life as hasn't got to be read to,' alluding 
 doubtless to the patient endurance with which 
 she had had to submit to much 'reading to' from 
 various good ladies, who deemed that sort of 
 discipline necessary, for her in her affliction, and
 
 66 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 her position. That story made a great impression 
 on me." 
 
 The courtly, kindly rector of Clapham, who 
 understood Whitehead so well, " a man in a 
 thousand," as his colleagues testified, taught him 
 much, and not least how sorrow and pain can 
 be borne with great courage and good cheer, if 
 a man only really believes in the Fatherhood 
 of God. 1 
 
 The last time Whitehead saw Mr. Bowyer, in 
 1872, the latter said, with a smile, " I have now 
 sat in this chair for nearly twelve months. The 
 end will most likely be sudden, but come when 
 or how it may, I am in the hands of the 
 Father." 
 
 Whitehead left Clapham to be married on 
 August 25, 1864, to May, the only daughter of 
 Captain Frederic Belson, formerly of the 2nd 
 Battalion Rifle Brigade, and took on that occa- 
 sion what seldom before or after fell to his lot, 
 a whole month's holiday. 
 
 He had met his wife at the Reformatory in 
 Belvedere Crescent, which she was in the habit 
 of visiting, and where, as he used to be fond of 
 relating, she was introduced to him, the visiting 
 chaplain, as "a young lady who could do most 
 things, from translating a Greek play to making 
 an apple dumpling." She was then only seven- 
 teen. He married her six years later from a 
 
 1 He lost his youngest son by an accident sliding down a banister rail, 
 and his wife died during the period of H. W.'s curacy.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 67 
 
 hospital, 1 where she was one of the voluntary 
 nurses, at a time when nursing had not become 
 as it now is, "a profession for ladies." 
 
 "It was almost worth while to be ill," said 
 one of the hospital staff to him, " to be nursed 
 by her." And the testimony of the lady super- 
 intendent of the hospital tallied with this state- 
 ment. "The only fault we have to find with 
 her, is that she overworks herself." 
 
 On his leaving Clapham his friends desired to 
 make him a handsome present to help him in 
 furnishing his house. Unfortunately for the 
 success of the scheme someone was indiscreet 
 enough to mention it to him ere it was complete, 
 and he promptly, as at St. Luke's, put a stop to 
 the whole project, being almost morbidly nervous 
 lest any one should be asked to contribute who 
 would not do so willingly. He had a perfect 
 antipathy to the popular ' testimonial.' ' I have 
 only done my duty,' he would say, and he was 
 consistent in this throughout his life. It will be 
 in the memory of Brampton folk how he pursued 
 the same policy on the occasion of a similar 
 movement being set on foot when he was about 
 to leave that place, where he had, with a generous 
 liberality which involved no small sacrifices on 
 his part and his wife's, not only contributed 
 largely to the building of the new church, but had 
 borne the expense of its decent plenishing, paid 
 large ' balances due to churchwardens ' over and 
 
 o 
 
 1 The Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street.
 
 68 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 over again, and taken the entire burden of ' relief 
 to the sick and needy.' 
 
 After his short holiday, Whitehead and his 
 wife returned in September of 1864 to work 
 under his former vicar, Prebendary Stooks, at 
 St. Anne's, Highgate Rise. Here he enjoyed 
 to the full the comparative rest and leisure for 
 reading, and experienced again the advantage 
 of being a " rolling stone " in his power to gather 
 new friends. 
 
 It was whilst here that he first made acquaint- 
 ance with East London ; up till this time, though 
 he had lived in London for fifteen years, he had 
 seldom gone eastward of Aldgate Pump, but in 
 1866 the cholera appeared in the East-end, and 
 its yellow flag summoned at once the hero of the 
 former outbreak at St. Luke's, Berwick Street, 
 to the rescue. The Bishop of London, Archibald 
 Tait, asked publicly for volunteers from the ranks 
 of those who had had previous experience of 
 cholera. 
 
 Whitehead had foreseen what must happen after 
 reading the account of the condition of the river 
 Lea at that time, and wrote the two papers in 
 Macmillaris Magazine'*- on the history of the 
 former outbreak, and the spread of cholera by 
 water contamination, as a kind of warning to 
 all whom it might concern. The latter of the 
 two papers appeared in the July number, and 
 within a fortnight the cholera had broken out. 
 
 1 December 1865, and July 1866.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 69 
 
 Whitehead, though his young wife was nursing 
 her first child, Mabel, who was born at High- 
 gate Rise, and though his vicar was so much 
 opposed to it that he insisted on his providing 
 a substitute if he went, and forbade his coming 
 back to his own home to sleep for fear of in- 
 fection, heroically determined to go off as volun- 
 teer to the plague centre, to help to prevent 
 panic and to aid the rector of Bethnal Green. 
 It was on this occasion that he made the 
 acquaintance of, and was able materially to 
 assist Mr. Netten Radcliffe in his masterly 
 report to the medical officer of the Privy 
 Council, which said report confirmed Dr. Snow's 
 doctrine and Whitehead's views as to the mode 
 of cholera propagation. 
 
 " On this occasion," said Whitehead in his 
 famous Rainbow speech, "as in 1854, amid much 
 that was painful to witness, there was much also 
 that is pleasant to remember ; once more the 
 behaviour of the people and the exertions of the 
 doctors were beyond praise. But perhaps the 
 most note-worthy object of admiration during 
 this epidemic was the temporary cholera hospital 
 in Spitalfields. It was a large four-storied ware- 
 house, the marvellously rapid adaptation of which 
 to its use as a temporary hospital (it was done 
 within four hours) was one of the most astonish- 
 ing transformations I ever witnessed. Having 
 watched the organization of this place from first 
 
 o A 
 
 to last, and having frequently visited it when in
 
 7 o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 working order, sometimes accompanied by my 
 wife, I could see that the administrative ability 
 which directed the minuter details was of no 
 common kind. Its staff of nurses was composed 
 of ladies hastily summoned from a great variety 
 of sisterhoods. At their head was that remark- 
 able woman, Miss Sellon, who was sole organizer 
 of the transformation of which I have spoken, 
 and sole directress of everything that was done 
 in the place." 
 
 Those who listened to Whitehead's praise of 
 the heroes and heroines who fought the cholera 
 in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, might again 
 have supposed that he was merely a kindly spec- 
 tator from some balloon high in a pure heaven 
 above the stricken neighbourhood, but those who 
 remember how he worked night and day in the 
 thick of it, helping to persuade terror-stricken 
 folk to go to the cholera hospital, by himself 
 accompanying them thither, encouraging, cheer- 
 ing, giving calm, feel that he was a very angel 
 of hope and help to the sufferers, and an angel 
 of life and light to those who sat in the dark 
 valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 His brief sojourn in East London during the 
 cholera led to his taking up his abode per- 
 manently there. It also led to his writing a 
 paper, at the special request of the bishop, for 
 the Epidemiological Society. 1 Dr. Tait ex- 
 
 'See Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London, Vol. in., 
 1866-68, p. 99.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 71 
 
 pressed himself "profoundly impressed by the 
 sagacity and painstaking thoroughness of the 
 exhaustive inquiry " made by the young curate 
 in 1854 but he does not seem to have thought 
 him deserving of any practical recognition. 
 
 In the autumn of 1867 he became curate to 
 a man much younger than himself, Albert Sitwell, 
 the vicar of St. Peter's, Stepney. The great dis- 
 tress of the winter of 1867-68, largely exaggerated 
 by the great shipbuilding strike, tried all the 
 churches, but it did this for East London : it 
 summoned committees to investigate the causes 
 as well as the features of the distress. And 
 although all but one of these committees were 
 afterwards disbanded, the Clapton committee 
 continued in operation, thanks to the sagacity 
 of Rev. Edward Hawkins, 1 then master of St. 
 John's Foundation School for Sons of the Clergy, 
 and to-day the Charity Organization Society in 
 London carries the work forward. 
 
 Whitehead flung himself heart and soul into 
 this relief work. The results of his observations 
 here and in Westminster may be seen in an 
 article on " Mendicity, from the Clerical Point 
 of View," in the Contemporary of February 1873. 
 The great army of professional mendicants who 
 had confronted him in Westminster had interested 
 him as offering studies in human nature. " The 
 more one studies human nature," he wrote, "the 
 more one is able to perceive that no one, not 
 
 J Now vicar of St. Bride's, Fleet Street.
 
 72 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 even a street beggar, is to be deemed altogether 
 out of the pale of sympathy," and he illustrates 
 his point by words which are so characteristic of 
 his own nature that one quotes them at length. 
 
 Walking one day with a friend in a London suburb I sa\v 
 a woman begging at the door of a house; the door, as we 
 passed, was shut in her face, and she ran after us with the 
 usual whining request for alms. "You will presently hear 
 the woman's tone change," I said to my friend. " Oh I beg 
 your pardon, sir," she said, as she caught sight of my face, 
 "I didn't know it was you." "Well, Mrs. Smith," I said, 
 ''have you heard lately from John?" She put her hand in 
 her pocket, took out a well-worn letter and gave it to me to 
 read. Having read it, I asked a few more questions about 
 John, and gave her back the letter with a shilling, for which 
 she thanked me, and went her way. " I thought you never 
 gave to beggars," said my friend. " You thought quite right," 
 I said; "I gave not to the beggar, but to the woman. She 
 knows what I think of her begging, but she has a claim upon 
 my sympathy." 
 
 It must not be thought that all the mendicants 
 who, in those days, helped to educate Whitehead 
 in the science of how to deal with the pro- 
 fession were as fortunate as this woman, as the 
 following story will show : 
 
 Some time ago, writes Whitehead about an incident of 
 Clapham days, an elderly gentleman called upon me and sent 
 
 in his card, on which was printed "The Rev. M.A." 
 
 I suppress the name, because it is one borne by several 
 respectable clergymen. He shook hands with me and with 
 evident emotion began to rehearse the tale of his wife's death 
 which had necessitated his coming to ask me to purchase 
 some of his works.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 73 
 
 " Well, Mr. ," I said, " I do not think it worth while 
 
 to repeat the reasons I gave you on the occasion of your 
 first wife's death for not buying any of your works." 
 
 "Then have I called upon you before?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, and I do not wish to go through the conversation 
 again." 
 
 He merely bowed and went out, and yet, when he called 
 on me the first time, I had great difficulty in getting rid of 
 him. He took high ground, and talked about the lack of 
 Christian charity in brother clergymen nowadays, as con- 
 trasted with the abundance of it in apostolic times. But we 
 understood each other on the second occasion, and there 
 was no need of any conversation about apostolic times. 
 
 His experience of that winter convinced him 
 that the less the clergy had to do in their 
 clerical capacity with the relief of temporal dis- 
 tress, and the less the operations of the friends of 
 relief were confined to ecclesiastical areas, the 
 better. One cannot wonder at it. 
 
 A friend of Whitehead's overheard a conversa- 
 tion between two poor women respecting the 
 hardness of the times. " And how do you get 
 along this winter?" said one. "Very poorly 
 indeed," said the other, " there'll soon be nothing 
 for it, but to take to Morning Prayers." 
 
 Apropos of this story, it seems to be the place 
 here to relate two other stories he often quoted. 
 Soon after he took up his duties as vicar of 
 St. John's, Limehouse, among the many appli- 
 cants who continually besieged his door, especially 
 on Monday mornings, with more or less genuine 
 tales of sorrow and distress, there appeared a
 
 74 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 decently clad woman, with a clean apron and a 
 very subdued manner. 
 
 "Well Mrs. Smith, what is it to-day?" 
 
 " If you please, sir, I am come to see if you 
 can give me a little relief." She herself was not 
 ailing, nor on inquiry did it appear that her 
 husband was ill or even out of work, and she had 
 no young children. On further inquiry as to why 
 mere relief, as such, should be given to her, she 
 replied : 
 
 "Well you see, sir, Mr. (naming the 
 
 previous vicar), he always used to give us as 
 took Communion a shilling on Monday mornings." 
 
 " And is that why you come to church ? " 
 
 " Well yes, sir, a shilling is always handy, 
 you know." 
 
 " Then," was the reply (much to her amaze- 
 ment), " / would rather give you one to stop 
 away," which he forthwith did, and saw her no 
 more on Monday mornings. 
 
 The other story is from a different point of 
 view. 
 
 There was a very regular attendant at St. 
 Peter's, Stepney, at week-day and Sunday ser- 
 vices, a blind woman, who was conducted to 
 church by another woman who dwelt in the 
 same house as lodger ; the latter, however, 
 would never come in to service, but left her blind 
 friend at the church door, and came back after 
 service to escort her home. On one occasion 
 when the blind woman had been urging her to
 
 WORK IN LONDON 75 
 
 attend the church, she received the following 
 reply : 
 
 " No, no. It's all very well for you as is blind, 
 but I've got a character, and I can't afford to 
 lose it." 
 
 "Whatever d'ye mean?" inquired the sight- 
 less one. 
 
 "Why," was the reply, "there's loaves and 
 things given away after service sometimes, isn't 
 there ? The neighbours 'ud think as I was after 
 them" 
 
 This blind woman, Mrs. Whitehead writes, was one of 
 the most beautiful characters I have ever known. Patient, 
 cheerful, uncomplaining, industrious, having lost her eyesight 
 (by overwork) through sitting up in bed at 4 A.M., winter and 
 summer, to sew (in the dark mornings by the light of a single 
 dip candle), in order to earn enough to maintain her old 
 mother and herself. "It saved firing, you see ma'am, but it 
 did strain my poor back," she said one day in reply to my 
 remonstrance at her doing this. Finally, the overstrained 
 nerves gave way, and she became quite blind, but continued 
 her occupation after the death of her old mother, and main- 
 tained herself by her needle (her landlady's little girl acting 
 as needle-threader between school hours). She used to come 
 and sew at the Mother's meetings, and sew very neatly too. 
 I never saw a cleaner little room, and she invariably had a 
 clean muslin window curtain, and a bright fireside, go in 
 when you would to see her. She was a great example, and 
 hers was a beautiful life. 
 
 Whitehead always looked back to Stepney with 
 feelings of thankfulness for two gains to his life : 
 one -was his election to a clerical club, which met 
 for Greek Testament study and social intercourse;
 
 7 6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 the other was his friendship with John Richard 
 Green, the historian, at that time vicar of St. 
 Philip's, Stepney, afterwards Librarian of Lam- 
 beth Palace, and Dr. Alfred Bowen Evans, then 
 vicar of St Mary-le-Strand. 
 
 Whitehead's vicar, Albert Sitwell, became after 
 two years vicar of Minster in the Isle of Thanet, 
 and the rolling stone had again to set out on its 
 travels. This time it trundled westward, and on 
 Christmas day of 1869 Whitehead became curate 
 to George Tidcombe, whose acquaintance he had 
 made in the cholera crusade at Bethnal Green, 
 and who was now vicar of St. Peter's, Hammer- 
 smith. 
 
 There Whitehead again found comparative 
 peace and rest ; sat for a short time beneath the 
 shadow of his own fig tree by the banks of the 
 Thames, and delighted to surround himself with 
 his old friends who would come from the smother 
 and turmoil for an afternoon or evening's talk. 
 At University boat race time he called his old 
 Oxford acquaintances and other friends together 
 to see the race and talk of the good old days 
 gone by, as they sat on the roof of his house. 
 The little garden on one of these occasions was 
 literally boarded over, rough planks being laid 
 on empty casks, to make a raised platform for 
 the large gathering of friends who were wont to 
 assemble on these memorable days. 
 
 It was here he became acquainted with Dr. 
 George MacDonald, who attended service at St.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 77 
 
 Peter's. The two men were much drawn one to 
 the other. They had elements of character in 
 common, much community of spirit, and much 
 mutual sympathy. 
 
 It was whilst here that the living was offered 
 him of St. Mary's, Charterhouse, which however 
 had to be refused on the ground that the stipend 
 was annually absorbed by needful parish machin- 
 ery, and nothing was left for bread. The previous 
 vicar was possessed of large private means, a 
 sine qua non in more parishes than St. Mary's, 
 Charterhouse. Also during this Hammersmith 
 time, he had the offer of an East-end parish, that 
 of St. Matthias, Bethnal Green, where the great 
 match-box making industry was carried on. The 
 little children engaged in this industry had at 
 that time to work twelve hours a day little things 
 of three and four years of age making 32 boxes 
 for a halfpenny. Much public sympathy had been 
 roused by the accounts published in pulpit and 
 pamphlet of these little wan white slaves, who had 
 to take up the burden of life thus pitifully early. 
 Of one little child, her mother said proudly, 
 "She hev earned her own living ever since she 
 wur three," and this was not an uncommon in- 
 stance. Money was sent by a sympathizing 
 public, and something was done to try and 
 alleviate at least the conditions of work, by 
 opening an Industrial Home for the child workers 
 (descendants in many cases of the Huguenot re- 
 fugees, whose fathers and mothers worked as
 
 ;8 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 silk-weavers in the parish, many still bearing the 
 honourable names of French nobles), and pro- 
 viding them in addition to their pittance of wages 
 with a " square " meal once a day, and by degrees 
 with decent clothing. 
 
 The bishop, however, in making the offer, wrote 
 that it was imperative that the " new vicar should 
 be either a rich man or a good beggar, and also 
 that he must be a married man, else he would 
 lose the services of a valuable deaconess." 
 
 Whitehead wrote to thank the bishop for the 
 offer, but was obliged to say that he had no 
 alternative but to decline it, as the only qualifica- 
 tion he possessed was the last one the wife. 
 
 At last the long lane of curateship came to a 
 turning, and in March of 1871 Whitehead be- 
 came the vicar of St. John's, Limehouse. He 
 had for twenty years served the Church in a 
 subordinate position, but had served it well. 
 He had been fortunate in nearly all his incum- 
 bents, and felt that he should be content to 
 begin the round again : the pleasures of his 
 life as a curate had been greater than its 
 pains. 
 
 St John's, Limehouse, however, was by no 
 means all that even a lover of the East-end, and 
 a devoted admirer of the artisan quarter, might 
 desire. The church was a very difficult one to 
 minister in, owing to the unmanageable echo, 
 and the surroundings were dismal, as is testified 
 to by the following letter from his friend, Harry
 
 WORK IN LONDON 79 
 
 Jones, 1 formerly rector of St. George's in the 
 East, who says : 
 
 It was some years afterwards, when I was at Berwick Street 
 myself, that I went with a friend to rummage out Whitehead at 
 St. John's, Limehouse, for he was in the way of going where 
 the people were thickest, wanted most help, and had by no 
 means the sweetest of surroundings. He was in the highest 
 of hospitable spirits, and full of wise sympathy with his poor 
 friends around him. I know many parts of East London, 
 but I think I could hardly point out one, in some respects, 
 more depressing than the parish of St. John's, Limehouse. 
 I saw it again and again when my old friend Anderson was 
 afterwards its vicar, and I lived in the East-end myself. 2 The 
 monotony of small streets, all exactly like one another, with 
 their four-roomed houses, each sheltering its " four and twenty " 
 inhabitants, is broken (I was going to say) only by a huge ugly, 
 stinking cluster of monster gasometers which make themselves 
 smelt and felt in garret, school, vicarage, and church. But 
 Whitehead was as bright and cheery as if he had been set 
 to work on we will say a Malvern Hill, and we went away 
 all the better for some hours of his hearty incisive talk, 
 and a sort of feeling that a man, who is a man, makes a 
 great mistake when he plagues himself about the place where 
 he has been set to work. At any rate he can try to make 
 a few square inches of it better than they were, and if no- 
 body else cares about a clean doorstep, he can at least keep 
 his own clean. And that is never done without drawing 
 some wholesome attention in a dirty street. 
 
 Whitehead was at home in battling with cholera, and cheer- 
 ing the people of smelly St. John's, but, all the same, nothing 
 hurt his perceptions and sense of what was orderly and 
 right more than a stubborn departure from or defiance of it. 
 Let the offender be whom he might, Whitehead's eyes were 
 never blinded to the ignorance or blot, nor was his mouth 
 
 a Now rector of St. Yedast, Foster Lane, and prebendary of St. Paul's. 
 2 As rector of St. George's in the East.
 
 8o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 shut against saying the right say without respect of persons, 
 but he ever spoke with a healthy utterance, which has made 
 many a one living 1 in a place where he has lived and worked 
 feel as if the blinds were drawn down when he had left it. 
 
 It was lonely work too, that work at St. John's, 
 " the World's End," indeed, for it so happened 
 that this was the name of the public house nearest 
 the church and vicarage, and the only means 
 of directing a cabman to the vicarage was to tell 
 him to drive to the "World's End!" 
 
 One of his friends, the Rev. E. C. Hawkins, 
 writing of this time says : 
 
 He was the only gentleman, indeed almost the only person 
 above the rank of a day labourer in the parish, whose popu- 
 lation chiefly consisted of dock labourers and costermongers, 
 the better off class being composed of the men at the Com- 
 mercial Gas Works, and he lived in a parsonage built on the 
 site of the ancient parish rubbish heap. 
 
 His only companion there outside his own home was the 
 schoolmaster. I remember his saying to some one who 
 suggested that a man would get on better there in the dress 
 of a layman, that " the dress of a gentleman signified to that 
 population a much too wide gulf of separation to be affected 
 by any difference between lay and clerical attire." 
 
 It was while he was at St. John's that he wrote 
 his article on " Mendicity." 
 
 How it came into print is told in a letter 
 written to his friend Hawkins, four years after, 
 from Brampton, under date April 24, 1877. 
 
 The first half of my paper in the Contemporary relating to 
 professional mendicants had been in manuscript for nearly 
 two years, and had lain by because I did not see how to
 
 WORK IN LONDON 81 
 
 finish it. But the Bishop of London came down to Stepney 
 and held a conference of the East London clergy on the 
 subject of " Clerical Administration of Charitable Funds." 
 The clergy talked away at it for about two hours, and as they 
 went on I amused myself by considering how I should 
 describe their views if I were to write on the subject. Not that 
 I had any serious idea of doing so, for I had forgotten the 
 unfinished MS., and I certainly had no idea of saying a word 
 at the conference. But the Bishop, when he began to sum up, 
 said, " It is very strange that in all this discussion nothing 
 has been said about the Charity Organization, of which we 
 hear so much in other parts of London." Whereupon Ross, 1 
 who was sitting just before me, rose and said, " My Lord, we 
 have here the secretary of the Stepney Branch of the C.O.S." 
 I thereupon pulled Ross by the coat tails to make him sit 
 down, but it was too late. " Where," said the Bishop, " who 
 is he?" "Mr. Whitehead," said Ross. "Well then, Mr. 
 Whitehead," said the Bishop, sitting down, " we shall be glad 
 to hear what you have to say on this subject." 
 
 I rose immediately, saying that I had come to listen and 
 not to speak, but that, regarding his lordship's request as a 
 command, I would state some of the reflections which the 
 debate had given rise to in my mind, and that if they ran 
 counter to much that had been said, I must be excused 
 on the ground that I had intended to be silent. Then having 
 all the matter arranged in my mind, even to the anecdotes, I 
 made a long speech just in the tone and manner of the 
 Rainbow oration. As I walked home it occurred to me that 
 the speech was the fitting conclusion to the Mendicity article, 
 so I forthwith took out the MS. and wrote down all I had 
 said, with some additions, and straightway sent it off to 
 Knowles, who inserted it in the Contemporary. 
 
 This speech led Ross and others to ask me why I said 
 I could not preach extempore. But an extempore sermon is 
 a different matter. 
 
 1 The Rev. A. J. Ross, successor to J. R. Green at St. Philip's, Stepney. 
 
 F
 
 82 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Courageously and cheerfully did Whitehead in 
 his isolation serve the people of St. John's, Lime- 
 house, for the next three years, working not only 
 as their parish priest, but as the high priest of 
 sanitation and order. In season and out of 
 season he laboured, doing what he could for the 
 greater comfort and the happier condition of 
 home life in the midst of a people whose normal 
 condition was that of want, and of what was 
 worse, want of work. As long as the wind 
 was in the wrong quarter, and ships could not 
 come up the river, so long the dock labourers had 
 to "stand idle, for no man would hire them." 
 The patient endurance of much privation afforded 
 many a wholesome lesson to those who were 
 somewhat better off, and many occasions for the 
 exercise of kindly neighbourly charity. Only 
 those who know the poor know how good they 
 often are to one another in time of need. 
 
 Needless to say, Whitehead's liberality of dis- 
 position and large-hearted sympathy had much 
 scope. His wife recalls with pride how, on one 
 occasion during her absence from home, he ' gave 
 away the Rudesheimer.' It was on this wise. 
 
 A friend had sent her two bottles during a 
 tardy convalescence, to tempt her failing appetite. 
 One bottle having answered the purpose, the 
 other was carefully put by for some future 
 similar occasion. A lad in rapid consumption 
 whom he was in the habit of visiting, said wist- 
 fully to him one day, "Oh, Mr. Whitehead, how
 
 WORK IN LONDON 83 
 
 I wish I could have something really nice to 
 drink ! " 
 
 He had tired of his usual milk and cold tea, 
 etc., as is the way of such patients. It was high 
 summer, and the air in the little fetid room, as 
 in the baking street, was stifling. Whitehead 
 promised to see what he could do, and straight- 
 way went home, considering how he could best 
 gratify the lad's craving for " something nice." 
 Then suddenly remembering about the Rude- 
 sheimer, he went to the store-room to see if it 
 might be there, found it, and having possessed 
 himself of a corkscrew, went back at once to 
 the sick lad, whose face lighted up at the sight 
 of him, opened the bottle, and gave him to 
 drink. 
 
 " Oh, sir, that's prime ! how good you are ! " 
 were the grateful words that fell from the 
 boy's lips when he had tasted the fragrant 
 draught. 
 
 It was not much, perhaps ; but it was the best 
 he had, and it was characteristic of him who 
 was always ready to give in that way, and with 
 a free hand, " not grudgingly, but as a cheerful 
 giver." 
 
 His life's labour there has fortunately been in 
 part chronicled in the halfpenny monthly Parish 
 Magazine he started. Tidings of his large- 
 hearted work were, by means of this Parish 
 Chronicle, carried far beyond his parish, and it 
 also became the vehicle of many of his thought-
 
 84 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 fully suggestive sermons. He sometimes had 
 doubts whether he was wise to print them in 
 full, but his friends, Dr. Evans and Baldwin 
 Brown, strongly dissuaded him from curtailment ; 
 then some came forward, old Clapham friends and 
 others, amongst them Stopford Brooke, to help to 
 defray the expenses of the printer's bill. And so 
 St. Johns Chronicle flourished. George Mac- 
 Donald contributed poems and hymns, other 
 friends now and then sent short papers ; but as 
 one turns over the pages of the two volumes, 
 one's eyes are attracted to the characteristic work 
 of the editor, who was also the chief staff and 
 publisher. There are short papers on " Beating 
 the Parish Bounds," " Street Nomenclature," 
 " Parish Registers," " The Dust-heap Nuisance," 
 " Road Mending," humorous verses from his or a 
 kindred pen to show up the vagaries of the East 
 London Water Company, or to inculcate the need 
 of vaccination, notes on " Fear and Cholera," 
 " Sensible Guy Fawkes' Day," " Better Valen- 
 tines with honest wit and humour," and " The 
 Free and Open Church Cry and its Future," and 
 the like. 
 
 At the end of the first year the editor of this 
 halfpenny Chronicle reviewed his work. 
 
 ' To-day our Chronicle completes its first year 
 of existence." " Well," says the reader, "and has 
 it answered your expectations ? " 
 
 ' That depends on what is meant by expecta- 
 tions " ; and then the editor proceeds to show
 
 WORK IN LONDON 85 
 
 how he had expected trouble and risk, and that his 
 expectations had been fulfilled ; and he proceeds 
 to show how he had always felt that a parish 
 magazine, properly written and edited, must be 
 a power in any parish if it is individual, and can 
 carry into the homes of the readers deeper im- 
 pressions of thought and will than can be left by a 
 casual visit. 
 
 To the end of his life Whitehead protested 
 against the ordinary parish magazine, because it 
 was not written and edited by the responsible 
 person who circulated it. As one turns over the 
 pages of the Parish Chronicle of St. Johns, or 
 the Occasional Papers which carried on the 
 good work at St. Martin's, Brampton, one feels 
 the force of his protest, but one also remembers 
 that not all parish clergymen are born editors as 
 Whitehead was. 
 
 Amongst those who greatly appreciated the 
 St. Johns Chronicle was Stopford Brooke ; he 
 introduced Mr George Howard to the editor in 
 1873, and when the living of St. Martin's, 
 Brampton, Cumberland, became vacant, George 
 Howard induced his father, the Hon. Charles 
 Howard, to recommend Whitehead to the trustees 
 of the Border Living. 
 
 Various causes combined to reconcile him to 
 leaving London. The parish was a grave diffi- 
 culty in many ways, especially of finance. There 
 was no alternative but to undertake the whole 
 responsibility of the church expenses himself.
 
 86 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Without such guarantee no one could be found 
 to act as churchwarden. The church, which had 
 not been built on a very sure foundation, had 
 settled, and a great crack was visible from top to 
 bottom of the north wall, a matter of repair which 
 needed attention, at an estimated cost of ^300, 
 which he did not see his way to raise. Then he 
 had two young daughters, and it was not a nice 
 place in which to bring up children. Those were 
 days before ' slumming ' had become the fashion. 
 The West had not yet found its way to the East 1 
 to help to strengthen the hands of those who 
 were bearing the burden and heat of the day. It 
 was not without reason that the famous dictum 
 was uttered : " The man need have two wives 
 who lives and works as vicar in such a parish as 
 yours ; one for the parish, the other for the 
 home." 
 
 To that living in the far North the man of 
 Kent came in March of 1874, glad for many 
 reasons to escape from the wear and tear of East 
 London life, but always cherishing a hope that he 
 should one day return and end his days in the 
 city of his heart. 
 
 The city of his heart for it was there he had 
 spent his best heart's blood in helping to amel- 
 iorate the conditions of life for thousands who 
 "pine in crowded cities pent." "The sorrow 
 
 1 Except in the person of Edward Denison, of blessed memory, who had 
 worked in St. Philip's, Stepney, some few years previously, having "a 
 settlement" all by himself. He however had passed away before this 
 date.
 
 WORK IN LONDON 87 
 
 barricadoed evermore within the walls of cities" 
 had filled him, not with despair, but with brave 
 hope for the future ; and he always spoke of it as 
 the best field for work possible for any who had a 
 mind open to conviction. He had been able at 
 Stepney to see the beginning of the Charity 
 Organization Society. He had become a mem- 
 ber of a club wherein all the ethics of East-end 
 relief and East-end work might be discussed, 
 and where clerics might meet for mutual counsel 
 as citizens. His mind was set on a monthly 
 paper for East London which should take East 
 London problems into consideration ; and last, 
 but not least, it was in London he had found his 
 wife, and in London his home had been gladdened 
 by the birth of his two daughters. 
 
 But it was also the city of his heart because it 
 was the city of his heart's friends ; and what they 
 felt about him was shown at the farewell dinner at 
 the 'Rainbow Tavern,' on January 16, 1874, at 
 which a silver " loving cup" was presented to him 
 "from London friends." 
 
 A friend who was present at that dinner writes 
 thus : 
 
 It is remarkable evidence of the way in which character can 
 impress men, that on the eve of his departure from London he 
 was entertained at dinner by a body of professional men, many, 
 indeed most of them, distinguished in their various callings, 
 and all of them attracted by the mere personality of the man. 
 And it is proof of his rare humour and originality, that in 
 returning thanks for the toast of his health he was able to fix 
 the attention and sustain the interest of his hearers for nearly
 
 88 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 three hours, on the subject of " Twenty years as a London 
 curate." Few survivors of the gathering will forget the sus- 
 tained fascination of that speech. 1 
 
 1 This address was taken down verbatim by a shorthand writer, and pub- 
 lished with his own corrections. As copies are not now obtainable, it has 
 been reprinted in the Appendix to this volume, to which the reader is 
 accordingly referred.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BRAMPTON 
 
 IT may be doubted if any London clergyman 
 had in his generation gone from London leaving 
 behind him a greater sense of regret, and taking 
 with him more regard from the clergy and laity 
 who were engaged in the work of the Church 
 among the poor of the Metropolis, than did 
 Henry Whitehead. 
 
 Letters from his friends at the time testify to 
 their sincere esteem for him, and to their sorrow 
 at parting with one whose judgment was so 
 valued, whose presence was so helpful and 
 moderating, whose genius and originality were 
 so widely known and honoured. But throughout 
 these letters there is a sense of thankfulness that 
 though the North is far from the South, and the 
 men of London so unlike the men of Cumber- 
 land, at least in Whitehead would be found a 
 man who could as easily understand the North- 
 men as the Londoners, and as wisely work his 
 way to the people's hearts in a remote north-
 
 90 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 country town, as he had ever done in his several 
 London parishes. 
 
 The North and the South, and especially the Metropolis, 
 are far apart, writes a Cumbrian to him under date March 8, 
 1874. Their people know little of and scarcely understand 
 each other; their circumstances, views, feelings, are very 
 different. Very few men understand both or can compare 
 their condition and wants; excuse my adding therefore that 
 I rejoice when a man like yourself, with the power to 
 observe and understand character, and the circumstances 
 that influence it, and to communicate the fruits of his 
 observation to others, should be removed from London to a 
 northern and agricultural parish and diocese. 
 
 Others who knew him chiefly as an accurate 
 statistician, or as the most painstaking of editors 
 of his Limehouse Chronicle, and the projector 
 of a social paper for East London, felt that to 
 the literary side of clerical life in London, 
 Whitehead's departure was a real loss. 
 
 It is clear from the letters of Whitehead 
 which follow, that he had no intention of giving 
 up this literary side of his life when he came to 
 Brampton, indeed there is evidence that he 
 thought that at one time he should return to 
 London to help his friend W. Driver in the 
 editing of a paper for East London. It is also 
 clear that he found at Brampton just the kind 
 of parish and kind of people that suited him ; 
 and during the next ten years he threw himself 
 heart and soul into the social and educational 
 problems and the civil life of the parish with
 
 BRAMPTON 91 
 
 the zest of a man who felt that the people would 
 trust him, and would be willing to give him 
 position and authority, jnst because he never 
 sought it, or at any rate never seemed to care 
 about it. 
 
 What he thought about his reception and his 
 possibilities of work at Brampton may be gathered 
 from letters to his friend Hawkins. 
 
 BRAMPTON, CUMBERLAND, April 16, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, I feel moved to write you a few lines. 
 But it is strongly borne in upon my mind that my future 
 intercourse with my friends will never be on a satisfactory 
 footing until a Brampton Chronicle is established. No doubt, 
 as I know from experience, it is a serious thing to commit 
 oneself to. But then such an undertaking would have many 
 advantages here. A very intelligent population of 3,500, rather 
 isolated in position, with no local paper as yet, and a deal 
 of municipal feeling. It ought to be easy to get advertise- 
 ments, and it ought to command a good sale at a penny. 
 None need be given away. However I shall not think of 
 making any move in the matter before next January ; so 
 there will be plenty of time to mature the plans, and if you 
 will come down in the summer we will talk it over. I think 
 I have made a good start. The church was well attended 
 last Sunday (his first Sunday in Brampton), and the parish- 
 ioners of every denomination seem inclined to be well 
 disposed to me. There is a Working Men's Reading Room 
 almost opposite my home, a capital room and a good 
 library. This is a good foundation to work upon. Next 
 Friday (to-morrow) we elect churchwardens, and I am told 
 to expect rather an exciting meeting. On Tuesday we are 
 to meet to settle the School Board question. The vicar is 
 always expected to take the chair at such meetings. I 
 think I ought to do well here, because the manner and
 
 92 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 bearing of the people exactly suit my idiosyncrasy, and 
 therefore it is probable that I suit them. And as it is quite 
 a new thing in the memory of the present generation to 
 have a vicar caring about the municipal affairs of the town, 
 and as no vicar for ages past has lived in the town, the 
 position is a favourable one for me. I am sure you will 
 like the place ; and you must come the earliest opportunity. 
 We have a good schoolmaster, who has been here many 
 years, and has deservedly great weight in the town, with 
 whom I perceive that I shall be on very good terms. Yours 
 very truly, H. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 The next letter shows not only what he thought 
 about first principles (his favourite doctrine), as 
 regards the old Clerical Club in the East-end, 
 but how, true to his own teaching, he had been 
 busy trying to get the Brampton men to vote 
 not for party, but for principles, in the coming 
 School Board election. 
 
 BRAMPTON, May 26, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, . . . That was a great error 
 on the part of our friend. The principles which should 
 regulate such a society as our club, one might think, were 
 easy to be understood, yet very few persons do understand 
 them. However, I suppose that not many persons have any 
 understanding of principles of any kind. Hence the necessity 
 of rules, in short, of the law. " The law was added because 
 of transgression," i.e. because of the inability of people to do 
 right because it is right. 
 
 Now as to the future of the club, there is no doubt 
 whatever that it can only have any vitality as a Club of the 
 Liberal Clergy of East London, and I am not very sanguine 
 that even on that basis it will have a long existence now 
 that you, who are the backbone of it, are removed from 
 East London, though I know very well that you will as
 
 BRAMPTON 93 
 
 heretofore take any amount of trouble for it, and will be 
 its most regular member; but you will find a difficulty in 
 sustaining an esprit de corps among the members now that 
 you are no longer one of them in East London. 1 
 
 I have been very busy here of late, and somewhat worried 
 and vexed by some of the proceedings in connection with 
 our election of a School Board, which takes place next 
 Thursday. I have tried hard, and not altogether without 
 success, to infuse a right spirit into the contest, but, 
 especially in a little town, there are some elements which 
 are very difficult to bring into harmony with right principles. 
 
 You will think that the ' Rainbow ' speech is never going 
 to press. And I think so myself sometimes. However I 
 do now and then get on with it. I remain, yours very truly, 
 
 H. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 Whitehead's dream of a paper for East London 
 takes shape in the next letter. It was well for 
 Cumberland that the East Wind came to nothing, 
 or it is probable he would have returned to 
 London. 
 
 BRAMPTON, July 8, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, ... My present purpose is 
 to talk about the East Wind. It is, as you know, in one 
 sense a sort of child of mine, the title is mine, the idea 
 is mine, and the way of dealing with matters is mine, 
 Driver being a kind of disciple of mine. It is about six 
 years ago that I first conceived the idea of an East London 
 paper of this kind. I used to speak of it to Green, who 
 admitted the excellence of the idea, but did not see how 
 the paper was to be set on foot. 
 
 J This is in reference to the removal from Clapton to Leatherhead of 
 the St. John's Foundation School for the Sons of the Clergy, of which 
 Mr. Hawkins was then head master. It may be noted that the esprit de 
 corps here spoken of was, as a fact, sustained.
 
 94 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 I also discussed the matter with Driver, and he and I have 
 talked it over again and again. Whilst I was in Limehouse 
 the idea again recurred to me with new force, and I dare say 
 I have talked with Ross about it. I also had two or three 
 conversations about it with Donovan, the editor of the East 
 London Observer, who is just dead. My idea then was that 
 it should be a monthly paper, and that it should be printed 
 at the office of the East London Observer. 
 
 However, my departure from London put an end to my 
 speculations on the subject, and I gave over all thought of 
 the East Wind. Suddenly, however, Driver wrote to me to 
 say that a demand for a local paper had sprung up at Leyton- 
 stone, 1 and that by a combination of circumstances, not of his 
 arranging, he was to be both proprietor and editor. I had at 
 first many misgivings about it, and thought it would only last 
 a week or two. But it showed more signs of vitality than I 
 had expected, and when we dined last at the ' Rainbow,' I, as 
 you will remember, was full of the subject. Since that time 
 Driver has held on wonderfully well, considering that he has 
 very bad health, and is fully occupied with other matters. 
 He now writes to me to say that the paper is becoming a 
 power at Leytonstone and Leyton, and is increasing in in- 
 fluence and circulation every week. As you no doubt have 
 observed, I have lent him a hand in the writing department, 
 and shall continue to do so in order to keep it afloat. 
 
 But now I want you to introduce the subject to our clerical 
 brethren at their next club meeting, and to ask them to assist 
 the work by taking in the paper, and also by occasionally 
 sending to it an article, or at least a ' note ' or two. They will 
 never again have such an opportunity of helping to establish 
 such a paper for East London, and they should not let the 
 opportunity slip. Of course at present it has only made its 
 way on the outskirts of East London, but if it can only hold 
 on, I believe it is destined to be the paper of East London. 
 Its very title is a host in itself, and its way of dealing with 
 
 1 Where he was then living. Ill health had long since compelled Driver 
 to relinquish his noble work amongst outcast boys.
 
 BRAMPTON 95 
 
 matters corresponds with its title; but I have laid down the 
 principle that it should never be bitter, and should always 
 be calm and impartial, especially in religious matters, and 
 this principle Driver thoroughly apprehends. 
 
 I will not say any more, except this, that I have half 
 promised Driver that if ever he should succeed in establish- 
 ing the paper on a firm basis, I will return to London and 
 help him to edit it. 
 
 But it is a race against time; the strain on him is very 
 great, and in point of health he is weak, though in natural 
 ability he is just the contrary. Whoever would lend him 
 any aid in helping him to write the paper, should do it with 
 no loss of time. Perhaps the best way to help would be to 
 send notes. 
 
 Bring this matter before the club at the next meeting, and 
 meanwhile be sure to read an article of mine in the next 
 number, entitled, 'A School Board Difficulty.' Take the 
 paper to the club and read this article to them. Yours very 
 truly, H. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 In the following letter one sees a recurrence 
 to a favourite doctrine of Whitehead's, that a 
 teacher's duty was to get men to be and do 
 good of their own will, without knowing that 
 they were being urged thereto. "It's worth 
 taking any trouble," he used to say, "to get 
 men to do right of their own accord." 
 
 BRAMPTON, CUMBERLAND, October 17, 1874. 
 MY DEAR GALLAND, You will think me very neglectful, 
 and so I have been. But I wrote half a letter to you a long 
 while ago, intending it to be in time to await your arrival 
 from the Continent. Then things happened which prevented 
 my finishing it, and when I looked at it again it seemed out 
 of date, and went forthwith into the waste paper basket. 
 Now the difficulty is where to begin and where to end.
 
 96 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Perhaps the most satisfactory information I can give you is, 
 that I have a great many things here which occupy my 
 attention. It is altogether different from St. John's, Lime- 
 house. There I seemed like a sojourn er in a strange land. 
 Whatever work I did I had to make. Here it makes itself; 
 not always clerical work, or what is considered to be clerical 
 work. But at all events it is work which very naturally falls 
 into the hands of the vicar of the parish, if he has a mind 
 to be interested in it. In short, my position is that of ex- 
 officio chairman in almost everything that goes on. My 
 parishioners are fond of public meetings, and I always make 
 a point of attending them, whatever be their object. Whether 
 I make my way, or, as the phrase goes, 'get hold' of the 
 people, is not easy to determine if one is to judge by outward 
 signs. For the more effectually this kind of work is done, 
 the less there often is, or seems, to show for it. However, 
 I believe I am tolerably well suited to the place, and the 
 place to me. It is what I have always wanted, a parish 
 complete in itself, and one that has a municipal or corporate 
 life of its own. My position as vicar gives me the foremost 
 place in this corporate life. But I endeavour never to rest 
 my influence on my position, and only to let it tell for what 
 it may be worth. This is slow work from an outward point 
 of view. Whatever good I may do appears to come about 
 of itself, and so in one sense it does. For one's chief business 
 is that which is or ought to be the physician's business, viz. to 
 assist nature, in which case the patient seems to get well of 
 his own accord. 
 
 The Penningtons 1 can describe to you what the place and 
 people look like; Edward Pennington went with me to the 
 winding-up meeting of the school committee, and we had a 
 good deal of talk about the School Board, of which I am both 
 chairman and clerk. This combination of offices causes me 
 a good deal of work, but it is well worth my while to 
 do it. 
 
 1 Old Clapham friends who gladdened his heart with a visit at this time 
 on their way home from Scotland.
 
 BRAMPTON 97 
 
 The ability to take the chair, and make the 
 chair a power, which he seems to have inherited 
 from his father, comes out in the next letter. 
 
 BRAMPTON, CUMBERLAND, October 27, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, Many thanks for your letter. I have 
 long felt that I owed you one, but my difficulty (as I dare 
 say I mentioned in my letter to Galland) is that I don't know 
 where to begin or where to leave off. I feel the want of a 
 Chronicle more for the sake of my friends than of my parish. 
 It would be a great pleasure to me to send them a monthly 
 account of what is going. But as regards the parish, I hardly 
 know whether it is yet ripe even for an occasional paper. The 
 people here are slow to take in new ideas, and if one presses 
 an idea too quickly one is apt to get wrong with them. I 
 sometimes doubt whether I shall ever get beyond sowing a 
 seed here. But then I have never got beyond this anywhere 
 else. 
 
 I am glad you came in for my letter to Galland, as it will 
 put you in possession of some facts. But you will never be 
 able to realize the place until you have been here. I have 
 no reason to complain. My parishioners (Dissenters included) 
 all like to have me 'in the chair,' and that is a great ad- 
 vantage. I believe I have made more way with them ' in the 
 chair' than in the pulpit. The one thing needful is to take 
 no more authority than they themselves grant, which, of 
 course, is slow work, but it is sure. I dare say I have 
 before mentioned to you that the character of the people is 
 to be explained by their history. For centuries they lived in 
 incessant warfare with the Scotch borderers, and as Brampton 
 lies out of the beaten track there has been little or no 
 importation of fresh blood. Therefore the characteristics 
 remain, though the warfare has long ceased. 
 
 The great subject of interest at present with us is the new 
 church, the subscriptions for which go on very well. We 
 want ;6,ooo at the least, and one way and another we have 
 
 G
 
 98 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 already got ^5,000. There was at first, of course, a good 
 deal of passive resistance to the idea of a new church, and 
 if I had assumed the attitude of the promoter of it I dare 
 say it might have fallen to the ground. How I contrived 
 to fan the idea without putting myself into such an attitude 
 I could only explain vivd voce. 
 
 I am in hopes that the accomplishment of this project 
 will act like a 'moving of the waters,' for no doubt they 
 will be very proud of it when it is finished. 
 
 But it is necessary that you should come here and 'take stock.' 
 Brooke Lambert 1 was very much interested in what he saw and 
 heard here. He said you would be sure to ask him whether 
 I am rusting. I don't think I am, for there is too much to 
 interest me in my own line as an observer of human nature. 
 But I sadly miss the meetings of the Brotherhood, and the 
 occasional evenings with yourself, Galland, Kebbel, Driver, etc. 
 
 Now as to the club of 'the Brethren,' I am glad to hear 
 of the recognition of the one essential principle, that its 
 existence depends on its being confined to East London. 
 You are the only exception that can be allowed ; and this is 
 an exception which proves the rule, as you are an East 
 Londoner. Moreover, you are a necessity to the club, there 
 being no one else who has the instinctive spirit to under- 
 stand the first principles of such a gathering, which leads a 
 man to subordinate himself to the society. It is a great 
 pity that Kebbel, Galland, and Driver are not East London 
 clergymen. You can never be sure of some men, that any 
 one of them may not at any time "err, not knowing the 
 scripture." The particular scripture in this case being : 
 " Be ye subject one to another." But all scripture, to the 
 discerning eye, is full of principles applicable to the matter 
 in hand. 
 
 "The Brotherhood," as this clerical club came 
 to be called in later times, was at first a small 
 
 1 Then vicar of Tarn worth, now of St. Alphege and St. Mary, Greenwich.
 
 BRAMPTON 99 
 
 society of liberal clergymen, who lived in or 
 about Hackney, and who agreed to meet at one 
 another's houses once a month for ten months in 
 the year to dine together in a plain fashion, 
 and to discuss subjects of interest to the clergy. 
 It was founded in the spring of 1864, and still 
 continues in vigorous life much the same both 
 in its aims and its customs as it was at first. 
 It has numbered throughout about ten members 
 sometimes one more or less. What is remark- 
 able about it is that the total number of members 
 who have ever belonged to it is only twenty-two, 
 and that in thirty-three years it has only lost six 
 members by death. 1 
 
 The rebuilding of the church at Brampton 
 had been taken up in earnest, and a letter in 
 which he thanks Hawkins for his subscription 
 enables him to chat on about himself and the 
 parish in his own pleasant unconventional way. 
 
 "A man must be himself," he says, and the 
 antiquarian in Whitehead's self comes out in 
 this letter. His honour for the patron saint 
 and the early church history of the parish which 
 afterwards manifested itself in a genuine love 
 of antiquarian lore and research over the wide 
 diocese also declares itself. 
 
 BRAMPTON, CUMBERLAND, Nov. 5, 1874. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, Thanks for the gift. You rightly 
 judge that your name in the subscription list will be wel- 
 come as a ' sign.' The list continues to swell, and I hope 
 1 Written in 1897 by E. C. H.
 
 ioo HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 that when you and Voss 1 pay your visit here, you will find 
 the whole amount raised and the church being built. 
 
 In writing letters one does not dwell on difficulties or 
 drawbacks, and I shall be sorry for my friends to suppose 
 that I am under the impression that I am 'doing a great 
 work.' If I were to be had up before a jury of ' active 
 parish priests ' I should certainly be found ' guilty of in- 
 efficiency without extenuating circumstances.' And no doubt 
 there would be some truth in the verdict, perhaps a good 
 deal of truth. But, as I often say, " A man must be himself" 
 I feel that there are departments of parish work in which 
 I fail so signally that I scarcely try to touch them. If I 
 can in any way aid in the spread of a spirit, it is enough 
 for me to do. The spirit must do its own work, for I never 
 was, and never shall be, an administrator. 
 
 My eldest brother 2 was an administrator of the first order. 
 There is no knowing what he might have been capable of 
 in that way if he had had a great sphere of action. Yet 
 one of his most intimate friends said to me on the day of 
 his funeral, and there was truth in the remark, "You know, 
 Tom was after all not in his element as a parish priest." 
 
 With these reservations I proceed to report progress on 
 the Brampton Debating Society. Last Monday evening I 
 presided at their first debate subject: "Should sermons be 
 written or extempore?" The extempore men were of course 
 hard upon the writers of sermons. But, somewhat to my 
 surprise, the writers found their strongest advocates among 
 the Dissenters. I made a speech at the end to the effect 
 that it was not a question to be settled offhand by a verdict 
 for or against, and when the hands held up on either 
 side proved to be equal in number I declined to give a 
 casting vote. Now the chief interest in the discussion to 
 me was in the fact that they made no stranger of me. My 
 presence did not stop the mouth of any one who knew 
 
 1 Vestry clerk of Bethnal Green. 
 
 'Vicar of Gawcott, Bucks., latterly head master of Christ's College, 
 Finchley, the author of "Village Sketches."
 
 BRAMPTON ioi 
 
 that I write my sermons. Nor did any one on the other 
 hand seem to be hitting at me. I am not the permanent 
 chairman; at each meeting they elect the chairman for the 
 next debate; and for the next debate, "Should Museums, 
 etc., be open on Sunday?" one of my colleagues on the 
 School Board is to be chairman. Meanwhile I am to pre- 
 side at a meeting, at which every one is to speak, read, 
 recite, sing, etc., just as he pleases. I shall lead off with a 
 speech, for I find that I can inculcate principles better 
 from the chair than from the pulpit. This society may grow 
 into something, but if not, I am not responsible for it. 
 
 One other matter I must allude to; our patron saint is 
 and has been for centuries, St. Martin, and next Wednesday 
 (Nov. n) is his day; it has never been observed in the 
 memory of any one now living. But I shall announce next 
 Sunday that there will be service and a sermon on Wednes- 
 day evening, " being St. Martin's Day," and at nine o'clock 
 after the service I shall entertain the bell-ringers, verger, and 
 sexton at supper at an inn kept by one of the ringers. St. 
 Martin is an important saint in the north. The divisions of 
 the year as to hiring, rent-paying, etc., date from Martinmas. 
 But the origin of his importance in the north is, I am afraid, 
 lost in antiquity. And so is the origin of his connection by 
 name with this parish. We can trace it for seven hundred 
 years, but it may go back much further for aught we know. 
 The little chapel in which I read the Burial Service is seven 
 hundred years old, being the chancel of the old parish church, 
 which stood a mile and a half from the town. It contains the 
 tombstone of an early vicar (1251), of which I enclose a print, 
 also a stone with the arms of the Howards and Dacres and 
 some other family on it, and just under the north wall, on the 
 outside, and under a Norman arch, we recently discovered by 
 excavation a tombstone of the early part of the thirteenth 
 century, with a chalice on it, denoting, I believe, a bishop. 
 Ten years ago, on removing the whitewash, a fresco was dis- 
 covered on the south wall, which the churchwardens of that 
 day were Goths enough to destroy.
 
 102 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Whitehead came to the north, a stranger 
 among a strange people, as he once said; a 
 man from the south, homo australis, as the old 
 Chronicle of Lanercost somewhat contemptuously 
 described a new bishop ' in the tough grim talk 
 of the monkish days ' ; but, though doubtless 
 their ways seemed strange to the stranger, and 
 " Cumberland fwoak " are not swift to take to a 
 foreigner, yet it was not long before he won 
 upon them. The interest he took in everything 
 that was new to him in the "north countree,"- 
 the open mind that he had, the readiness with 
 which he always could see that there were two 
 sides to every question, and that one side might 
 perhaps be as good as the other, the work he 
 could do and did, and withal the human-hearted, 
 humorous nature of the man, who was so un- 
 assuming, so patient, so gentle in his ways, all 
 tended to bring about, that, almost before they 
 knew it, his -quiet presence had entered their 
 hearts, and his endearing personality had won 
 golden opinions for the new vicar of Brampton. 
 Apart from his labours as a priest he won upon 
 them, because he was really a man, and could 
 say, Homo sum: nihil humanum a me alienum 
 puto ('I am a man, and nothing that is human 
 is foreign to me'). He made friends in every 
 rank of society. He took an interest in almost 
 every charitable institution, and in almost every 
 institution peculiar to the north of England, in 
 their funeral customs, and in many other things
 
 BRAMPTON 103 
 
 which an ordinary stranger might not have 
 observed. 
 
 As chairman of the Vestry and the Board 
 School he proved himself a leader of men. As 
 founder of the Boys' Club he showed how he 
 sympathized with boys, and in exerting himself 
 to show and to enlist sympathy for the Literary 
 Institute and Reading-room he did much that 
 appealed to the intellectual life of the Bramp- 
 tonians. 
 
 The new church grew apace, and friends urged 
 him to look at home and think of a parsonage. 
 
 At Brampton, as later on at Newlands, in 
 Whitehead's mind the idea prevailed that the 
 House of Prayer should be rebuilt before any 
 thought should be given to the house of the 
 vicar. It was not until the church was approach- 
 ing its roofing time in 1878, that he took any 
 thought regarding his own house-roof. For 
 nearly two years he had been minus house 
 accommodation for wife and children. Then, as 
 he could hear of no suitable house for himself 
 and family, he proposed to the trustees of Lord 
 Carlisle's estate that he should buy a piece of 
 land of them, and build himself a house with 
 money he would have to borrow ; but they de- 
 clined to do more than sell on a lease, and the 
 project fell through. Eventually they agreed to 
 build a house which he was to rent. 
 
 It was in 1876 that the Burial question was 
 exciting public attention throughout the country.
 
 104 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Whitehead was pressed to join hands with cer- 
 tain leaders of the Broad Church party in a 
 memorial which obtained the suffrages of the 
 Evangelical party also. His calm wisdom and 
 courage came to his aid, and he refused to sign 
 and was willing to bear the onus of standing 
 alone, even though he should seem to have 
 deserted his cause and his friends. He ex- 
 pressed his views on the matter to his corre- 
 spondent Hawkins. 
 
 BRAMPTON, CUMBERLAND, February 23, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, Thanks for the circular, which I 
 had not received; of course I think it is a mistake. It is 
 not the function of the so-called Broad Church to be 
 constantly combining first with Ritualists and then with 
 Evangelicals in getting up protests and requisitions. Such 
 documents are worse than useless unless they proceed from 
 a majority. It is more dignified to stand aloof, and possess 
 one's soul in patience. And the only combination which is 
 ever numerically strong is one of High and Low Churchmen 
 against the Broad, or at all events against the ideas which 
 the Broad represent. Such a combination at present exists 
 on the other side in this question, for though some of the 
 London Evangelical clergy may take the liberal view of 
 the Burial question, their country brethren are nearly all on 
 the illiberal side. Therefore there is no use in making more 
 manifest than it already is what a weight of numbers is against 
 us. Our tactics should rather be to depreciate the value of 
 these clerical protests altogether, and consistently refuse to 
 have anything to do with them. The function of a liberal 
 clergyman is to be liberal all round, and to spread a spirit, 
 leaving its outward forms and manifestations to take care of 
 themselves.
 
 BRAMPTON 105 
 
 No question of this kind ever arrives without LI. Davies 1 
 delivering utterances which are widely read and which are of 
 vast importance. The laity read them and say, "Well, at 
 all events, the clergy are not all on the wrong side." I think 
 he steps down from his pedestal when he engages in these 
 coalitions. 
 
 March 10, 1876. 
 
 MY DEAR HAWKINS, When I saw the names of the clergy 
 who have signed the memorial about the Burial question I 
 certainly felt a momentary regret that my name should be 
 the only one of our brotherhood that was absent. On that 
 score the only thing to be said is that it requires more moral 
 courage on my part to withhold my name from such a 
 memorial than to allow it to be added to the rest. But 
 looking at the matter from my old point of view I see no 
 reason to modify my opinion on the inadvisability of such 
 memorials. The same thought occurred to me which has 
 since been expressed by G. R. Portal in a letter to the 
 Guardian. He speaks of "the cathedral dignitaries, town 
 incumbents, and distinguished schoolmasters, who have come 
 forward to solve a question which in no way affects them." I 
 do not say it does not affect them. It affects them as members 
 of the Church, and perhaps their very position enables them 
 to take a calm and unprejudiced view. And when any one 
 of them expresses this view, after the manner of Llewellyn 
 Davies, giving his reasons in his own way, there is great 
 weight in his utterance. But it is otherwise with a bare 
 memorial with merely the signatures; such a document only 
 leads to the counting up and analyzing of the names. And 
 when the reader has gone through this process he only says, 
 "Well, I thought there would have been more of them." So 
 far as I am concerned I have to stand almost alone in this 
 rural deanery, and I might almost say in this diocese, but 
 I feel that I do better to contend single-handed with those 
 immediately around me than to add my signature to the 
 
 memorial. 
 
 1 Now vicar of Kirkby Lonsdale.
 
 io6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 It was during his Brampton days that White- 
 head's love of archaeology first manifested itself. 
 The old church and burying-ground of the patron 
 saint (St. Martin), the ' written rock in Gelt ' a 
 rock on the bank of the river Gelt, where some 
 Roman centurion had caused a note to be made 
 of the presence of his legion the near proximity 
 of the border castle of Lord William Howard, 
 and of the Roman Wall, all these roused the 
 keen hunter's zeal for accurate research and in- 
 formation. 
 
 Chancellor Ferguson, as editor of the Ciimber- 
 land and Westmoreland Transactions, wrote to 
 him in 1876 urging him to write a paper on the 
 Brampton Registers, and this set him seriously to 
 work. The Brampton paper was not written, 
 but the study of the Brampton Register resulted 
 in many papers on kindred subjects which 
 appeared up till the day of his death in local 
 papers or in the County Transactions. The last 
 proofs he corrected were those of a paper on the 
 " Kirkoswald Register," which, though in type, 
 had not been printed when he passed away. 
 
 A list of these writings was given at the end 
 of the " In Memoriam " paper by Chancellor 
 Ferguson, in Part I. Vol. xiv. of the Transactions 
 of the C^lmberland and Westmoreland Anti- 
 quarian and Archceological Society, and will be 
 found in the list of Whitehead's published writings 
 at the close of this volume. 
 
 The writer of the paper says : " The charm
 
 BRAMPTON 107 
 
 of the man to his archaeological friends, and his 
 power as a writer on archaeological subjects, 
 consisted in his mathematical facility for putting 
 together and adding up small indicia of evidence, 
 combined with a vivid imagination that enabled 
 him to realize the persons about whom he was 
 writing. Thus out of an old register Mr. White- 
 head could conjure up a seventeenth century vicar 
 or an eighteenth century parish clerk to the life, 
 quite natural and true. One great characteristic 
 of his work was his thoroughness." 
 
 " Thank you very heartily," wrote Canon Ben- 
 ham, " for your notes on Parish Registers. I 
 regard you as about the most sincere literary man 
 in the Church of England. All your work is 
 sterling, all valuable, and yet you make no fuss 
 about it. If only twenty country parsons would 
 take the pains that you do, a vast accession of 
 knowledge would take place in parochial and 
 national history." 
 
 The principal subjects with which he dealt 
 were Parish Registers, Church Plate, and Church 
 Bells. 
 
 The first important work of this kind which 
 he undertook was the writing of the paper on 
 " Old Church Plate in the Brampton Deanery," 
 which was the precursor of a book on The Old 
 Church Plate of the Diocese of Carlisle. This 
 was first suggested to him by the Industrial and 
 Art Exhibition held in Brampton in January 
 1880.
 
 io8 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 The idea of this exhibition, the first that history 
 records as having been held in Cumberland, 
 originated with Mrs. Whitehead, who, in no wise 
 daunted at the somewhat cold reception accorded 
 at first to her suggestion, gathered together a 
 committee, including some working men, and set 
 to work in earnest to take the requisite pre- 
 liminary steps. 
 
 Six months were taken up in the preparations, 
 the main object in view being to encourage the 
 industry of the district ; but as the interest in the 
 matter increased, a suggestion was made to add 
 to the exhibits for competition a loan section of 
 local and historical objects of interest. Mrs. 
 Whitehead can hardly have anticipated that the 
 small local committee she called together in July 
 1879 would have met with such signal success ; 
 or that the seed sown by the first Industrial 
 Exhibition would bear fruit so abundantly, for 
 Wigton, Haltwhistle, Cockermouth, and Carlisle, 
 in succeeding years, followed suit. 
 
 It was Whitehead's belief, shared by Chan- 
 cellor Ferguson, that if prominence were given 
 in these local exhibitions to loan collections illus- 
 trative of ancient manners and customs of the 
 locality, a great deal of antiquarian knowledge 
 and history would be the result. 
 
 Amongst the exhibits at the Brampton Ex- 
 hibition was a beautiful old silver chalice, 
 and two large pewter flagons from Brampton 
 Church, and a quaint old silver tankard having
 
 BRAMPTON 109 
 
 a whistle at the base of its handle. These 
 exhibits, the Brampton (Newcastle) chalice so 
 called because the silver marks (three castles) 
 proved it to have been made in Newcastle the 
 Skelton tankard, and the Brampton flagons have 
 become historical. They inaugurated a great 
 movement, of which the country has not yet 
 seen the end. 
 
 As the sequel to the Brampton Industrial and 
 Art Exhibition, Whitehead wrote a paper on 
 "Old Church Plate in the Deanery of Brampton." 
 
 When in the following year a larger exhibition 
 was held at Wigton, and twenty-four disused 
 chalices and communion vessels were brought 
 together, it was seen that there was much material 
 to hand, and a book on the Old Church Plate 
 of the Diocese was projected. By the co-oper- 
 ation of Miss Goodwin, now Mrs. Ware, wife 
 of the suffragan bishop of Carlisle, the chancellor 
 and himself, this was carried to a most successful 
 issue, though with characteristic modesty he re- 
 fused to have his name upon the title-page ; and 
 in Crockford would only allow himself to be 
 known as the writer of the paper on u Old Church 
 Plate " of his own Brampton Deanery, which was 
 published in 1881. 
 
 Indirectly the Industrial Exhibition at Bramp- 
 ton bore fruit that helped archaeological records 
 throughout England, for other dioceses followed 
 suit, and it is now hardly possible to sell any old 
 church plate away from its own church or parish.
 
 I io HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Between his studies of church plate marks 
 and church bell inscriptions he devoted much 
 research to local history and wrote papers, in 
 which he would in fancy repeople Brampton with 
 the Presbyterians, or the followers of Prince 
 Charles Stuart in 1745 for it was in Brampton 
 that Prince Charles received the keys of Carlisle 
 Castle from the Mayor and Corporation on their 
 knees, and the town is full of traditions of 
 the '45 or would in imagination follow George 
 Fox the Quaker through the villages of Cumber- 
 land and Westmoreland to and from the castle 
 gaol. Of George Fox he always expressed great 
 admiration, and a portrait of him ever had the 
 place of honour in his study. 
 
 It was whilst he was busy preparing his con- 
 tribution to this Church Plate book, and visiting 
 the different churches to verify the silver marks 
 on the plate, that Whitehead heard the bells of 
 the various churches calling to him to examine 
 their dates and mottoes and moulds. In 1883 
 he published a paper on the " Church Bells of 
 the Border," to be followed by " Church Bells 
 in Cumberland Ward," Parts I. and II. In 1885 
 he published the " Bells of Carlisle Cathedral," 
 and, later on, "Church Bells of Leath Ward," 
 Parts I., II., III., IV., and the " Keswick Town 
 Clock Bell." 
 
 A characteristic letter on church bells to Canon 
 Rawnsley in answer to one which prepared the 
 formation of the present Bell Ringers' Associa-
 
 BRAMPTON in 
 
 tion for the county is worth quoting as one 
 example of his cheery readiness to help forward 
 the art of the belfries of which he had begun to 
 be so fond, and of whose bells he was actually 
 thinking on the day before his death. 
 
 BRAMPTON, CARLISLE, December 29, 1883. 
 
 DEAR RAWNSLEY, I hope you may be able to preside on 
 New Year's Eve at the bell-ringers' supper which you mention 
 in your letter. I look forward to being similarly engaged 
 here on New Year's Eve, as the ringers come to the vicarage 
 to supper before the late service, which begins at n P.M. 
 After service, which concludes exactly at 12, they ring the 
 New Year in. 
 
 You know that I take a great interest in bells, and belfries, 
 and bell-ringers. The Crosthwaite bells I had . the good 
 fortune to hear one evening last week, and thought them very 
 good. I believe it is an article of faith in Crosthwaite to 
 consider them the best in Cumberland. There was never 
 yet a peal of bells that was not regarded by the inhabitants 
 of the parish to which they belonged as the best anywhere 
 known. Brampton people think our bells the best in the 
 world, though the treble is too sharp. 1 For my own part I 
 do not think the Brampton bells as good as either Crosth- 
 waite or Penrith, which of the two latter peals is the best 
 I do not undertake to say. But I may say this, that Crosth- 
 waite folk must give over saying that they have the pick of 
 three peals intended for Crosthwaite, Penrith, and Cocker- 
 mouth (see Crosthwaite Parish Magazine, October 1882); 
 on which subject see the report of my lecture at Penrith in 
 the Penrith Observer of last Tuesday (December 25). 
 
 Only the first half of my lecture is reported. Towards the 
 end I told the Penrith people that, whatever doubt there 
 
 1 They will sound better again when the church tower is completed ; 
 the present temporary wooden structure does not tend to mellow their 
 tone. M. W. .
 
 ii2 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 might be as to which of the two peals of bells was the better, 
 there was no manner of doubt as to which belfry was in the 
 better order. The Penrith belfry is in a very bad condition. 
 All the bells need to be re-hung. And the ringing gallery 
 is ridiculous, so erected that the ropes must all fall in a line 
 instead of in a circle. Change-ringing is out of the question 
 with such an arrangement. The Crosthwaite belfry, on the 
 contrary, seems in first-rate order. This I know because I 
 not only heard the bells but saw them. The only thing I 
 feel sorry for concerning the bells is that Nos. i, 5, 7, and 8 
 are not from the same foundry as the original peal, not that 
 I have any fault to find with the new bells, which are ex- 
 cellent. They are from the Cripplegate Foundry, which has 
 a very good name. But there could have been no possible 
 reason for not calling in the Whitechapel founders to recast 
 bells which came from their foundry, or to add to their 
 number. 
 
 I should have been glad to have had an opportunity of 
 seeing the ringers. But if I did not see the present ringers, 
 I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of an 
 old ringer, Mr. Geo. Holmes, and was much interested in 
 his conversation. He told me of the peals they used to ring 
 in his time. Whether the Crosthwaite ringers can ring the 
 same peals now I don't know. But if they can it is more 
 than can be said of any other Cumberland ringers as yet 
 known to me. 
 
 Now you say something about an association that is to be 
 formed. Do you mean a diocesan association ? That is what 
 is wanted. But as a preliminary step to its formation the 
 Cathedral bells should be set going again. At present there 
 is not a single wheel among the lot, and the tradition is that 
 they have not been rung since 1745. The Chapter, I 
 believe, say that to ring the bells would injure the tower, 
 which I don't believe. Towers are only injured by bells 
 when the cage is ' made steady' by wedges driven in between 
 it and the wall of the belfry. I did not find that such was 
 the case at Crosthwaite, but it is the case at St. Stephen's
 
 BRAMPTON 113 
 
 (Carlisle), and the consequence is that though the church 
 is a new one, the tower is already cracked. 
 
 But to return to the projected association. If you wish 
 to be a pioneer in this matter you can get up a local 
 association in your part of the county. It should engage an 
 experienced teacher. And when the Crosthwaite ringers 
 undertake their first 5040 peal of Stedman's triples I hope 
 they will invite me to hear it, and that I may have the 
 pleasure of being present at the supper which, as the re- 
 porters say, will ' terminate the proceedings.' 
 
 Wishing you and the Crosthwaite ringers a Happy New 
 Year when it comes, I remain, yours truly, 
 
 H. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 N.. Advise your ringers to take in the Bell News, 
 published by Allen, Ave Maria Lane, London. It comes 
 out weekly, and costs only a penny. 
 
 Almost his first act on coming into the Bramp- 
 ton parish was connected with the formation of a 
 School Board, which had been decided on before 
 he came, and for which he acted as clerk. The 
 whole correspondence, most carefully kept, is in 
 his handwriting. He was wont to tell how in 
 his several capacities of vicar of the parish, and 
 clerk to the new School Board, he wrote letters 
 to himself, which were carefully answered ; copies 
 of all are still preserved. The work of the clerk- 
 ship he cheerfully undertook, as he felt that by 
 so doing he might smooth away difficulties in 
 the near future. Strict attention to business 
 details in all public matters was with him a first 
 principle, and had won for him high commenda- 
 tion from the shrewd business men with whom he 
 worked on committee in the heavy distress winter 
 
 H
 
 ii4 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 in East London, 1867-68. He was remarkable for 
 his thoroughness, and always worked out trust- 
 worthy and reliable results, as is shown by the 
 following story. There was a question raised by 
 the Education Department as to the sufficiency of 
 accommodation in the schools. He maintained 
 one view, the department pressed another. To 
 convince " My Lords " he himself, unaided by 
 any one, made a personal canvass of the whole 
 parish, took a census of the children in every 
 house, and proved his point, though " My Lords " 
 were hard to convince, and insisted that his 
 census was inaccurate they little knew their 
 man. Nothing daunted by their sceptical reply 
 to his statement (they chose to estimate the 
 number of children between the ages of five 
 and thirteen by the population), he went to 
 work again, repeated his personal canvass of 
 the parish, and triumphantly proved himself to 
 be right. He often said when telling this story, 
 that the intimate knowledge of the parish thus 
 early gained was well worth the pains taken in 
 the matter. It certainly saved the town a heavy 
 rate, as a new school had been declared neces- 
 sary in view of the estimated population of 
 school age. 
 
 The next difficulty which faced him was the 
 Church question. 
 
 Brampton Church in 1874 was a mean-looking 
 structure, having common sash windows. Its 
 only redeeming feature was its tower. It wanted
 
 BRAMPTON 115 
 
 re-seating, and a great deal needed to be done, 
 as it was much out of repair from damp and 
 other causes. A public meeting was called to 
 consider the question of repairing and re-seating 
 it ; after much discussion, and one or two ad- 
 journments, it was finally decided that it would 
 in the end be, for various reasons, much the 
 best thing to do to pull down the old edifice 
 (it was never at any time a substantial one, and 
 only boasted fifty years), and to build a new one 
 in its place ; this he foresaw would enable the 
 much vexed question of the private ownership 
 of pews to settle itself peaceably, for the new 
 church he intended should be free and open. 
 
 So a committee was formed, and subscriptions 
 raised, and after some months the old church 
 was pulled down, and the walls of the new 
 one were reared on its site. The foundation 
 stone of the present church was laid by H.R.H. 
 the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome, who 
 was at that time staying at Naworth Castle. 
 
 The maxim upon which he acted in this and 
 in all his other undertakings in Cumberland, was 
 " Never hurry a meeting of Cumberland men ; 
 they will always come to the right decision at 
 the end. Their motto is, ' tak' time." 1 
 
 The building of the new church, which was 
 entrusted to Mr. Philip Webb of London, was 
 a great anxiety for him. He had many conflict- 
 ing elements to deal with, amongst which it 
 required all his tact to steer his way. It cost
 
 u6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 him a great deal more financially than he could 
 afford, but this he never grudged, and when once 
 it was built, the seats made free and open, and 
 a beginning made with the beautiful memorial 
 windows by William Morris, from designs by 
 Sir E. Burne Jones, he felt that a distinct move 
 onward had been made in the affairs of Brampton. 
 
 Services were held in a school-room whilst the 
 work of the new church was going on, and he 
 was always delighted to tell the story of how 
 that time had gone far to prepare the way for 
 a change. He had the school arranged every 
 week to look as much like a church as possible ; 
 and when the services began in the new St. 
 Martin's, people were quite accustomed to the 
 improved order of ritual. 
 
 His audience in that little room often contained 
 some very notable personages. On one occasion 
 he recognized a venerable man with white hair 
 in the congregation, and on meeting him the 
 next evening at dinner at N a worth Castle, Mr. 
 Whitehead said to him, " Dr. Jowett, the last 
 time you and I met was under different circum- 
 stances. A green baize-covered table separated 
 us on that occasion." 1 
 
 When the church was ready for consecration, 
 it was decided by a public meeting, after a long 
 and convincing speech by the vicar, that the 
 choir should be surpliced. 
 
 1 Dr. Jowett had been one of the examiners at Oxford when Whitehead 
 was in for ' Greats.'
 
 BRAMPTON 
 
 117 
 
 On St. Martin's day, 1878, the new church 
 was consecrated. It was a memorable day in 
 Brampton the commencement, one might say, 
 of a new era. The bishop, with a large number 
 of the clergy and a goodly choir, surpliced for 
 the first time, entered the church, preceded by 
 the churchwardens, and his verger bearing the 
 silver stick before him. As the procession 
 advanced up the aisle, the bishop read the twenty- 
 fourth Psalm, the clergy and others responding. 
 The service was intoned, Tallis' responses being 
 given by the choir with good effect. All the 
 congregation rose as the bishop entered, and 
 from that day to this have continued to do 
 so at the commencement of divine service. 
 
 Only those who had known the condition of 
 affairs in the previous decade could fully appre- 
 ciate the change, and not only the change, 
 but the infinite tact, judgment, and patience 
 which had been exerted to bring it about. If 
 a beautiful church, with a surpliced choir, choral 
 service, orderly ritual, free and open seats, and, 
 above all, no antagonistic feeling aroused in the 
 parish, had been the only result of ten years' 
 work, it would not have been a small one ; but 
 seed was being sown, and a spirit spread, which 
 would bear fruit and endure long after the 
 sower should have passed away. 
 
 Five years later he left Brampton, where he 
 had now spent ten years, a period which, as he 
 used laughingly to say, was a quite long enough
 
 ii8 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 halt in any one place, and for various reasons he 
 thought the time had come to move on. 1 
 
 In the spring of 1884 he resigned his post, 
 and on Trinity Sunday evening, June 8, 1884, 
 he preached the farewell sermon, whose conclud- 
 ing words run as follows : 
 
 We hear sometimes of what is called the reserve, even 
 the sternness of the Cumberland character. It may be, it is, 
 in the main reserved ; it may even in a measure be stern, 
 but as the poet says of his stern hero : 
 
 Your smilers guess not how 
 Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. 
 
 And even the lips, especially of late, have avowed both 
 to myself and family, much that has been to us most touch- 
 ing. On this point however, as indeed on any matter of a 
 personal nature, I cannot trust myself to say more. . . . 
 I have never been able to preach the regulation farewell 
 sermon. 
 
 A word or two about the poor, and I have done. Words- 
 worth noticed what he called the solemnity of the Westmore- 
 land peasantry. The same characteristic may be observed 
 in the poor of this neighbourhood. It is this which enables 
 them, or at all events a large proportion of them, to hold 
 converse with those whom the world would call their 
 superiors with a quiet air of equality entirely devoid of 
 assumption, which is not without its value as illustrating the 
 essential unity of mankind as children of the one God and 
 Father of us all. It also enables them, in the midst of 
 their hard lot and in time of affliction, to exhibit in a high 
 degree the virtue of patience; whilst it does not prevent 
 
 1 It was I believe Dr. Jacobson, whilst Bishop of Chester, who spoke 
 disrespectfully of the process of "vegetating for twenty years in one place." 
 H. W. always maintained that a man gained more than he lost, as "a 
 rolling stone." M. W.
 
 BRAMPTON 
 
 119 
 
 them from showing gratitude for any kindness they may 
 have received, perhaps not always at the time, but what is 
 more striking, even years afterwards, though the kindness 
 may have been but a small matter. Indeed they are as a 
 class a most patient, grateful folk. 
 
 One cannot conclude this Brampton chapter 
 without quoting from some notes the present 
 vicar has kindly placed at my disposal, of the 
 work done by Whitehead at Brampton, and of 
 the impressions he left behind him among the 
 Brampton folk who so honoured the "man of 
 the south," and so regretted that he should leave 
 them. 
 
 Henry Whitehead was appointed to the vicarage of Bramp- 
 ton in 1874. On April 12 of that year he preached his 
 first sermon in St. Martin's Church ; he preached his last 
 sermon there as vicar on June 8, 1884, having held the 
 living for just over ten years. 
 
 His predecessor had been suffering for some time from 
 bad health, and a curate appointed by the Bishop of Carlisle 
 was in sole charge of the parish. An energetic man, most 
 thoroughly in earnest in endeavouring to improve the public 
 services of the church, he unfortunately managed to rouse 
 the prejudices of a large number of the parishioners. 
 Quarrels and contentions of a most unseemly character took 
 place even in the church and during the hours of divine 
 worship. There is no doubt that the time had come for 
 radical changes in Brampton Church, to obtain which, how- 
 ever, much tact and discretion were needed ; but Mr. White- 
 head always acknowledged that much had been done by the 
 curate in charge in preparing the way for such changes, by 
 breaking up a good deal of rough ground. 
 
 He has often told the writer that no vicar could have 
 been appointed under more favourable circumstances than
 
 120 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 he was. The parishioners were ready to welcome any vicar 
 who would bring them peace and rest. And it is worthy of 
 notice that almost all the changes in ritual and the conduct 
 of the services of the Church, attempts to achieve which, 
 prior to his coming, had elicited such fierce opposition, were 
 finally brought about by him with scarcely a dissentient voice. 
 
 The following words, quoted from one of his sermons, 
 show the value which he attached to a free and open church, 
 and to his expectation from it : 
 
 " I do greatly rejoice, whatever may be my own future, at 
 the prospect of this church becoming in fact, and not merely 
 in name, your parish church. It is pleasant to see so many 
 persons here who, no matter whether rightly or wrongly, 
 once considered they had no part or lot in their parish 
 church, under a system of appropriation of seats to which 
 I am told, though it is difficult to believe it, that some even 
 now look back with regret. I am sure there can be but 
 few who entertain this feeling, and inat a great majority of 
 you are of quite the opposite opinion. In the hands of 
 that majority lies the future of this church." 
 
 He was loved and respected by all alike : churchman and 
 nonconformist reverenced a character which was all un- 
 selfishness; rich and poor found in him a ready friend who 
 was always full of sympathy and who never patronized. 
 
 Wherever he went he was welcomed, and some of his 
 most devoted friends may be found amongst the poorest in 
 Brampton. 
 
 To this period of his life belongs the development of his 
 interest in archaeological studies, which to those who have 
 only known him in the North are specially associated with him 
 in their remembrance. It is characteristic of him that lie was 
 drawn to these studies from the human side. 
 
 He began with a taste for parish registers. The quaint bits 
 of information of a general kind at times noted down in these 
 documents were sources to him of great delight, but they 
 fascinated him still more when he saw that, by comparison 
 of entries, and by following certain names along the pages,
 
 BRAMPTON 121 
 
 he could in a measure reconstruct the life of parishioners of 
 a couple of centuries ago. I remember his describing a con- 
 versation he had once with a well-known historical scholar 
 who was sceptical as to the practical use to the historian of 
 such purely local information as could be gleaned from parish 
 registers. In the course of it, by giving examples drawn from 
 his own study, Whitehead showed how it was possible to 
 advance from the particular to the general, from the parish 
 fact to the fact applying to a district, and so to build up 
 general inferences as to the social condition of the country at 
 large. He convinced his companion, who admitted that he 
 had not seen how these local facts, at the first glance acci- 
 dental and sporadic, could be made to yield so much material 
 to the social historian. 
 
 He will be known as the historian of Brampton. He was 
 wont to say that had he come five years later he could never 
 have written the story of Prince Charlie; as it was he found 
 old people whose fathers or grandfathers had told them in- 
 cidents of the rebellion of the '45, and these he carefully 
 classified. He would sit for hours patiently questioning 
 some old man in the hope of eliciting clearly one single fact. 
 
 In his " Walks round Brampton" he told the natives more 
 than they had ever known before of the origin of the names 
 of places in this parish. How he loved the old church, 
 which he was fond of saying existed before Lanercost Abbey, 
 because Osbertus (1169), the first known rector of Brampton 
 (persona de Brampton\ signed the consecration deed of the 
 Abbey. He was never tired of searching for relics of the 
 past. He had marked out the spot on which stood St. 
 Martin's Oak, traditionally believed to have been the tree 
 under which the gospel was first preached in the neighbour- 
 hood; Nine Wells, or St. Ninian's Well, commonly called 
 the Priest's Well. 1 
 
 Wells" is the traditional name of a fountain now covered 
 over and lost close to the old churchyard of Brampton. On this 
 Whitehead wrote as follows in a Historical Appendix to a paper by the 
 Rev. T. W. Norwood, on "The Old Chancel in Brampton Churchyard":
 
 122 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 "It is sometimes asked," he wrote, "why Brampton old 
 church was built so far from the town. It would be more 
 to the purpose to ask, though perhaps no conclusive answer 
 can be given, why the town was built so far from the church." 
 
 He adopted the conclusion arrived at by the late Robert 
 Bell of Irthington, that Thomas de Multon, Lord of Gilsland, 
 when he formed Brampton Park, enclosing therein both camp 
 and village, removed the inhabitants of that village to the 
 present town. 
 
 But one of his most remarkable achievements was the 
 picture which he drew of William Collinson, parish clerk of 
 Brampton, 1666-1695. "Mr. Collinson," he says, "though 
 not a ready writer, was able to write intelligently enough 
 when he had a good pen and took special pains ; but when 
 using a pen worn to the stump, which would seem to have 
 been the general condition of his pens, he could produce 
 hieroglyphics not easy to decipher." After giving illustrations 
 of Mr. Collinson's way of spelling, he sketched his character, 
 showing how in all probability he had come to the parish 
 with Mr. Fielding the then vicar, and ended by proving 
 how this seventeenth century parish clerk had saved the 
 
 "As Brougham Church, from time immemorial called 'Nine Kirks,' 
 derived its name from St. Ninian, ... it may be that we have 
 another memorial of the same Cumberland saint in this ' well or 
 fountain called Nine-Wells? in close proximity to the only Cumberland 
 church (Brampton Church), dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, with 
 whom St. Ninian stayed some time when returning from Rome " (and 
 to whom he dedicated the proto-church of the north at Whitherne in 
 Galloway). The concluding words of Whitehead's paper have a special 
 significance now that he has gone from us, leaving friends who would 
 delight to honour his wishes. "We learn," he writes, "that, for the 
 preservation of St. Ninian's Well at Brisco (near Carlisle), 'some forty 
 years ago, that good lady, Miss Sarah Losh of Woodside, took pious 
 care, protecting it by a characteristic arch, with an appropriate 
 inscription.' Let us hope that some one will arise to do the same 
 service for St. Ninian's Brampton well, and also ... to mark with 
 a cross the spot where once stood St. Martin's Oak at Brampton." 
 (H.W. in Transactions of Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian 
 and Arcktological Society, Volume X., p. 175.)
 
 BRAMPTON 123 
 
 register from being totally neglected. One of his audience, 
 after hearing this lecture delivered in Carlisle, was heard to 
 say, "Well, I never thought such a very old subject could 
 have been made so interesting. Why you could almost see 
 that clerk." 
 
 Three of the sermons he preached at Brampton had far- 
 reaching effects : they were on " Free and Open Churches," 
 "The Weekly Offertory," and "Funeral Reform." 
 
 This last sermon, preached again by request some years 
 later in Lanercost Abbey, struck a blow at the old fashioned 
 customs with regard to burials in the North. He would 
 often tell the story of the proceedings at an old fashioned 
 funeral of a much respected inhabitant. His description of 
 the two hours and more which preceded the "lifting" was 
 most graphic. The churchwarden pipes, the drinks, the 
 "baked meats" and "funeral bread," the endless stories told 
 by those who had come to "honour" the deceased, were 
 fully depicted by him as he paced up and down the room. 
 
 "The Brampton hearse," he said in his sermon of 1875, "is 
 certainly one of the worst I ever saw, but I have no wish to 
 see it replaced by anything more pretentious of the kind now 
 generally used. The first funeral at which I read the burial 
 service was that of an old Arctic navigator (Admiral Sir John 
 Ross), whose coffin, covered by the Union Jack, was drawn 
 upon an open car, and I have ever since wished that every 
 coffin was borne upon an open car, and covered by something 
 less dismal than the traditional black and white pall." 
 
 He urged his hearers to invite all friends, excepting relatives, 
 to attend at the church and not at the house, and in no qualified 
 tones condemned the use of intoxicating drinks at funerals. 
 
 "Excess in the use of intoxicating drinks at funerals is, so 
 far as I am aware, exceptional in this parish. Let us hope 
 that a time may come when it shall be as exceptional upon 
 other occasions; for that there is a great deal more use of 
 intoxicating drink here than there need be, or ought to be, 
 will not be denied by any one who really knows the town. 
 To no purpose shall any one who indulges in excess of this
 
 124 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 kind allege that he does not get drunk at a funeral. No doubt 
 if he were to do so every one would say that he had acted dis- 
 gracefully. Let them; think the same and say the same, of 
 any one who gets drunk upon any occasion whatever. The 
 great need in this town is that public opinion should, far more 
 emphatically than it now does, condemn such excess, no matter 
 when, where, or by whom committed." 
 
 An ardent Liberal all his life he yet never actively took any 
 side in party politics. Only on one occasion during the ten 
 years he was vicar of Brampton did he appear on a political 
 platform. This was on the occasion of the extension of the 
 franchise. He firmly held the opinion that no parish priest 
 should take an active part in party warfare ; and he was right. 
 
 He was always fond of boys and young men, 
 and kept his heart young by constant association 
 with them. Never a rich man, he was generous 
 beyond his means. He borrowed money to buy 
 some premises which he used as a Boys' Club, 
 which for some years was carried on very success- 
 fully, though, not without much and incessant 
 work on the part of himself and his wife. 
 
 Night after night, 100 nights and more on end, 
 with unfailing regularity they went down in all 
 weathers to the Town Foot (from 7 to 9 P.M.) in 
 the early years of the club's existence, and latterly 
 from 7 to 10 P.M., to superintend matters, and to 
 sustain by their presence the committee of 
 lads (elected by their fellows), helping to keep 
 order, and making themselves largely respon- 
 sible for the good conduct of the club. Chess, 
 draughts, dominoes, and games with history and 
 geography cards, were the chief means of amuse-
 
 BRAMPTON 125 
 
 ment, and towards the close of the ' season' chess 
 and draughts ' tournaments ' were got up, and 
 created keen interest, not only between the com- 
 petitors, but amongst all the club members. 
 There was a free-hand drawing class also, taught 
 by a lady, which was very popular, and a glee 
 class, superintended by another, on practice 
 nights was always full. Out of this glee class 
 sprang the idea of the first Boys' Club concert, 
 for which the members practised with a will 
 through the latter part of the season, and with 
 the kind help of friends it proved such a success 
 that it was decided to make it an annual affair. 
 In one of the rooms he founded a lending library, 
 begging books from his friends, and stripping his 
 own shelves and his children's so that the under- 
 taking might start well. In another room there 
 met together many of the young men of the town 
 for a debating society, of which he was the life 
 and soul. The chief aim of the promoters of 
 the club was to teach the lads how to spend 
 their recreation time rationally, and it certainly 
 answered its purpose. There was no pretence of 
 schooling, and no need for it. They had been to 
 school in the day-time, but they learnt many a 
 valuable lesson in the club which has been of 
 service to them as citizens in after life. They 
 carried the spirit of it with them into other places, 
 as they grew up and scattered in the world, and 
 in some instances set to work trying to help 
 others even as they had been helped.
 
 126 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 These 'old boys' of his have now long since 
 reached manhood, but they have never forgotten 
 the happy days spent at the old club. 
 
 Among the many pleasant memories of Bramp- 
 ton days, none was a source of greater satisfaction 
 to him to look back upon than the work of this 
 club. One of the old boys writing to Mrs. 
 Whitehead after the vicar's death, says : "I feel I 
 have lost the truest friend that man could have on 
 this earth. Many times when enjoying a few 
 minutes' rest, we have often talked of you and 
 him, and I have recalled all the little episodes 
 connected with the foundation and carrying on of 
 the old ' Boys' Club' in the days that are gone. 
 Those were indeed pleasant times : seed was 
 then sown that will grow and bring forth fruit 
 until the end." " It was the turning point in my 
 life," said one, recalling old days long after he 
 had left the town. "It was the saving of me," 
 said another. " I can never be grateful enough 
 for those old club days." Such are some of the 
 many witnesses to the happy influences of the old 
 Boys' Club. 
 
 Wherever Whitehead's lot had been cast 
 during his London career, he had invariably 
 been on the most cordial terms with the ' Friendly 
 Societies,' and they always showed how they 
 valued his good-will and his interest in their 
 welfare by electing him an honorary member of 
 their various lodges. They welcomed his good 
 fellowship, and gladly listened to his wise coun-
 
 BRAMPTON 127 
 
 sels, notwithstanding he spoke many a home 
 truth to them, and not unfrequently showed them 
 wherein lay the weak points in their system, with 
 a view to securing their greater efficiency and 
 stability. 
 
 The Brampton Oddfellows were no exception 
 to this rule, and lost no time in inviting the new 
 vicar to take the chair at their annual lodge 
 dinner, which according to custom was held in 
 their special lodge room, at the White Lion. 
 They had much cause to rejoice that he con- 
 sented, and that he continued to do so, by 
 request, in succeeding years. Once the vicar of 
 a neighbouring parish took occasion to remon- 
 strate with him on the position. 
 
 " My dear fellow, in a public-house ! Only 
 think of it ; if you were to urge them now to meet 
 somewhere else." 
 
 But he declined to make himself a judge over 
 them. Indirectly however, his influence made 
 itself felt, and one of their oldest members, 
 writing to-day in reference to this, says : 
 
 It is a fact that during the years that Mr. Whitehead was 
 chairman, the annual lodge dinner was raised from a mere 
 convivial gathering to an intellectual meeting that members 
 looked forward to with great pleasure ; and not only was it in 
 Brampton that the Oddfellows appreciated his services, but he 
 often was invited and went to Bolton Fell, and once crossed 
 the border to a meeting of the Langholm Lodge. 
 
 That the societies did keenly appreciate the 
 quiet genial influence of the man from the south
 
 128 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 who had come among them was shown by the 
 following story, which in his quaint way he 
 would tell against himself: 
 
 On one occasion after a special service for the 
 members of the friendly societies, at which all in 
 the town had been present, it was arranged by 
 some of their chief officials (unknown to him of 
 course), that the men should line the route from 
 the vestry to his house, and he found himself 
 obliged, much to his consternation, on quitting the 
 church, to pass through two ranks of closely 
 linked admiring friends. To such an unassuming 
 man, with a strong aversion to being the hero of 
 any public function in his own honour, such a 
 procession was not a little embarrassing, and he 
 used to say in recounting the story, " I passed 
 through as quickly as I could with eyes fixed on 
 the ground, for I never felt so ashamed in my 
 life"; others, however, were proud spectators of 
 the honour done to him. 
 
 As with most classes of men, so even with 
 tramps, he did not fail to establish some human 
 relations. His method of dealing with them was 
 most peculiar ; he always gave the ordinary 
 tramp a penny, and he added he never had any 
 trouble in getting rid of one. On one occasion 
 the writer was walking with him through Bramp- 
 ton when a tramp was seen approaching. " I 
 must get my penny ready," said Mr. Whitehead. 
 The tramp stopped and began, " Will you kindly 
 help a poor man on the road. I have been look-
 
 BRAMPTON 129 
 
 ing for work and cannot find any." "Ah, my 
 good man," was the reply, "you have spoiled 
 it all. You know you are not looking for work, 
 and you don't want any," and he passed on. 
 
 With the gemiine tramps he had much sym- 
 pathy. He would say that in their small way 
 they were types of the world's great travellers. 
 The same restlessness that they showed in their 
 aimless wanderings, when properly directed, de- 
 veloped the explorer and discoverer. He used to 
 tell a story of one man whom he found, after 
 some little conversation, to be a 'man of Kent' 
 like himself, and who about once in two years 
 traversed England from Kent to Cumberland and 
 back on foot. Of course he always received 
 hospitality and something more, for a certain 
 clannish feeling obtains in southern as well as 
 northern counties. "He seemed a good sort of 
 fellow," he would say, " possessed by a restless 
 desire to wander. Want of means and oppor- 
 tunity had perhaps prevented him becoming a 
 second Speke." That man had a real respect for 
 him. I have known him occasionally sit down on 
 a heap of stones to talk to a tramp, and smoke a 
 pipe with him, of course sharing his tobacco with 
 the wayfarer, and " I well remember," says his 
 wife, " how pleased he was on one occasion, when 
 I told him I had given a lame tramp a lift 
 into Brampton from Lanercost in the pony 
 carriage."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 NEWLANDS, NEWTON REIGNY, AND LANERCOST 
 
 WHITEHEAD left Brampton, but Brampton never 
 forgot him ; and when twelve years after, his 
 body was borne, almost as it would seem in 
 triumph, to his burial in the old churchyard of 
 St. Martin's overlooking the Border river, the 
 people lined the way from fully half a mile out- 
 side the town to the church, and spoke of him 
 and wept for him as though he were still their 
 vicar. 
 
 After leaving Brampton he went to Keswick. 
 The little dale chapelry of Newlands was just 
 then vacant, and in the gift of his friend, the 
 Vicar of Crosthwaite, and he cheerfully under- 
 took the work there, though, with the consent 
 of the Bishop, he resided chiefly in Keswick, as 
 the vicarage was not habitable in the winter. 
 
 The little vicarage was greatly dilapidated. 
 In stormy weather it was necessary to sleep 
 under umbrellas, and the wind would fairly blow 
 the coals out of the grate of the sitting-room. 
 It was felt that it would be wiser to build a
 
 NEWLANDS, NEWTON REIGNY 131 
 
 new vicarage in a more sheltered and convenient 
 spot than to spend money on repairing the old 
 one. Keswick and Newlands were glad to have 
 him on any terms. 
 
 And he was happy in his year's work. A 
 vicarage needed to be built, and the church 
 wanted re-seating, warming, and repairing. Its 
 floor was of stone, worn into hollows in many 
 places by the feet of succeeding generations of 
 sturdy dalesmen, and in wet weather the water 
 stood in these hollows. The churchyard needed 
 draining. " I will attend to the vicarage when 
 I am no longer vicar, and have no direct interest 
 in the job," he said, " but this latter piece of work 
 shall be set about at once." 
 
 It was set about, and under the care of Mr. 
 William Marshall l the church was restored with 
 consummate care and taste, the old axed seats 
 of Elizabeth's time being retained, all woodwork 
 that was used being of oak, stained to correspond 
 in colouring with the old oak pew-doors and 
 backs which were used to panel the walls. 
 
 He won all hearts in Newlands by a very 
 simple process. It was soon discovered that he 
 was fond of whist. The dalesmen in Newlands 
 had been famed , for generations at this game. 
 A story was current of how at one farm-house 
 in the good old days when each farm entertained 
 the dale in turn at Christmas, the people sat 
 down to play on Christmas Eve, and when they 
 
 1 Son of Mr. Marshall of the Island, Derwentwater.
 
 1 32 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 rose found the flood had made it out of the 
 question for any one to leave the house. So the 
 players sat down and played all through that 
 night until the morn; supped 'poddish' and went 
 at it again, and took dinner and persevered till 
 supper, and then played on all through the next 
 night till the storm abated, and the whist players 
 were able to return to their own homes. 
 
 Whitehead enjoyed hearing of this record 
 game, and taking a hand with the descendant 
 of one of the famous players, he found himself 
 taken by the hand also. To this day the name 
 of Whitehead is held very dear in Newlands, 
 and they speak of him not only as a restorer of 
 their dale chapel and builder of their vicarage, 
 but as "sec a hand at 'whisk' as nivver was." 
 
 They do not know how much of their sterling 
 worth and character he learned in the pauses of 
 the game, which was for him a pleasant remem- 
 brance. 
 
 There were four things that Whitehead used 
 to say made that year of his Newlands incum- 
 bency a very interesting year to him. 
 
 The first was the opportunity afforded him of 
 studying the ways and customs of the dale folk, 
 not only at their ' whisk ' parties, but in the 
 committee meetings about the church restor- 
 ation, and in their daily life. He found much to 
 interest him amongst them, and greatly endeared 
 himself to them. Indeed it is recorded of the 
 "king of the dale," a sterling character that
 
 NEWLANDS, NEWTON REIGNY 133 
 
 he " was not ashamed to say that * he wept ' 
 when he knew he ' should see his face no 
 more.' ' The second was that he was living 
 within hail of the local printer ; the third, that 
 there was a flourishing literary society in the 
 town, which gave him something to prepare by 
 way of lectures ; while the fourth was, that the 
 ancient Parish Church of Crosthwaite had a peal 
 of bells and some very ancient registers. He 
 was always close friends with newspaper editors 
 and with printers, with whom he would indulge 
 in much dissertation upon unnecessary commas 
 and other printer's embellishments, while as for 
 the literary and scientific meetings, they certainly 
 gained by his sojourn at Keswick. Wherever 
 he went, Whitehead solemnly propounded the 
 doctrine that it was the duty of every man who 
 loved his country not to neglect so great an 
 opportunity of proving his patriotism as was 
 afforded by attendance upon lecture nights of 
 the local literary and scientific societies. 
 
 He left Newlands for Newton Reigny in 1885. 
 Here too his lot was cast among a set of 
 farming men whose hearts he won, and whose 
 ways he loved to study. Chosen to preside at 
 village meetings, he entered into the life of the 
 community, and many an amusing incident of 
 village politics and the way of settling village 
 disputes did he relate to his friends. 
 
 From Newton Reigny he carried out his de- 
 termination to benefit Newlands by building a
 
 134 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 vicarage there. " I can now beg," he said, "and 
 not be ashamed " ; and beg he did. Most of the 
 neighbourhood who had come to look upon him 
 as a lovable friend during his short sojourn in the 
 Keswick Vale gave liberally. The only time the 
 writer ever saw him angered and flame out upon 
 a human being was at the one act of meanness 
 that marred the general liberality. " I told him 
 to his face," he said, " when he made his beggarly 
 excuse for not doing his duty in the matter of 
 giving, that it was no concern of mine whether 
 he gave or refused to give, but that ' the liberal 
 man deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things 
 shall he stand,' and I would leave him to think 
 about it." 
 
 It was an instance among a thousand of the 
 courage of his convictions of this generous, peace- 
 able, and peace-loving man. The one thing he 
 could not stand was meanness in money matters, 
 or ungenerous conduct in the affairs of life. 
 Among his papers was found a little note on 
 the text from Isaiah xxxii. 8, Authorized Version, 
 which runs as follows: "The liberal deviseth 
 liberal things, and by liberal things shall he 
 stand." 
 
 But the Revised Version runs thus : " the liberal deviseth 
 liberal things, and in liberal things shall he continue." The 
 latter part of the text, as given in the Authorized Version, 
 is relegated by the Revisers to the margin as an alternative 
 reading. 
 
 In verse 5 the Revised Version follows the Authorized
 
 NEWLANDS, NEWTON REIGNY 135 
 
 Version, but in the margin gives "noble" as an alternative 
 reading to "liberal." 
 
 As I am not acquainted with Hebrew, I can pronounce no 
 opinion as to whether "liberal" or "noble" is the more 
 literal translation. But I take it that the Revisers preferred 
 "liberal," and have only added the marginal reading "noble" 
 in order to guard against "liberal" being understood in a 
 restrictive sense as open-handed in money matters. From 
 this restricted meaning the word has been rescued by its 
 adoption as the designation of a political party, the aims 
 of which in the main are excellent, and indeed may be 
 said to deserve the epithet 'noble.' All the same, the 
 text might serve for a scathing sermon upon persons calling 
 themselves ' liberal,' who seem quite unable as individuals 
 to ' devise liberal things,' who take their political opinions 
 second-hand, but when left to themselves to devise a course 
 of conduct, go altogether astray ; whilst on the other hand, 
 many an old-fashioned Tory, who also has his bundle of 
 second-hand political opinions, many of them unsound, yet 
 shows himself quite capable of truly liberal conduct as an 
 individual ; in short, instinctively ' devises liberal things,' and 
 acts accordingly. 
 
 For these reasons the Revisers are much to be commended 
 for retaining the word l liberal ' in the text. 
 
 At Newton Reigny he was happy in the 
 existence of interesting parish registers, and 
 his well-known love of literary and scientific 
 societies was taken full advantage of by his 
 friends at Penrith, for he became the president 
 of the society, and was unanimously elected 
 president three years in succession, driving or 
 walking in to all committee meetings and lectures, 
 no matter what the weather might be. 
 
 Here too at Penrith scope was found for his
 
 136 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 delight in objects of interest to illustrate the art 
 or customs of the country, and he took great 
 pains to encourage the people of the neighbour- 
 hood to send quaint and ancient things to the 
 loan part of the Industrial Exhibition held there 
 in 1888, himself describing and cataloguing all 
 the old silver, both ecclesiastical and secular. 
 
 It was at the opening of that exhibition that 
 Chancellor Ferguson told the audience the story 
 of how the Brampton Industrial and Art Exhi- 
 bition had first set the example, how Wigton 
 had followed suit, while the Wigton one had 
 started Mr. Whitehead and himself on a hunt 
 after all the old church plate in the diocese, 
 which had ended in a book, famous in its way, 
 because most of the dioceses of England and 
 Scotland were following the lead thus given 
 them, and this had all arisen out of the early 
 exhibition held at Brampton in Cumberland in 
 1880. 
 
 He did not, however, forget home requirements 
 in his work elsewhere. During his tenure of 
 office at Newton Reigny, the vicarage was en- 
 larged and improved. 
 
 In 1890 the important living of Morpeth in 
 Northumberland became vacant, and the Earl of 
 Carlisle offered it to Whitehead. For reasons 
 which seemed conclusive to his mind, he firmly 
 declined to go. " Morpeth may be a wealthy 
 living, but it needs a younger man," he said ; 
 and also he felt strongly that it would be hard
 
 LANERCOST 137 
 
 on the people, after having had two generations 
 of high Anglican teaching, to be saddled with 
 a Broad churchman as rector. 1 
 
 Through the acceptancy of the living by the 
 then vicar of Lanercost, Lanercost became 
 vacant. Lord and Lady Carlisle, with whom, 
 from the first day he came to Cumberland, White- 
 head had maintained unbroken the bond of deep 
 personal regard, offered Lanercost at once to 
 their old friend, and back to his old Border 
 associations and Border parson's life went White- 
 head, not without fear, he once said, that he 
 should not be able to shepherd so widely scattered 
 a parish, but with a kind of belief that there was 
 " more work to be done in any parish than only 
 holding Sunday and week-day services," and that 
 he " might be able, if spared, to be a friend to 
 somebody, and perhaps even do justice to some 
 forgotten worthy in the parish register." 
 
 The parish of Lanercost stretches itself nine 
 miles across, and the Priory and Abbey are 
 situated in the south-west corner of it : this adds 
 greatly to the difficulty of working the parish, 
 apropos of the size of which a story is on record 
 of the late Lord Sherbrooke. 2 While staying at 
 Naworth Castle early in the seventies he was 
 taken out in a dog-cart one day, and after driving 
 some miles in a very hilly district, finding him- 
 
 1 The previous rector, Hon. and Rev. Canon F. R. Grey, had held the 
 living for close upon fifty years. 
 
 2 Then Robert Lowe.
 
 138 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 self on the border of a desolate tract of country, 
 inquired what this was called, and received for 
 answer, " This is Spadeadam Waste Lanercost 
 parish comes up here." " Well," was his reply, 
 " Lanercost parish may come up here if it likes, 
 but if I were the Lanercost vicar I'd be hanged 
 if / ever came up here." 
 
 It was not great preferment for a man who 
 had so loyally served the Church as Whitehead 
 had done. Newlands had provided him with 
 ^105 a year and no home. Newton Reigny had 
 granted him an advance of ^"70 on that stipend 
 and a house, and Lanercost, with church and a 
 chapelry to work always, 1 besides a mission room 
 and farmhouse services, could only afford him 
 ,215 a year. But there was that about Laner- 
 cost which was dearer to him than gold and 
 silver : it had a history. 
 
 Any one who will drop down the deep-hewn 
 lane beyond the Naworth towers, pause at the 
 beautiful bridge beyond the mill, and pass on 
 under the old archway through the pleasant 
 meadow to the Priory gate, will realize how a 
 man who was a poet and an historian at heart 
 would delight in the chance of peopling that en- 
 chanted valley with the life of olden time. 
 
 Since the day when Bishop Christian of 
 Whitherne consecrated the Abbey of the Austin 
 
 1 There were always three services on Sunday, sometimes four, and he 
 had to provide lay-readers for one or other of the out-lying missions in 
 turn.
 
 LANERCOST 
 
 139 
 
 Canons, or when Robert de Vallibus for the 
 good of his father's soul dedicated the ' lawns ' 
 of Lanercost between the Picts' Wall and the 
 river Irthing "to God, the blessed Mary Magda- 
 lene, and the Prior of Lanercost, and the 'canons 
 regular' there serving God," no gladder heart 
 had entered through the gateway of the Abbey 
 grounds and taken up his abode beneath the 
 shadow of the Abbey pile. 
 
 He could feel that hereabout till late in the early 
 part of the Christian era men had worshipped 
 Baal and Mithra, Belatucader and Concidius, 
 while high up in the clerestory window-jamb of 
 the Abbey was still to be seen, built in, an altar 
 to Jupiter 1 to whom the Roman soldiers at the 
 wall brought offering. 
 
 The symbol of the cross that had conquered 
 Mars and Jupiter had been set up on the Abbey 
 Green, and the broken shaft of it with a notable 
 inscription was preserved in the Priory Church. 
 This inscription runs as follows : 
 
 ANNO AB INCARNATIONE MCCXIIII ET vn ANNO INTERDICT: 
 
 OPTINENTE SEDEM APLICAM INNOCENT III, IMPERANTE IN 
 
 ALLEMANIA OTHON, REGNANTE IN FRANC PHILIPPO, IOHE IN 
 
 ANGLIA, WILLMO IN SCOTIA, FACTA H. CRUX. 
 
 which may be thus translated : 
 
 "In the year from the Incarnation 1214, and the seventh year of 
 the Interdict, Innocent III. then holding the Apostolic Chair, Otho 
 being Emperor in Germany, Philip reigning in France, John in England, 
 William in Scotland, this Cross was made." 
 
 1 This stone was brought, like many others, from the Roman Wall 
 when the Priory was building ; it was evidently from the station or camp 
 at Birdoswald (Amboglannea). See Guide to Lanercost Priory, by H. W.
 
 i 4 o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 As the interdict is said to have lasted six years 
 three months and fourteen days it was possibly 
 in prospect of its termination, or to celebrate the 
 raisine of it, that this cross was erected. 1 
 
 o 
 
 He himself entered into possession of the 
 Priory by the wish of a descendant of that Lord 
 William Howard of the Border, to whom, when 
 the de Vallibus and de Multons and Morvilles 
 and Dacres had passed away, the inheritance of 
 the Abbey lands had fallen. 
 
 Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to do 
 what he could to recover the history and care 
 for the fragments of the tombs of the knightly 
 benefactors. I doubt if Hugh, Lord Dacre, 
 Warden of the Marches in the reign of Richard 
 II., or the great Baron of Gilsland and Grey- 
 stoke who commanded at Flodden Field, ever 
 had a more tender friend than Henry Whitehead. 
 I am sure Sir Christopher Dacre never had more 
 congenial spirit-guest in the great banqueting hall 
 or more hospitable fellow-entertainer in his vast 
 store-rooms than this genial vicar, who came into 
 possession of the Priory buildings and the man- 
 sion called 'Uttergate' in 1890. 
 
 It was an endless delight to his friends who 
 visited Whitehead there to hear the annals of 
 Lanercost rehearsed. Visit of bishop for con- 
 secration, or of king and queen on hunting bent, 
 as were Edward I. and Eleanor in 1280; or rape 
 
 1 Professor Clark, in Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland 
 ArchfEological Society, Vol. IX., p. 196.
 
 LANERCOST 141 
 
 of the place by the Earl of Buchan and his 4000 
 men in 1296, and by William Wallace in the year 
 following; or sojourn of Edward the king in the 
 Priory, when as a dying man he came to lead 
 his army against the Bruce in 1 306 ; or harrying 
 of the Abbey by the revengeful Bruce in 1311, 
 or heartless sack and desecration by David, King 
 of the Scots, in 1340, with subsequent decadence 
 to poverty, dilapidation, and ruin, till Henry 
 VIII. in the thirty-fourth year of his reign swept 
 monastic life away for ever, all this was on 
 record, but it wanted a man of Whitehead's mind 
 and delicate archaeological intuition to make it 
 live ; and great was the humour of his tale as he 
 passed the times in review, here told of the last 
 batch of slaves given to the Abbey with Mr. 
 Jeffrey Pitch at their head, or there of the round 
 rebuke to the new Prior, come from Hexham, 
 Hextoldesham by name, for keeping so large a 
 pack of hounds to the dishonour of God and 
 disregard of the pastoral work that had been laid 
 upon him. 
 
 How carefully he worked to upbuild the past 
 and make the present realise what old days at 
 Lanercost had been may be gathered from the 
 Guide book to Monuments in the choir and 
 transept of the Abbey buildings which he com- 
 piled, with the help of his friend, Professor 
 Baldwin Brown ; it is full of his own sincerity 
 of research and accuracy of records* 
 
 Every month the pages of his parish Magazine,
 
 I 4 2 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 devoted to parochial news, contained some notes 
 of antiquarian research and interest concerning 
 the local history of the parish old customs and 
 traditions long forgotten were chronicled the 
 vicissitudes of some Border stronghold or fortified 
 farmhouse depicted the derivation or pedigree 
 of some local name traced out or a date and 
 initials carved on a farmhouse lintel, would, hand 
 in hand with the parish register, provide a clue 
 with which he would re-people a dwelling with 
 the forefathers of the hamlet of perhaps two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 Much of his spare time during his incumbency 
 was devoted to the encouragement of his fellow 
 clergy in the diocese to look up their parish 
 registers, and if need be to have transcripts 
 made of them and get them repaired and re- 
 bound. He had succeeded in getting this done 
 at Newton Reigny and Lanercost, where he had 
 found them greatly dilapidated by age and damp, 
 while he copied out from the transcripts at Car- 
 lisle the missing entries of the old Brampton 
 register and entered them in the old register 
 there. He urged that if of interest these records 
 should be printed. It was not till 1893 that he 
 saw the fruit of his labours, and from time to 
 time till his death he wrote reviews of them for 
 the Carlisle Patriot and Penrith Observer. His 
 careful work in matters of proof reading was 
 proverbial. Mr. Burgess, editor of the Patriot, 
 writes :
 
 LANERCOST 143 
 
 His minute and careful accuracy was always notable. The 
 way he re-investigated and reconsidered his conclusions, re- 
 cast his sentences, and re-arranged his punctuation, excited 
 the envy of newspaper men who have to get their hour's 
 work despatched within the hour and put away. Mr. White- 
 head was particular to a comma and a capital, about both 
 of which he had definite theories of his own. 
 
 Local antiquarian matter did not absorb his 
 whole spare time. Every year it was his pleasure 
 to devote considerable energy to proof-reading of 
 the preface of what he used to describe as the 
 most interesting book of biography that was pub- 
 lished annually in the English tongue, Crockford's 
 Clerical Directory. " I mean it," he would say, 
 shaking his head with a look of defiance at the 
 doubting expression on some friend's face ; and 
 then he would open it, and under some entry, read 
 out slowly name, degree, dates of appointment, 
 sources of income, works written, etc., and there- 
 from very graphically describe the fortunate or 
 unfortunate incumbent, sketching his character, 
 indicating his views, his ambitions, his disap- 
 pointments, his success in life, and his probable 
 end. 
 
 Whitehead and the editor of " Crockford " had 
 for many years been fast friends. The editor had 
 recognized Whitehead's genius for such work, and 
 as he tells us in his obituary notice of his friend 
 in "Crockford" for 1896, he received from him 
 valuable help from year to year in the compilation 
 of the preface. He speaks in this notice of the 
 loss the Church had sustained, during the pre-
 
 144 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 ceding year, by the death of two distinguished 
 clergymen of very different gifts and views 
 George Anthony Denison and Henry Whitehead 
 and continues thus : 
 
 It would be ungrateful not to acknowledge the interest he 
 felt in this work, and his valuable contributions to its annual 
 preface. I cannot help referring especially to one such pas- 
 sage, but a few years ago, in which he gave a most telling 
 account of the success with which one of our oldest and most 
 valued bishops discovered every step in one of the most daring 
 and, for the time, successful impostures ever perpetrated in the 
 Church of England, in the tenure of an important and well- 
 endowed benefice, for about six years, by a layman, by means 
 of forged letters of orders, resulting in the conviction of the 
 offender, followed by an unusually severe sentence. 
 
 Two such men as Archdeacon Denison and Henry White- 
 head can ill be spared, but it may still be said with 
 thankfulness 
 
 uno avulso non deficit alter 
 Aureus. 
 
 In 1894 he lost one of his greatest friends in 
 the North of England, the Rev. J. Healy, vicar 
 of Studley. They were former colleagues in 
 Ragged School work, and sharers of many 
 pleasant memories and Whitehead always much 
 enjoyed a meeting with his old companion of 
 early London days, when in his characteristic 
 way he would pace the room as he talked, or 
 pause in the midst of long puffs at his church- 
 warden pipe to recall some long-forgotten anec- 
 dote. 
 
 He went over to Studley to preach the funeral 
 sermon, and those of his friends who read the
 
 LANERCOST 145 
 
 printed report of it might well apply the graphic 
 portraiture to himself, as they knew him. Begin- 
 ning the sermon he read the psalmist's description 
 of "the man who should rest upon God's holy 
 hill," and St. Paul's account of the 'more excellent 
 gift ' of charity, and said that 
 
 When reading such passages of scripture one could scarcely 
 help thinking of actual persons whose characters one might 
 think fitted the description. And he was quite sure that the 
 parishioners of Studley would not think he was merely speak- 
 ing with the partiality of an old friend, or with any kind of 
 exaggeration arising from feelings deeply stirred by his death, 
 if he said that among those whom he had known whose 
 character in a considerable degree answered to that descrip- 
 tion, he assigned a prominent place to his very dear friend, 
 and their very dear friend and late vicar, whom they laid in his 
 grave so recently in their old churchyard. The parishioners 
 had known him thirty-one years, and what manner of man he 
 was here there was no need for him to tell them. He (the 
 preacher) had known him, not only before he came to Studley, 
 but also before he took Holy Orders, and looking back to the 
 whole of his career he regarded him as one of the most 
 interesting and lovable men who had ever come well under 
 his close observation. His first acquaintance with him was 
 when they taught together in a ragged school in one of the 
 worst parts of London, and his calm, gentle manner with the 
 rough lads in that school had scarcely prepared him to find, 
 as afterwards in closer intimacy he did find, that beneath 
 that calm outward manner there was a keen and active intel- 
 lect, and a heart full of enthusiasm. Yet over all was a subtle 
 moderating influence, the secret of which lay in what a local 
 newspaper had called " that rare and simple humility which 
 commands the highest reverence." One of his characteristics 
 was his deep spiritual insight, which pervaded every sermon 
 he preached. Yet he was not what was called a popular 
 
 K
 
 I 4 6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 preacher. In this respect he resembled a few other preachers, 
 whose names were better known than his, who, though in- 
 directly they largely influenced the current of religious thought 
 in England, never drew large congregations. 
 
 He concluded by reading a very striking pas- 
 sage from one of Mr. Healy's sermons on the 
 text, " The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
 death." 
 
 The friends were not long parted. After little 
 more than eighteen months, on March 5, 1896, 
 the anniversary of his mother's birthday, while 
 Whitehead, now in his 7ist year, seemingly 
 hale and well, his natural force unabated and 
 his eye undimmed, was about his usual parish 
 business and taking all his old keen interest 
 in local antiquarianism, a messenger came who 
 would not be denied. 
 
 He had been out that morning, but was 
 sitting quietly in his study when he complained 
 of a slight pain across his chest. It was not 
 at all acute, and from his description it seemed 
 to be rheumatic pain. He made light of it, 
 and laughingly said if he were laid up with 
 rheumatism what would become of the parish, 
 alluding to the difficulty of getting help with 
 the services. Two visitors from the Deanery, 
 Carlisle, called that morning to see over the 
 Abbey, and he at once got up to receive them 
 and show them through it, as he was fond of 
 doing with any one who seemed really interested 
 in the grand old building; but his youngest
 
 LANERCOST 147 
 
 daughter pleaded that, as it would be chilly in 
 the ruins, he should remain by his own study 
 fire, and let her go and act as his substitute. 
 He yielded, and cheerily bade the visitors good- 
 bye. Before they had completed their round 
 he was dead in his armchair in the study he loved 
 so well. Dead after a momentary attack of pain 
 and breathlessness, with one great moan, his brave 
 heart failing him ; and this so suddenly that 
 his wife and elder daughter, who were in the 
 room with him, scarce knew the exact moment of 
 his passing away. 
 
 Suddenly and swiftly he passed from the 
 happy lawns of Lanercost, to that happier valley 
 beside pure waters, where there is no need of 
 Abbey nor altar-stone, nor of sun to shine with 
 gladness, nor of moon to give it peace, " for the 
 Lord God is in the midst of it, and the Lamb is 
 the light thereof." So passed over into the 
 ' Great Beyond ' one of the largest-hearted and 
 most lovable of men the diocese of Carlisle has 
 known for many a long year. 
 
 On Tuesday, March 10, through the greyness 
 of a cool March day, there came up the steep, 
 hollow woodland way, from the Lanercost valley, 
 a very simple open wain, whereon was laid a plain 
 oak coffin, covered with a purple and white pall, 
 and heaped with flowers. The coffin had been 
 first taken into the Abbey, where a short service 
 was held (taken from the prayer book of Edward 
 the Sixth), and the Nunc Dimittis sung. Like
 
 148 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 father, like son ; both should go to their long rest 
 without the almost pagan trappings of costly 
 funeral pomp and woe, against which each had 
 protested all their lives through. The sermon 
 in behalf of funeral reform that had been preached 
 in Brampton Church years before, and recently, 
 in the stately old Abbey, was preached again with 
 emphasis, but this time with the eloquence of 
 silence and of death. 
 
 The great horse that drew the burden seemed 
 almost to know the sorrow that he bore ; solemnly 
 and proudly he moved up and along the steep hill 
 of ' Boothby Banks,' and gained the silent road. 
 Crowds of people waited for the ' coming home ' 
 of their beloved vicar of old time ; few words 
 were spoken, but from the cross- ways at * the 
 Sands,' willing hands took up the coffin and bore 
 it shoulder-high into the town, the choristers sing- 
 ing, and the people joining as well as sad hearts 
 could; thence to the crowded church the long- 
 procession passed, to the solemn strains of the 
 grand old hymn, " O God, our help in ages 
 past" 
 
 It was more of a triumphal way than a way of 
 grief they went that day. They could not think 
 of Henry Whitehead as dead. They only knew 
 that one of the kindliest and most faithful and 
 tender of human friends had gone home, and that 
 they wished to speed him to his honoured resting. 
 The service too in that Brampton Church, solemn 
 as it was, seemed full of song and quiet praise.
 
 LANERCOST 149 
 
 The hymns were hymns of gladness, and the 
 beautiful stained windows flashed their joyous 
 colours upon the sombre congregation almost 
 with reproach. For Henry Whitehead had 
 served his time, and " fallen on sleep," and 
 none could grudge him the fuller joy that 
 saints, made perfect by their patience here, 
 win there. None could wish a moment to 
 withhold from him that crown of rejoicing that 
 is laid up for the faithful shepherd of the 
 humble heart That was no imaginary picture 
 that was drawn in sonnet-form by one of those 
 who mourned : 
 
 We bore him sadly from the Abbey ground, 
 
 The Irthing moaned, the Naworth woodland sighed, 
 A nobler-hearted shepherd ne'er had died, 
 
 With knowledge of his flock so wise and sound ; 
 
 Up the long slope, beyond the rampart-mound 
 
 The Roman made, the great horse, in his pride 
 Moved slow, arid old men sobbed, and women cried 
 
 But he fared on in his triumphal swound. 
 
 Then, to the chanting of a multitude, 
 We entered his familiar house of prayer, 
 
 Where the rich windows glowed with joyous light, 
 And gleaming saints and angels did unite 
 To say, " Weep not ! for he is loosed from care ! " 
 While blazoned high the " Eternal Shepherd " stood. 
 
 Then, after the first portion of the Burial 
 Service had been read within its walls, from out 
 the Parish Church the solemn procession moved 
 on, to the beautiful old churchyard, one and a half 
 mile beyond the town, whose chapel is the old
 
 150 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 chancel of the earliest parish church of Bramp- 
 ton. There, close to the ancient building he 
 had held in such reverent esteem, and in the 
 ancient churchyard beside the river Irthing, 
 unique in its beauty of situation, and very dear 
 to his heart, we laid him to rest, in accordance 
 with his oft expressed wish that, if he should 
 pass away in Cumberland, he might be laid in 
 that ' God's acre ' of Brampton. 
 
 As they turned away from the graveside, 
 at the north-west corner of the old church of 
 good St. Martin, there were many who thought 
 it fit that so tender-hearted and true a disciple 
 of the patron saint should there be laid, and 
 many felt that night in Cumberland that they 
 had lost a real friend. 
 
 A simple cross of red sandstone marks his 
 grave. It is a copy of the cross at the west 
 end of the roof of the Abbey nave which is 
 itself an exact reproduction of the ancient medi- 
 aeval cross that was formerly there. It bears 
 the inscription 
 
 5n loving flDcmorv of 
 HENRY WHITEHEAD, 
 
 VICAR OF LANERCOST, FORMERLY VICAR OF THIS PARISH, 
 BORN SEPTEMBER 22, 1825. FELL ASLEEP MARCH 5, 1896. 
 
 AGED 70. 
 " He walked with God and was not, for God took him. "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 
 
 THE obituary notices that appeared were not 
 confined to the local press, nor to church papers. 
 None were more sympathetic than one that 
 appeared in the Times, or more kindly than one 
 written by a leading Presbyterian minister in 
 Carlisle, Rev. T. Christie, who had on one of his 
 Easter- Monday tours along the Border visited the 
 vicar of Lanercost, and thus tersely described 
 him : 
 
 Who could help loving Henry Whitehead? Massive in frame, 
 with the flowing white beard of a Roman senator, and a dark 
 penetrating eye, protected by the black penthouse of an eye- 
 brow, powerful in intellect, wise in sympathy, full of goodwill to 
 men, capable without knowing it, gentle as a woman, and tender 
 as a father to his child, the vicar of Lanercost as parish priest, 
 neighbour, and English gentleman, is one whom to know is to 
 remember and respect. 
 
 All sorts and conditions of men honoured him. 
 A prominent Nonconformist wrote of him after 
 his death as "beloved teacher, brother, neighbour, 
 friend," and spoke of the loss "of that living 
 sermon of his life."
 
 152 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 In the Brampton Home Messenger for March 
 9, 1896, the magazine for the nonconforming 
 churches, appeared a touching tribute, which 
 spoke of Henry Whitehead as a clergyman of the 
 Church of England who knew no bonds of creed, 
 whose singularly pure and unselfish life spent in 
 the service of others, without thought of self or 
 personal gain, had won the hearts of almost every 
 parishioner, the benefit of whose wide experience 
 and wise counsel was sought by Churchmen and 
 Nonconformists alike. The writer of the article 
 went on to speak of Whitehead's 'practical and 
 courteous and constant consideration of the poor, 
 to whom he was generous to a fault, but without 
 a trace of ostentation.' 
 
 After enumerating the good works Whitehead 
 had set forward during his residence in Brampton 
 relief organization, school board, boys' club, 
 library the writer adds, " His special work as 
 vicar we leave to other hands to record, but to 
 none will we yield in loyalty, trust, and confidence 
 in one who was first and highest above all things 
 else a true Christian gentleman," and concludes a 
 touching note of sympathy for Mrs. Whitehead 
 and her daughters with the lines from In 
 Memoriam : 
 
 Whereof the man, that with me trod 
 This planet, was a noble type 
 Appearing ere the times were ripe, 
 
 That friend of mine who lives in God. 
 
 It was something to have hastened the day
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 153 
 
 of brotherly feeling between men of different 
 church views and organization. One of his 
 friends writing of him emphasizes this catholicity 
 of spirit. 
 
 I think I never knew a man who was less a man of isolated 
 parts or more a man of character. His noblest characteristic 
 was his tolerance. This was not due to his being indifferent, 
 but to his belief that doctrinal forms, however varying, are 
 attempts to set forth the Divine character. He might not con- 
 cur in them, but he recognized their sincerity, and therefore 
 their title to his respect. 
 
 The letters of condolence that were received 
 at his death are full of tender appreciation of the 
 good friend gone home. They come from the 
 most diverse quarters, but they all breathe the 
 same note, and mourn the loss of a man who was 
 a trusted counsellor, a lovable friend, a man of rare 
 fibre, whom to have known made life sweet ; some 
 speak of his guilelessness and his simplicity and 
 unconventionality, some of his cheeriness, others 
 of his kindliness. " I never knew the meaning 
 of Christian charity till I met him," says one ; and 
 another writes, " I never heard him say an unkind 
 word of any one. The noble elevation and dis- 
 interestedness of his character raised him far above 
 petty differences, and attracted to him people of 
 all parties, sects, and ranks. Through many 
 difficulties he steered his way with infinite tact, 
 judgment, and patience and with a beautiful 
 simplicity he combined rare sagacity and keen 
 and powerful intellect ; his conversation was de-
 
 154 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 lightful, he was respected as much as he was 
 beloved." 
 
 To the charity of heart, spoken of above, his 
 old friend, the historian, Canon Dixon, testifies : 
 " His certainly was a heart to which 'envy, hatred, 
 and malice' were absolutely unknown." 
 
 Dr. George Mac Donald, writing to Mrs. White- 
 head on hearing of his old friend's death, says : 
 " It is a very long time since I had news that 
 went so near my heart as your letter contained 
 this morning. I have no one left to love like as 
 I loved your husband ; as you know we did not 
 write much, but I knew I had my friend, and I 
 thank the Lord of friendship I have him still. 
 ... I believed I understood him and that he 
 understood me, for our ways of thinking and 
 feeling about the best, the only things, were so 
 near." The late Bishop of Carlisle, Bishop 
 Harvey Goodwin, was very fond of him, and 
 thoroughly appreciated him. The present Bishop, 
 writing to Mrs. Whitehead, says : " I can never 
 forget him, for he was a man to love as well as 
 to respect," and he goes on to speak of the " great 
 admiration in which he was held by all who were 
 privileged to share his friendship." 
 
 There are amongst the letters a few notes of 
 regret that such a man had been in orders and in 
 the diocese, and that neither church nor diocese 
 had seemed to know how rare a servant, and 
 remarkable a character they had had in their 
 midst. One of these writes: "We have no one in
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 155 
 
 the diocese who can fill the gap ; a scholar, a 
 man who had mixed in the larger world of London, 
 so genial and whole-hearted, with views so broad 
 and tolerant in one sense so unclerical and 
 unprofessional, he won the love and respect of 
 those who admire and trust a true man. What we 
 ask ourselves is why when we had him amongst 
 us did we not make occasion to see more of him.'' 
 His old friend Brooke Lambert concludes a 
 letter of condolence thus : " The one regret we 
 have is that he was not recognized in the world 
 that he had only the 'prophet's' and the 'great 
 man's' reward. Now, we doubt not that 
 
 for one so true 
 There must be nobler work to do, 
 
 and in the larger world he will have his sphere." 
 " I never knew any one so near the kingdom 
 of Heaven," said one who knew him intimately 
 years ago, and doubtless it was this other-worldli- 
 ness that ' from his youth up ' had impressed his 
 friends. Genius has been described as the art 
 of taking pains ; to Whitehead belonged a large 
 share of this art. As an investigator he was 
 untiring the history of the Cholera and the Broad 
 Street Pump had revealed this talent while he was 
 but a young man ; he was not thirty years old 
 when he made that since famous exhaustive in- 
 quiry into the cause of that awful outbreak, by 
 which, to quote from a letter written to Mrs. 
 Whitehead by Dr. Barnes of Carlisle, 1 " he 
 
 1 President of the British Medical Association in 1896.
 
 156 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 rendered such distinguished service to medicine 
 and to humanity." 
 
 One great characteristic of all the literary and 
 archaeological work he did was its thoroughness. 
 It was after all only another sign of the fact that 
 he had a conscience, and could not palter with it. 
 " He was," writes a friend, "a very conscientious 
 and painstaking man, he never allowed anything 
 in the way of personal convenience to interfere 
 with his duty. He has attempted to drive four or 
 five miles to take evening service at a hamlet on 
 the outskirts of the parish of Lanercost, when the 
 weather was so stormy that the horse was plunged 
 in a snowdrift, and it was no easy matter to extri- 
 cate it. Even then he was with difficulty dissuaded 
 from going forward on foot. 
 
 On one occasion whilst vicar of Newlands, he 
 started to walk out there from Keswick, a distance 
 of four miles, on a very wet Sunday, and found 
 his progress impeded by the flood across the 
 road not barred, for he stepped out and went 
 through it, and arrived at the little lonely church 
 to find only one man there, a churchwarden, who 
 was also bellringer, who greeted him thus : "We 
 nivver thought you could git through t'watter." 
 " I never neglect duty, John. You can ring the 
 bell now," was the reply. His going was a 
 sermon better than words, for the sturdy men 
 of the dale could well appreciate such staunch 
 respect for duty. Nothing would induce him to 
 break a promise, the words : "He that sweareth
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 157 
 
 unto his neighbour and disappointeth him not, 
 though it were to his own hindrance," were often 
 on his lips, as also the words, " Keep innocency 
 and do the thing that is right, for that shall bring 
 a man peace at the last." 
 
 Those who had known him for years knew how 
 consistent was his walk in life, how unwavering 
 the principles of his life's action. 
 
 It will be well to let them bear witness. This 
 is the testimony of his old London friend, the 
 Rev. E. C. Hawkins, the vicar of St. Bride's, 
 Fleet Street, who writes as follows : 
 
 Outside my own household, I could hardly have had a 
 heavier blow than your note dealt me this morning. It was 
 so unexpected. I always thought of him as an embodiment 
 of health and vigour, and used to think of him as likely to 
 live as long as his father, 1 and to be a sympathizing friend 
 to me for many years. I can only guess from what he was to 
 me the ' wrench of love ' your sudden loss must be to you, 
 so fitted as he was to be the strength and joy of a home; and 
 besides these qualities, he had others which must have given 
 a perpetual interest in life to those who lived with him, and 
 which made him to all his friends a man apart; for, in addi- 
 tion to his genius for making friends and holding them, which 
 was the cause of all those who loved him loving him so much, 
 he had gifts which singled him out from most men because 
 they were rare, or he had them in a higher degree than most. 
 
 Above all his great qualities stands his intense reality and 
 truthfulness of nature the higher truthfulness which makes 
 a man not only speak the truth (that is in comparison a 
 
 i Who was gathered to his fathers at the good old age of eighty-seven, 
 yet of whom his old friend, Sir Moses Montefiore, who was almost a 
 centenarian, said, after attending his funeral, " Ah ! poor Whitehead, 
 cut off in the flower of his days." M. W.
 
 158 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 common gift) but caused him to be true to himself and true 
 to the facts of life and nature. He never blinded himself 
 to facts natural or spiritual and so, as you say, "he was 
 always ready to go," because he never lost sight of the 
 greatest of all realities death, in this world where so many 
 hunt after shadows. On the other hand, because he was 
 real he did not undervalue the importance of life, and its 
 interests and events. He knew no man better their relative 
 importance as compared with one another. There never 
 was a more thorough man in all he did in and for this 
 world. No detail was too small to be important, and no 
 pains too great to make everything he did as good as he 
 could make it. Nor I think had many men a greater joy 
 in life than he had, largely derived from his extraordinary 
 sense of humour, a humour which, rich and keen as it was, 
 was always good-natured, and which no man I think ever 
 knew to degenerate into sarcasm or ill-nature ; yet with all 
 these faculties for enjoying and making the most of life here 
 he never forgot the elsewhere, and went through the world 
 unconscious of his own innocence, and taking the best it had 
 to give him to do and to enjoy, quite naturally, and as the 
 divinely given means to be ready for the change. 
 
 No one would have expected perhaps from such a man 
 his sagacity and knowledge of the world. Most people 
 would have wondered whence he derived them as he mixed 
 so little in the world compared with a man of the world. 
 His wisdom and knowledge of the world came not from 
 ' society,' but from his singular insight into character. From 
 his knowledge of human nature he knew what, under given 
 circumstances, any man would do. A man so remarkable 
 ought to have had a large acquaintance, judged by his 
 powers alone, but they were balanced by the truthfulness 
 and reality of a nature, not given to caring what people 
 thought or said of him, so long as he knew he was right 
 and had done his best. He had even a humorous delight 
 in doing a great or good work and remaining unknown. 
 He had a too strong sense of the relative values of things
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 159 
 
 to compare for an instant the worth of fame with that of 
 the gifts or achievements which won it; and he was too 
 true to himself to desire to be known, and had immeasur- 
 ably too much respect for himself to court popularity, or to 
 try to propitiate people by appearing in any other character 
 than his own. 
 
 I cannot do justice to many other of his fine qualities, 
 to the tenderness which is always so winning in the strong, 
 to the large-mindedness of his belief, and of his justice to 
 those who differed from him in opinion or action. He was 
 always ready to conjecture the best that could be said for 
 his opponents in politics or religion, and to give them the 
 credit for good motives and sincerity. But I have said 
 enough to show how it was that he held his friends to him 
 by hooks of steel, and why each of them thought of him as 
 one different from other men, whom it was a privilege to 
 know, and who was a bond of union between men who were 
 united by no other tie than this that they 'knew White- 
 head.' I have no right to speak of my own personal loss, 
 when it is shared by so many. I only feel what all who 
 knew him must feel, that they don't know and never will 
 know, any one like him, and that life is poorer for his loss. 
 
 I was by his side at the famous 'Rainbow' dinner, and 
 saw the quality of the men who had met to do him honour ; 
 at first sight it was a wonder that one who had attracted 
 such men had not drawn a much larger gathering, but one 
 fact explained both. They were few because they were 
 choice, for few men are enough on his level to be won by 
 qualities so rare and fine as his. . . . 
 
 Dr. Llewellyn Davies writes thus : 
 
 I knew Whitehead in his London days, some forty 
 years ago, through two curates and dear friends of mine, 
 J. Healy and R. H. Hart. They formed together a trio of 
 comrades, all in a rare degree unworldly, fellow-disciples of 
 Maurice, earnest in broad-minded faith. They are all gone 
 now ; Whitehead preached Healy's funeral sermon within the
 
 160 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 last few months, after I had read the service over his grave. 
 The three were certainly amongst the truest men and best 
 clergymen that I have known. Healy and Hart regarded 
 Whitehead with great admiration, and I saw him chiefly 
 through their spectacles. They delighted in the subtlety of 
 thought and humour which were Whitehead's well-known 
 characteristics, and it was a pleasure to them to understand 
 perfectly what he meant when his meaning did not force 
 itself upon the ordinary hearers. But those qualities were 
 in Whitehead always subordinated to a fundamental serious- 
 ness and a large-hearted friendliness of temper. At no time 
 I imagine, was it in him to be popular as a preacher. His 
 style was for the few rather than the many, and it was not 
 helped by any merely rhetorical arts. It was always a matter 
 of regret to me that I did not see more of one who was so 
 charming and stimulating a companion ; and it is chiefly to 
 commemorate a noble friendship which it did one good to 
 observe that I have written these lines. 
 
 The Rev. J. S. Sidebotham, another of his 
 old College friends, speaks of the way in which 
 whatever popularity he enjoyed came to White- 
 head and was not sought by him ; how in the 
 old Lincoln days, he became by sheer character 
 a leader of men, and he (J. S. S.) tells of the 
 way in which, keen politician as he was, White- 
 head absolutely refused to take partisan views. 
 
 Politically Whitehead was a Liberal, but he and I had 
 known one another for many years before either of us so 
 much as knew each other's political views ; and the discovery 
 never caused the approximation of a difference between us. 
 He was chary of signing memorials and protests, especially 
 of a partisan character. On one occasion some partisan 
 agent requested his name to such a memorial. He declined. 
 Said the agent, " Why, sir, all the clergy are signing it and you
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 161 
 
 will stand absolutely alone." He quietly replied that he 
 had often stood alone; and he was quite content to do 
 so now. And the agent went away without his signature. 
 Seldom probably was there a man of more absolutely in- 
 dependent mind. 
 
 The secret of that independence lay in the 
 lofty courage that men feel who realize as he 
 did always that men are but clay in the hands 
 of the potter ; instruments, so long as it pleases 
 God, to be used in His divine service. 
 
 There is a story of how, whilst at Highgate 
 Rise, he went up to take the n A.M. Wednesday 
 service, and going through the vicarage garden, 
 which adjoined the church, the vicar's big 
 mastiff suddenly flew at him. He raised his 
 arm to save his throat, and the great beast 
 made his teeth meet in the fleshy part of it. 
 Twice he sprang at him before the gardener 
 could come to his rescue with a spade, and the 
 animal was beaten off and secured. He went 
 on to the church, read prayers as if nothing 
 had happened, and then went home and told 
 his wife what had befallen him, simply saying 
 he felt " somewhat queer " with the pain and 
 shock. 
 
 Whilst at Newton Reigny, a similar though 
 somewhat worse experience befell him. Return- 
 ing from the neighbouring parish of Blencow, 
 where he had been to take the afternoon service 
 in the Grammar School, he was very badly 
 bitten in trying to get his own dog off another,
 
 162 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 whose owner, a widow woman, was frantic lest 
 her old dog should get killed. He arrived 
 at home, his hand streaming with blood, and 
 had it bound up. His wife, coming in an hour 
 later, found him in great perplexity how he 
 should go into church, because the haemorrhage 
 was still profuse. After she had dressed it and 
 bandaged it with pads, he contentedly went to 
 church with his right hand in a sling, read the 
 service and preached as usual, no one finding 
 out that he was suffering pain, or was in any 
 way incommoded. After service the doctor, who 
 had meanwhile been summoned, arrived, and 
 pronounced it a bad lacerated bite, but added 
 he could not do anything better for it than had 
 been done. 
 
 His eldest niece, Catharine Whitehead, em- 
 phasises this part of his character as she knew it, 
 and brings out his loving-kindness, and the power 
 of his silent presence of comfort and strength 
 wherever he moved. 
 
 "His influence and the atmosphere he brought with him 
 was comforting indeed to a child's heart. If you were 
 scolded according to the custom of those days with that 
 lacerating disregard for personal dignity, which left you no 
 shred of self-respect, whoever else heard and marked your 
 discomfiture, he was most conveniently blind and deaf, and 
 very soon would give you a look across the table which 
 somehow conveyed the healing impression that you would 
 outlive even that disgrace. He did not say a word, it was 
 not his way, but you knew better than other people could 
 have said it, that there was some comfort to be found
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 163 
 
 somewhere, and it knit you to his great heart in bonds 
 which only strengthened with growing years. I remember 
 as if it were yesterday how my passion of tears when he 
 said goodbye and left me undefended in a hostile house 
 surprised and astonished him. 
 
 But perhaps his most wonderful characteristic, because 
 other people felt it so strongly also, was the influence of 
 his silent presence. As years passed, and problems and 
 queries began to rise, he was always one of those to whom 
 a growing mind would turn, as to one who would listen 
 patiently and solve difficulties. That may have been partly 
 because of the reverence and admiration my father l had for 
 him, so that his name was quoted in our house as the 
 judge and referee. But over and above that, there was 
 always the quiet which his presence brought, as well as the 
 inspiration, felt just as much by the old woman in Soho 
 with whom he would sit in her desolate bereavement for an 
 hour without speaking, who would say, "Well, Mr. White- 
 head, but you do comfort me." Or the tramp with whom 
 he would sit on a heap of stones smoking a silent pipe, till 
 his heart was moved to confide his story to the great heart 
 beside him. 
 
 Always in those days he would prefer to go outside the 
 cab that the cabman might have company. 
 
 He used to tell a story which had its comic side, of a 
 man whose wife he had gone down to Woking to bury, 
 coming to him at the end of the long drive home and 
 thanking him " for helping him to pass such a pleasant day." 
 
 It was no matter who it was, all felt the power of his silent 
 presence, and the sympathy and strength it gave, beyond what 
 words would have been from others. And deeds showed his 
 sympathy no less. 
 
 I recollect his staying with us whilst I was but a girl, when 
 
 there was a great scare on account of mad dogs, and I had 
 
 given way to a foolish panic, we set off to walk down the hill 
 
 where they were supposed to be running at large. I started in 
 
 1 Rev. T. C. Whitehead.
 
 1 64 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 this abject condition of terror at every dog I saw, until I woke 
 up to the fact that my uncle was quietly stepping forward to 
 stand between me and every dog that approached, and I gave 
 way to no more folly, his unselfish action bringing me to 
 myself as no scolding, or laughing at my fears could have 
 done. 
 
 He recommended to others what he so long practised him- 
 self. His silence was a natural characteristic, I believe, but he 
 yet used to enforce its value as ' a counsel of perfection' to be 
 striven after. I remember to this day his quick response to 
 the anxious question I put to him as to my fitness for a public 
 post for which I was standing, " Yes, if you can hold your 
 tongue." l 
 
 How much I have owed and still owe to that counsel 
 impressed on my mind by his own unswerving practice, I can 
 never say. Any mistakes I may have made have always been 
 through forgetfulness of its sovereign virtue. 
 
 My father always said that it was through my uncle's severe 
 criticism of a book he published, Village Sketches, and pruning 
 off any unnecessary words, that it met with such unqualified 
 praise. 
 
 He was, as many will affirm, an unsparing critic of literary 
 style. " Cut off every word which can be spared," was one 
 maxim of his, and "distrust your favourite sentences." 
 
 His power of silence in affairs of moment, in everything 
 which referred to tact and discretion, was not incompatible 
 with a flow of talk, compounded of argument, pungent epi- 
 grammatic wit, subtle observations, and keen insight into 
 character, which made him, when the mood for talk was on 
 him with a genial interlocutor, of all companions the most 
 enchanting. Yet invite him for the purpose of getting him to 
 talk, and probably he would not utter a word. He was almost 
 provoking from his fundamental horror of showing off. What 
 was real, what was natural, drew him out under any circum- 
 stances ; forced or unnatural, he would close up like a sea 
 
 1 That of Poor- Law Guardian in the early clays of ladies being elected lo 
 such posts.
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS 165 
 
 anemone. He would preach with enthusiasm and fervour 
 to a small village congregation, standing against the bare 
 wall as I last saw him looking like a seer, with his eyes 
 flashing with that look of inspiration which would come 
 into them at rare moments. And then if he was asked by 
 friends to send up sermons for some paper or another, to their 
 vexation he would despatch those which hardly represented 
 him in any degree. 
 
 Two or three stories have come to me from different sources. 
 One was of his being on the platform at some religious meeting 
 when it was difficult to find any one who would open the 
 meeting by prayer. "Ask Mr. So-and-So," was the invariable 
 reply, as one and all backed out, till in despair my uncle was 
 appealed to, and then he instantly knelt down and said the 
 Collect, " Oh Lord, who art always more ready to hear than we 
 to pray." 
 
 On another occasion he was present at a meeting called 
 by the Bishop of London at which, among other things, the 
 meeting had to settle upon a form of prayer to be used on 
 .a certain occasion. One of those lengthy discussions very 
 characteristic of many meetings went on ; my uncle sat 
 quiet, taking no part, offering no suggestion, until the Bishop 
 suddenly appealed to him to help them out of the difficulty 
 by some suggestion. " My Lord," was the reply, " I can 
 only suggest the prayer for those at sea," which produced 
 a peal of laughter led by the Bishop. 
 
 Nothing else occurs to me to put down. No words touch 
 the sense of prevailing overpowering loss which his absence 
 from this side means to one who has grown up from childhood 
 blessed by his influence.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES; VVHITEHEAD 
 AS A WRITER 
 
 IT is impossible to forget the personality of 
 Henry Whitehead. One recalls the flashing of 
 the dark eyes when he was interested, the 
 magnificent laugh, the delightful way with him 
 as he told some story, restlessly tramping up and 
 down the room, swaying a little from side to side 
 as he argued, then shaking his head and swiftly 
 throwing out his hand to add emphasis to his 
 words, as if he would fain push in his sentences 
 with home thrusts of his open palm through the 
 air ; again relapsing into a quiet moody spell of 
 " long barren silence," which sometimes squared 
 with his desire. He had no tricks of oratory in 
 the pulpit, and in later years sometimes did his 
 subject-matter scant justice, but he could both 
 rouse and keep the attention of his hearers, and, 
 when deeply stirred, would almost startle them 
 with the vigour of his utterance. "He had a 
 powerful voice," writes the man who had been clerk 
 at St. Luke's for forty-five years, "and had no
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 167 
 
 difficulty in making himself heard," adding, "and 
 St. Luke's was a difficult church to be heard in, 
 owing to the noise of the Sunday traffic in the 
 adjoining street." Those will not easily forget 
 who have heard him read a favourite chapter 
 from the lessons for the day, for example, that one 
 of the prophet Jeremiah which ends with de- 
 nouncing 'the prophets' who 'prophesy falsely, 
 and the priests' who 'bear rule by their means, 
 and my people love to have it so.' His correctly 
 musical ear was keenly sensitive to any false 
 emphasis, and indeed in the use of emphasis he 
 was as chary as he was in that of commas and 
 capitals. All these characteristic traits made an 
 indelible impression upon those who knew him. 
 
 Nor was his quaint unconventionality made 
 less delightful by the amusing fits of absent- 
 mindedness in which he sometimes indulged. 
 He came up to call on the writer one day and 
 went straight into the open door of a neigbouring 
 house, took off his coat, gave his hat to the 
 servant (who seemed a little astonished), walked 
 into the study, and lost himself in a book. Half 
 an hour passed and he lifted his eyes, and feeling 
 the room he knew of old had been much altered 
 in appearance, rang the bell, and asked if the 
 vicar was in. 
 
 " No, sir, this is not the Vicarage," and, with 
 confused apology, he hurried out, put on my 
 friend and neighbour's coat, and came across to 
 the right quarter.
 
 1 68 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 We had a good laugh over it and I said, " Let 
 me take your coat." It was a snuff-brown kind 
 of deer-stalker cape. " What new clerical garb 
 is this ? " I said. " Good heavens ! " replied 
 Whitehead, " I have put on somebody else's 
 overcoat," and away he went to the friend's 
 house over the way to fetch his own and to 
 restore the stolen goods. 
 
 He once had a similar experience in Carlisle. 
 The Archdeacon had asked him to lunch on the 
 occasion of some clerical function, and he was 
 to go there after the meeting which had brought 
 the clergy together ; but, instead of doing so, 
 he, intently talking with some friend as they 
 walked together, turned into the house of Bishop 
 Ware, whose wife> as always, made him very 
 welcome. Lunch and conversation proceeded, but 
 suddenly, during a pause, it flashed on him that 
 he had made a mistake and come to the wrong 
 house, whereupon he had to explain matters to his 
 hostess, and then he crossed the Close to make 
 his peace with the Archdeacon. 
 
 But it was not the personality of the man that 
 alone was remarkable. It was the dark sayings 
 of the wise, the epigrammatic words of counsel, 
 the proverbial expressions so constantly on his 
 lips, that stuck. They were sayings which were 
 the result of keen observation. As a young 
 man at Lincoln he was noted for this, and 
 hardly a conversation in after life but was salted 
 with this pungent salt of pithy epigram. " Never
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 169 
 
 give reasons for what you do ; if it is right to 
 do, do it, never explain." " Always believe 
 a man to be honest till you know him to be 
 otherwise." "It is sometimes necessary to know 
 a great deal in order to say very little." "Always 
 understate your case ; nothing is gained by over- 
 emphasis." "No man looks a fool unless he 
 thinks himself one." " Never be afraid to be in a 
 minority of one ; majorities are mostly wrong." 
 "The chief good of having rights lies in being 
 able to waive them." "A large part of Chris- 
 tianity consists in behaving like a gentleman." 
 " Nothing is rude that is not meant to be rude." 
 "The world comes to him that can wait." 
 " When you write an important letter always 
 sleep on it." "He that believeth shall not 
 make haste." These and many other short 
 sentences of the kind will recur to those who 
 remember him, as samples of the sort of terse 
 aphorism in which he delighted. But after all, 
 as his friend Mr. Kebbel has put it, " he was 
 endeared to his fellows not so much by what 
 he said or did as by what he was. It was not 
 so much his gifts and accomplishments as his 
 nature that attracted and retained his friends. 
 His humour and pathos, his full-blooded man- 
 hood, his delicate intuitions, his indifference to 
 trifles and conventionalities, his reference of every 
 question to first principles, the combination of 
 shrewdness and simplicity that he represented, 
 and of a righteousness and sagacity that seemed
 
 i/o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 to embody the peace of the ' wisdom of the 
 just/ these are. some only of the points of char- 
 acter that made him a man apart, and caused 
 those who knew him well to think that those 
 who did not had missed the experience of a 
 rare type of humanity." 
 
 It was indeed in great part the self-effacement 
 of the man that made him such a power. His 
 real willingness to be but a silent presence in 
 the affairs of men, a quickening, kindly spirit 
 that strove not nor cried, but felt that in quietness 
 and confidence would be its strength this it was 
 that made him so unique a personality in the 
 hot and clamorous time in which he lived. It 
 is this that Baldwin Brown, the son of his old 
 friend, bears witness to in the following notes, 
 that bear specially on the literary side of his 
 work. This was the secret of Whitehead's life 
 of quiet power and help for human hearts. It 
 was the sign and seal of a kingly soul. It was 
 moreover the outcome of a deeply religious soul, 
 for Whitehead was essentially a "man of God." 
 He looked upon men as instruments in the hand 
 of a Providence that shaped their ends, rough- 
 hew them how they would. He believed with 
 absolute faith that the way of the Lord, though 
 it was not man's way, was, in spite of man, 
 being done, and that the way of the Lord would 
 not be hurried. 
 
 Very often he would quote Wordsworth's 
 lines :
 
 AS A WRITER 171 
 
 Think you 'mid all this mighty sum 
 
 Of things for ever speaking, 
 That nothing of itself will come, 
 
 But we must still be seeking. 
 
 And in his faith that " things of themselves would 
 come," he could stand back, a silent witness, and 
 often an unregarded worker. 
 
 Professor G. Baldwin Brown writes the follow- 
 ing estimate of some of Whitehead's leading 
 characteristics as writer and as preacher : 
 
 " I begin to remember Henry Whitehead in 
 his Clapham days. One was struck at the first 
 aspect of him by a certain physical massiveness 
 that, as one found later on, accorded well with 
 one side of his character, but was curiously 
 belied by the exceptional refinement and delicacy 
 of his mental qualities. His hair was dark, and 
 from under black bushy eyebrows gleamed eyes 
 that twinkled with humour, and yet would flash 
 with a prophet's glance when some quick preg- 
 nant sentence was on his lips. He excelled in 
 talk. He was frugal in words, but they were 
 admirably chosen, and always disclosed a personal 
 view, in which one realized his shrewd insight 
 into character, and the broad, wise, liberal 
 philosophy of life that underlay all he uttered. 
 Clapham at that time had its own society and 
 traditions. The ring of old houses surrounding 
 the Common had only been broken by the one 
 new terrace by Cedars Road, and there was
 
 i;2 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 still a certain corporate life among the residents, 
 many of whom, with the rector at their head, 
 appreciated to the full the brilliant original gifts 
 and sterling sound-mindedness of the curate of 
 Clapham. 
 
 " Here he enjoyed intellectual companionship, 
 and won fame for his conversational powers, 
 while at the church he had a band of hearers 
 who took the keenest pleasure in his discourses. 
 
 "The character of these may be judged from 
 the volume called Sermons on the Saints Days, 
 published during the Clapham period ; but to 
 obtain a true idea of the intellectual quality 
 of his work, account should also be taken of the 
 writings he issued during the later years of his 
 residence in London, when vicar of St. John's, 
 Limehouse. In the somewhat depressing sur- 
 roundings of his East-end life, he found an outlet 
 for his special talents, and a means of delighting 
 his numerous friends, by issuing a monthly 
 Parish Chronicle. In this appeared many of the 
 discourses afterwards published under the title 
 Sermons, chiefly on Subjects from the Sunday 
 Lessons, but it also contained numerous papers 
 on subjects of local or of general interest, which 
 embody some of his most characteristic utterances. 
 We may dwell on these last for a moment, as 
 they illustrate one of his finest qualities, his 
 exquisite sense of literary style. Style, which 
 some might think a merely outward grace, was 
 with him in intimate relation to the whole matter
 
 AS A WRITER 173 
 
 of his work. He devoted as much care to the 
 form as to the idea. 
 
 "A thing was not in his estimation said at 
 all if it was not properly expressed, and he took 
 deliberate pains with the run of his sentences 
 and the choice and placing of words. With all 
 this there is never any air of effort about his 
 writing, and so easy and natural is the flow of 
 the sentences that one can hardly imagine them 
 otherwise expressed. This was his personal 
 gift a literary touch the lightest and most 
 delicate imaginable. 
 
 "He gave his attention in the Chronicle to all 
 sorts of themes that were often in themselves 
 trivial enough, and it is part of the charm of his 
 writing that he makes so much of a small oppor- 
 tunity. When the Board of Works effected some 
 alterations in the street nomenclature of Lime- 
 house Fields, changing the too numerous names 
 like 'George,' 'William,' and ' Mary,' for appell- 
 ations of more significance, he seized the 
 occasion for a series of papers, in which a world 
 of fun is extracted from the situation. He 
 professes to believe that the Board of Works 
 proposed ' to make Limehouse Fields the Pan- 
 theon of London,' by calling the streets after 
 famous men, and adds amusing comments on 
 their reasons for the selection of names. Here 
 is an imaginary dialogue in which the supposed 
 plan is unfolded : 
 
 " We are anxious," said the Board of Works to the School
 
 174 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Board, "to do something towards the encouragement of the 
 study of mathematics in the magnificent school which you are 
 about to erect on the confines of Limehouse Fields." 
 
 " Then," said the School Board, " you will of course found 
 a scholarship for the boy who may show the greatest pro- 
 ficiency in that branch of learning." 
 
 " No, that is not what we have thought of doing. Indeed, 
 we have no power to apply our funds to such a purpose. 
 But we think of naming a street in the Fields after a senior 
 wrangler." 
 
 Here ensued an awkward pause in the conversation, the 
 School Board apparently not being as elated at the proposal as 
 the Board of Works had expected. 
 
 " Perhaps you are not aware," added the latter Board, " of 
 our great scheme respecting the Fields. Of course you have 
 visited the Pantheon at Paris. Well, we propose to make 
 Limehouse Fields the Pantheon of London." 
 
 "Yes, we have been at Paris," said the School Board, now 
 catching the idea, "and we remember the Pantheon. Which 
 senior wrangler shall it be?" 1 
 
 "One change of a street name was from 
 4 Margaret' to ' Lowell,' and his comment takes 
 the form of an imaginary conversation among 
 the Limehouse people, who are supposed to be 
 saying : 
 
 " The old names any one could understand. We all know the 
 meaning of such names as Richard and George, and the rest. 
 But what's the meaning of these new-fangled names? And 
 where do they get them ? " " Oh, the meaning is plain enough," 
 says one, "they've only put up the surnames instead of the 
 Christian names." " But whose surnames ? Who is Margaret 
 Lowell ? " " Can't say. Very likely the wife of one of the 
 members of the Board. But what does it matter?" With due 
 deference to the last speaker we beg to say that it does matter, 
 1 The Parish Chronicle of St. John's, Limehouse, July 1872.
 
 AS A WRITER 175 
 
 as he will himself perceive when we explain that the Board, in a 
 spirit of international courtesy, has sought to modify the hostile 
 attitude of America towards this country by giving the name of 
 a distinguished American writer to a London street. " And if 
 ever he comes to England," some perhaps may say, "let us 
 hope he will not want to see what sort of street it is." Rather 
 let us hope he will want to see it ; for the Board has doubtless 
 rightly considered that Mr. Lowell, as a citizen of a republic, 
 would prefer that his name should be given to a street in Lime- 
 house Fields rather than to Piccadilly or Pall Mall. Thus the 
 more we examine the reasons by which the Board has been 
 actuated in making these alterations of names, the more we 
 must admire the breadth and height of its views upon the 
 subject. 1 
 
 " How well Whitehead uses his words we only 
 come to realize when we compare the easy ripple 
 of his phrases with the laboured efforts at face- 
 tious comment on current topics with which we 
 are all more or less familiar. He has his own 
 forms in which to cast his thought, and delights 
 in a sort of Socratic dialogue, in which he replies 
 to his own questions. Here is a sentence or 
 two from his ' Editorial Retrospect ' of the first 
 year of the Chronicle, referred to on a previous 
 page: 
 
 Alas, even our modest halfpenny assumes in these parts the 
 aspect of an exorbitant charge. " The other halfpenny papers," 
 we are occasionally told and it is impossible to refute the 
 allegation " give more for the money." ... " Why not try a 
 tale?" asks one. "You should give us illustrations," says 
 another. Well, an editor must go his own way. " Must he ? " 
 some newspaper proprietor, if he should happen to see 
 that remark, will exclaim : " Then his way, if he cannot 
 1 Chronicle, March 1872.
 
 i/6 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 make the paper sell, will be out of the office door." But 
 in the present case the editor, being his own proprietor, can 
 do as he likes. 1 ... 
 
 " Underneath the nicety of expression there is 
 an unfailing vein of humour, and a shrewdness of 
 comment that never degenerates into cynicism. 
 The human interest of a situation always appeals 
 to him, and he will take endless pains to bring 
 this out into light. The following is a charac- 
 teristic illustration. On one occasion a parlia- 
 mentary agent of the local Liberal party, too 
 rashly assuming that every clergyman must be 
 ipso facto a Conservative, wrote to him to state 
 that he was intending to object to his qualifica- 
 tions for a vote. Whitehead took no notice, but 
 when the vote (in the absence of any appearance 
 on his part) had been disallowed, he published in 
 the Chronicle a most amusing letter to the agent 
 upon the text, ' The liberal soul deviseth liberal 
 things.' 
 
 " It seems worth while to give this episode in 
 full, reprinting the article in which Whitehead 
 described it in the Chronicle for August 1872 : 
 
 A LIBERAL AGENT. 
 
 Electioneering agents are commonly supposed, where party 
 interests are concerned, to be rather unscrupulous. But the 
 following correspondence and extract from the report of the 
 Mile End ' revision ' tend to show that such an opinion is not 
 to be entertained without qualification : 
 
 1 Chronicle, September 1872.
 
 AS A WRITER 177 
 
 August 1 6th, 1871. 
 To the Vicar of St. John's, Limehouse. 
 
 SIR, Take notice that I object to your name being retained on the list 
 of voters for the County of Middlesex. I am, sir, yours, etc., 
 
 F. C. DBAR. 
 
 5 Rutland Street, Hampstead Road. 
 
 Sept. agth, 1871. 
 To F. C. Dear, Esq., 
 
 SIR, With regard to your objection to my vote for the County of 
 Middlesex, I presume you have satisfied yourself that my claim is invalid, 
 and therefore, being myself unacquainted with such matters, I beg to thank 
 you for saving me from obtaining a privilege to which I have no legal right. 
 And further, I beg to congratulate the Liberals of Middlesex on their good 
 fortune in possessing an agent who is evidently more anxious that right 
 should be done than that Liberal votes should be secured. This, sir, is the 
 truly Liberal principle ; and though to worldly-minded people it may savour 
 of unwisdom, it is that by which alone can truth and justice be effectually 
 and permanently established. "The liberal soul deviseth liberal things, 
 and by liberal things shall he stand" even for the County of Middlesex. 
 I am, sir, yours, etc., H. WHITEHEAD. 
 
 St. John's Vicarage, Limehouse. 
 
 Sept. 3Oth, 1871. 
 To the Rev. H. Whitehead, 
 
 SIR, There are upwards of 1400 new claimants to be placed on the 
 Register, and the time being so limited from the publication of the notice 
 to the period of serving objections, it is impossible to ascertain if they be 
 legally entitled. Whether you be so or not is for the barrister to decide. 
 Allow me therefore to observe you are somewhat premature in your thanks 
 to myself and gratulations to the Liberals of Middlesex. I am, sir, 
 yours, etc., F. C. DEAR. 
 
 9 John Street, Adelphi. 
 
 Not having attended the barrister's revision, I have only just 
 learnt from the recently published list of voters that my claim 
 was disallowed. I had, however, the curiosity to turn to the 
 newspaper report of the proceedings at Mile End Vestry Hall 
 on the 3rd of October. There I found nothing which gave me 
 any information about the fate of my own claim, but I found 
 this : 
 
 Mr. Sharp, of 97 Sclater Road, Brick Lane, on the list for house in 
 Armagh Road, Bow, was objected to by the Liberals. He produced his 
 
 M
 
 i;8 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 title-deeds, and complained loudly of the proceedings, when he had ' ' voted 
 for the Liberals all his life." (Laughter.) 
 
 I suppose I may now, without fear of being " premature," 
 repeat my " gratulations to the Liberals of Middlesex." The 
 Conservative agent had endeavoured to persuade me that the 
 objection to my vote arose from hostility on the part of the 
 Liberals towards the Church, and he wished to be allowed to 
 defend the claim ; " for," said he, " we shall surely have you 
 with us after this." But I assured him that I understood Liberal 
 principles better than he did, and could therefore more fairly 
 estimate the motives of his opponent. I trust that, after this 
 assurance, he was not one of those who joined in the " laughter" 
 at the proceedings in connection with Mr. Sharp's claim, and 
 especially that he did not laugh when my name was struck off 
 the register. I trust also that the Liberal agent will not be 
 deterred by unseemly ridicule from the high-minded course 
 upon which he has entered. What is my vote, or any one else's 
 vote, or the success of this or that candidate, when weighed in 
 the balance against the devising of really liberal things ? 
 
 H. W. 
 
 " Turning from these lighter utterances to his 
 published sermons, we note with interest that in 
 these the merits of happy phrasing, of humour, 
 of insight, are all maintained, though they are 
 kept in the strictest subordination. Some of the 
 sermons are masterpieces of composition ; there 
 is not a superfluous sentence, every word does its 
 work, and the whole effect is one of the most 
 limpid clearness and simplicity ; yet no one would 
 ever dream of regarding them as show pieces of 
 the literary art. There are in them touches of 
 native humour in his happiest vein, while the 
 idea that the author was consciously joking could
 
 AS A WRITER 179 
 
 never enter the reader's mind. The studies of 
 character are minute and penetrating, but human 
 character is only handled that it may illustrate 
 the working of eternal principles. These lighter 
 qualities scintillate, so to say, in the work, but 
 they are like the flames around the sun the 
 moral fervour of a deeply earnest soul burns with 
 an intense and steady glow through them all. 
 
 " Those who read his published volumes will 
 see that many of the discourses, especially in 
 the earlier book, are sketches of character 
 drawn from scripture, in which the broad 
 general truths of human life and the relation of 
 man to the unseen are studied in the light of 
 special experiences and situations. One does 
 not know which to admire most, his insight 
 into the deeper problems of existence, or the 
 Shakespearian breadth with which, not without 
 discreet touches of humour, he surveys and makes 
 clear to us the character and history of a David, 
 an Elijah, or of one of the New Testament 
 heroes. 
 
 " Here is the opening of a Saint's-day Sermon 
 on St. Peter from the text, ' Satan hath desired to 
 have you,' etc., in which in his genial way- he 
 banters Satan just as if he were the Board of 
 Works : 
 
 The sifting of the apostles revealed more wheat, even if not 
 less chaff, than Satan anticipated. Perhaps he was not very 
 far wrong in his calculations about the chaff. He found, as 
 he expected, a great deal of it. But he had hoped to find
 
 i8o HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 nothing else. Otherwise he never would have gone through 
 the labour of the sifting, only to discover that he had dis- 
 encumbered the wheat from that which rendered it useless. 
 
 The truth is that Satan knows human nature better in its 
 weakness than in its strength. With the weakness, which is 
 all its own, he is familiarly acquainted. He knows nothing 
 at all about the divinely implanted strength of the spiritual 
 man. 
 
 ... If there be nothing in Simon but what belongs to 
 Satan, then let Satan claim Simon Peter, as he has already 
 claimed Judas, for his own. But if there be that in Peter 
 which belongs to God, then still let Satan, if he be unwise 
 enough to do so, claim and carry away his share, leaving 
 the spiritual Peter disencumbered and free. 1 
 
 " For sympathetic analysis of character in its 
 subtler workings it would be hard to match the 
 following from a sermon on Elijah with the 
 widow of Zarephath. We have always been 
 accustomed to regard this prophet as the incar- 
 nation of all that is stern and uncompromising 
 here is something different that Whitehead has 
 seen in him : 
 
 It was then an auspicious moment for Elijah when he 
 beheld the widow woman gathering sticks at the gate of the 
 city (i Kings xvii. 10). No doubt she looked as poor as she 
 was, and the gathering of the sticks was in harmony with her 
 porerty. It was a real act of faith on the part of the prophet 
 to ask such a person at such a time for bread, though perhaps 
 a greater trial to his compassion than to his faith. He knew 
 he must sorely distress her by the request ; she would think 
 him selfish and hard. Hence, though for the most part he 
 cared little enough how he looked or what people thought of 
 him, yet there is a momentary pause before he asks for the 
 
 1 Sermons on the Saints' Days, p. 201, f.
 
 AS A WRITER 181 
 
 bread. His first request is for some water, about which she 
 makes no difficulty ; and then, as she turns to go for it, and 
 they are no longer face to face, he calls after her, as though it 
 were an afterthought, " Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of 
 bread in thine hand" (ver. u). With instinctive delicacy and 
 sensibility to her feelings, he first put her into an attitude of 
 compliance, that when she did have to tell him the whole sad 
 truth of her poverty, it might be whilst she was in the very act 
 of doing all she could for him. So thoughtfully and tenderly 
 regardful of a poor widow's feelings is the man who should 
 enjoy but small reputation for courtesy in the palace of 
 Ahab. 1 
 
 " Very characteristic of his chivalrous temper 
 is his treatment of the so-called ' Disobedient 
 Prophet,' of whom he says : 
 
 We mourn over him, and sometimes preach over him, to this 
 day. But in our anxiety to point a moral from his history 1 , 
 there is danger lest we preachers may so conduct our mourning 
 as to disguise the fact that it is really a " brother " over whom 
 we mourn. We must not indeed make too little of his 
 offence ; but neither, on the other hand, let us make too much 
 of his punishment. At least, let us endeavour to see in it the 
 discipline of love. 
 
 He then in a discourse, called ' Guided even unto 
 Death,' follows the prophet's steps from the 
 moment when ' He cried against the altar in 
 the word of the Lord,' the ' solitary man intruding 
 unbidden and unwelcome into the presence of a 
 great king, lifting up his single voice against that 
 proud monarch, and in the midst of a corrupt and 
 hostile multitude faithfully delivering the stern 
 message of his God,' to that when men find 'his 
 
 * Sermons, chiefly on Subjects from the Sunday Lessons, p. 198, f.
 
 182 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 carcase cast in the way,' and lay him in the grave 
 to be known to future generations as ' the 
 Disobedient Prophet.' But is this 'deeply 
 tragical ' fate only a subject for mourning ? 
 No, ' even unto Death,' and beyond it, God 
 was his guide : 
 
 His work was done ; and should he regret leaving a world 
 with which he had so little in common, whose kings and priests 
 he had only to denounce, and whose prophets could trifle with 
 his sacred heaven-sent convictions, as if they had been but the 
 wayward impulses of caprice ? It were well for him to go 
 hence and be no more seen, so that, in the word of the Lord 
 and in the power of His Spirit, he but recover his strength, no 
 matter how dreadful the process of his recovery. Yes, verily, 
 while voices, to whose accents he was now for ever deaf, were 
 saying, " Alas, my brother ! " another voice, let us believe, was 
 saluting him, as of one rejoicing over him, saying " Welcome, 
 my brother ! I have been with thee in all the hard passages of 
 thy chequered life. Thou hast known me hitherto as the 
 Word of the Lord. I gave thee thy purposes, thy resolutions, 
 thy strong convictions, thy power to carry them out. I gave 
 thee thy blessedness. Thy backsliding and misery came only 
 when thine ear turned away from me to the enticements and 
 deceptions of another. See now how it were better for thee to 
 be roughly and sharply awakened from thy delusions, so that 
 thou wast for ever restored to the arms of thy Saviour and thy 
 brother." J 
 
 " How practical in its shrewdness is the 
 opening of the sermon about Balaam, entitled 
 4 Waiting for Special Leadings': 
 
 Never talk in that way : " If Balak would give me his house 
 full of silver and gold, I cannot go," etc. (Numbers xxii. 18), 
 when you have a difficult resolution to keep. How must you 
 1 Sermons, p. 190, ff.
 
 AS A WRITER 183 
 
 talk then, in such a case, or what must you say? Why, say 
 nothing, or, at most, say No, and make an end of it. But 
 vanity must needs make capital out of everything which 
 presents itself, yes, even out of convictions from God. Balaam 
 is rather proud of the sacrifice which he may possibly have to 
 make a sure sign that he will get off making it if he can. . . . 
 Observe the consequence of making a parade about the out- 
 ward circumstances of a temptation : " Now therefore, I pray 
 you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the 
 Lord will say unto me more" (ver. 19). Let Balaam have the 
 credit of refusing Balak's gifts and honours ; and let the Lord 
 have the responsibility of his accepting them. For his part he 
 is quite indifferent to such things. Let the messengers rest 
 assured that he has no desire for them at all. But if they will 
 just wait a little, peradventure there will be vouchsafed to him 
 some special leadings of divine Providence, which may render 
 it his duty to go with them. He is in the Lord's hands ; the 
 Lord shall guide him. But how ? By the convictions already 
 given him in answer to his prayers about this matter ? Not 
 so ; but by what the Lord shall say unto him "more" about it, 
 after he has turned it over and over again in his mind, after he 
 has perhaps thought it a pity not to go to Balak and explain 
 things to him a little. He need not curse Israel if he does go. 
 He may do some good by going. He may exercise a bene- 
 ficial influence at the court of Balak. A wider sphere of i 
 fulness will be opened out to him. 
 
 Very well. So sure as a man sets himself upon the s 
 for the leadings of Providence to conduct him in a given direc- 
 tion himself all the while desiring the credit of reluctance to 
 go, there is very little doubt of his finding such 1< 
 
 "If there is here some sly side reflection on the 
 ecclesiastic of to-day, who announces that he has 
 received a "special leading ' in the direction 
 profitable change of position, the Broad 
 
 i Chronicle, July, 1872.
 
 184 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 man's view of sacerdotalism peeps out in the 
 following pregnant sentences on the choice and 
 work of St. Stephen : 
 
 So they appointed ..." men of honest report, full of the 
 Holy Ghost and wisdom." Men of honest report and practical 
 wisdom of course it was desirable to appoint for such a 
 purpose. But what need, it may be asked, for a man, in order 
 to " serve tables," to be " full of the Holy Ghost " ? Do we 
 inquire whether a man be full of the Holy Ghost when we 
 elect him a guardian of the poor ? Perhaps not ; but it might 
 be as well if we did. Apostolic precedent is worth attending 
 to even in such a matter as that. . . . 
 
 Learn now from the history which is this day set before 
 us, the benefit which may attend upon the appointing of 
 men full of the Holy Ghost to the discharge even of duties 
 which at first sight appear to have merely a secular character. 
 Whereas the apostles caused seven such men to be appointed 
 to "serve tables," while they themselves withdrew to the 
 sole duty of " the ministry of the word," one of their table- 
 servers presently stood forth as the foremost preacher and 
 prophet of them all. 1 
 
 " Teaching of this kind, so fresh, so direct, so 
 practical, would naturally appeal to cultured 
 hearers. Without knowing it, Whitehead was 
 a born ' fisher of men ' among the ranks of 
 thoughtful and sagacious citizens of the world. 
 Such auditors as he would have gathered round 
 him in a position like that of chaplain of one 
 of the Inns of Court would have been attracted, 
 even fascinated, by the literary quality of his 
 work, while they would have speedily come to 
 learn that behind all this there was a simplicity 
 
 1 Sermons, pp. 284, 288.
 
 AS A WRITER 185 
 
 of faith and a sincerity of moral conviction that 
 went straight to the heart and conscience of 
 each. Let us imagine the sort of effect which 
 a discourse like that on David and Jonathan, 
 'A Covenant before the Lord,' would have on 
 minds perhaps impervious to the ordinary homily 
 but quick in recognition of intellectual worth. 
 He draws first the picture of David standing 
 before Saul with the head of the giant in his 
 hand, presenting ' in his appearance and bearing 
 a certain manliness, tempered with modesty/ and 
 asks, ' What then had David been saying, and what 
 magic influence had there been in his words, that 
 when he had made an end of speaking he should 
 have won for himself the love of Jonathan?' A 
 sympathetic analysis of Jonathan's state of mind 
 follows. A hero with a hero's past, why had 
 he not himself stood forth as the champion of 
 Israel ? The secret is his own deep despondency, 
 from which he was only aroused by the sight 
 of ' one who spoke, looked, and acted, as if he 
 had come straight from the living God,' the man 
 'who should be to Israel and possibly even 
 to Saul, what Jonathan would fain have been, 
 but, alas, was not.' Then come the notices 
 of the intercourse and mutual service of the 
 friends, of ' their covenant thrice renewed before 
 the Lord' (i Sam. xviii. 3, xx. 16, xxiii. 18), 
 and of Jonathan's love that passed the love of 
 
 women : 
 
 There is a painful significance in that last clause
 
 186 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 of David's lament for Jonathan, the full force of which is 
 not to be apprehended without taking up the New Testament, 
 and, with that clause in one's mind, reading the records 
 of the life of Him who condescended to be the Son of 
 David. There was no love, not even that of Peter and John, 
 which surpassed the love of women for the Saviour. And 
 this their love for Jesus Christ, based upon and arising out 
 of His equal love for mankind, has ever since been a real 
 power in the world. From a true insight into the spiritual 
 power of womanly sympathy, King David, partly by his 
 misfortunes, and still more, I fear we must add, by his 
 faults, was cut off. There was a side of his heart which was 
 never spiritually touched but by Jonathan ; towards those 
 who might have touched it the whole attitude of his mind 
 was wrong; Jonathan had no successor in David's heart. 
 In his innermost soul King David lived a lonely life ; and he 
 made his solitude for himself. 
 
 " But from David in his later years, when in 
 sorrow and painful solitude he returned to the 
 knowledge ' that apart from God there is no such 
 thing as love,' the discourse passes, by a transi- 
 tion that the auditor would hardly mark, to the 
 principles which the preacher saw underlying all 
 human friendship and love. David, Jonathan, 
 the gracious figures of a still patriarchal time, 
 recede into the background, and only the preacher 
 and his hearers are left face to face with eternal 
 truths. It is not to the men of old that the lesson 
 applies, these hearers would learn. It is to us 
 and to our fellows, they would say within them- 
 selves, that the word of the Lord has come ; and 
 then with thoughts turned inward they would 
 hear the preacher conclude :
 
 AS A WRITER 187 
 
 We may think we love one another, but our love or our 
 friendship, call it which we please, if it be not "a cove- 
 nant before the Lord," is only a delusion and a snare . . . 
 those bright affections, which bear the names of love and 
 friendship ... do we recognize their rightful connection 
 with God, and consistently try to have them consecrated to 
 His service ; or are we in the habit of regarding them as mere 
 luxuries of the natural man, with which religion has little to 
 do except to keep them within the bounds of innocence? 
 
 But let us not, after dwelling upon such a friendship as 
 that of David and Jonathan, descend to consider the 
 grotesque fantastic forms of spurious affection. Rather let us 
 keep in view that which is best and noblest, and interpreting it, 
 as it is our privilege to do, by the light of the eternal Gospel, 
 say, Let this be human friendship, that souls be linked together 
 for the strengthening of one another in God and in Christ. 1 
 
 "The above may serve to give some idea of 
 the style of discourse which gained for Whitehead 
 so high we cannot say, so wide a reputation as 
 a preacher. With the capacity for doing work 
 of this kind, and even still better work, he was 
 destined to leave London after three-and-twenty 
 years of labour, and to spend the rest of his life 
 in surroundings in many respects congenial, but 
 in no way corresponding to his special gifts, 
 so far as one so great of soul could really be 
 touched by these chances of mortal state, he must 
 have felt to some extent what his friends felt so 
 strongly for him, and have left London a di: 
 appointed, though not a soured, man, carrying 
 with him to the end a consciousness of powers 
 that had never found a free field for exercis 
 
 1 Sermons, p. 169, ff.
 
 i88 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 One who knew him better than most was wont 
 to declare that if he had had the 'fit audience,' 
 for which he could not but crave, he would 
 have done yet better work as a preacher and 
 writer. This can be readily believed, for his 
 sermons are unequal. All did not reach the high 
 standard to which he raised those he published 
 in the volumes and in the Chronicle. In the case 
 of those which were issued first in the Chronicle, 
 and then in the Sermons, we trace the results of 
 extra work in the fuller statement, the more 
 polished phrase. He was not always at his best, 
 but he might have been trusted always to rise to 
 the height of any opportunity which he felt as a 
 stimulus to the deepest source of his powers. 
 
 " London probably lost not a little through 
 the fact that a suitable position in the metropolis 
 was never offered to him, and it is worth while 
 in this connection to point out how many of 
 the qualities of the ideal parish priest, and of 
 those needed to adorn higher ecclesiastical 
 positions, were, as a fact, combined in his per- 
 son. In other parts of this book there have 
 been illustrated his devotion to parish duties, 
 his tact, his business-like accuracy. We have 
 seen that he was an expert in regard to those 
 multifarious secular matters relating to edu- 
 cation, sanitary science, rational recreation, and 
 the like, on which the vicar of a parish is called 
 upon to give his opinion and advice. Above all, 
 he was from the very outset of his career a man
 
 AS A WRITER !8 9 
 
 singled out from among his fellows for the excep- 
 tional services he had rendered to church and 
 world alike in connection with the cholera epi- 
 demic. It may, however, be of advantage to say 
 a word here, from this point of view, about his 
 mental characteristics, lest some who did not know 
 him might think there was some waywardness, 
 eccentricity, or even unsoundness in his opinions 
 or in his modes of thought. This was by no man- 
 ner of means the case. He was one in whom the 
 subtlety of intellect that delighted his associates 
 co-existed with the most manly robustness of 
 mind and with exceptional common sense. He 
 was a man, moreover, who was absolutely free 
 from any ' views ' or impracticabilities. There 
 was nothing extreme about Whitehead. He had 
 not the smallest disposition to rebel against con- 
 stituted authorities, customs, or beliefs. His fine 
 taste recognized that as a clergyman he had 
 bound himself to do and not to do certain things 
 (which in themselves might be indifferent), and he 
 never even in little matters parleyed with his 
 vows. The young ladies, who in later years came 
 to him to be married, would ask him after the 
 present fashion of their kind to omit the clause in 
 the wedding service about the duty of obeying. 
 He would talk to them in his genial way, but 
 would not give in to them. His attitude towards 
 the Old Testament was characteristic. He had 
 no inclination in the direction of modern Biblical 
 Criticism, but took the Hebrew narratives as they
 
 190 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 stand, recognizing in them consummate master- 
 pieces of a refined and deeply-thinking age, and 
 was content to bring out in them the divine and 
 human truths of universal import with which they 
 are pregnant. He no more questioned the truth 
 of the narratives than did the late Canon Liddon, 
 though he would never have given himself away 
 by staking his faith in Christianity upon the 
 literal accuracy of some obviously poetical pas- 
 sages of scripture. He assumes in his sermons 
 that David wrote the Psalms, and Moses Deuter- 
 onomy, and, for aught he says to the contrary, he 
 may have held Satan to be as real a personage as 
 Simon Peter. 
 
 " Ecclesiastically he was a Broad Churchman, of 
 that school which, rejecting all sacerdotal pre- 
 tensions and all mystical views of rites and cere- 
 monies, has not been fascinated by any new and 
 critical views on exegesis or dogma. He used to 
 say of himself (partly to explain the fact that his 
 Church seemed to show no particular need of 
 him), that he and his friends were survivals ; there 
 was no body of young men in the Church to sup- 
 port and succeed them. Graduates holding his 
 and their views, he would explain, do not now 
 enter the Church, but some other profession, 
 while those who do take Anglican orders attach 
 themselves as a rule rather to the sacerdotal 
 party. This may, no doubt, be true of these later 
 times, but, on the other hand, when Whitehead 
 was in his prime, the high places of the Church
 
 AS A WRITER , 9 , 
 
 were filled by men of broad and liberal sym- 
 pathies. The Scottish Episcopal Church, for 
 example, which is now on the sacerdotal grade, 
 was represented then by men like his old and 
 dear friend Bishop Ewing and it was not 
 Swing's fault if Whitehead did not receive due 
 recognition from the Anglican authorities. The 
 Bishop of London in his time was the statesman- 
 like Tait. Under these circumstances, there 
 seemed to be nothing to prevent a man of White- 
 head's gifts and character receiving the offer of 
 some position wherein his special qualities would 
 have found a suitable field for exercise. It is 
 true that he had friends who in his later life 
 felt that there was nothing in their gift 
 good enough for such a man, but they were 
 not representative of the mind of the Anglican 
 communion. One would have thought that a 
 liberal-minded bishop, who knew what White- 
 head had done of old, and who had himself 
 listened to his long and incisive address on the 
 mendicity question, would have been only too 
 glad to leaven the ecclesiastical lump of his 
 diocese with such sagacity and unworldliness as 
 were embodied in the speaker. It is possible that 
 his comparative lack of oratorical delivery in the 
 pulpit affords some explanation of the neglect 
 with which he was treated by the authorities of 
 his Church. It is a puzzle otherwise to account 
 for it, for it would be unjust to those that seemed 
 to be pillars to suggest that he was so keen of
 
 19? HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 sight, so shrewd in counsel, so utterly unworldly 
 in his modes of thought, that they were a little 
 afraid of him. 
 
 " When one looks back on his life, what has it 
 to teach us ? It has been well said of him that, 
 after all, ' Nothing can surpass in real service to his 
 day and generation the recollection of a life well 
 lived, and remembrance of duty often arduous 
 and unattractive cheerfully performed without 
 thought of self or self-interest.' In taking leave 
 of him one may, however, touch for a moment, 
 though only with the utmost diffidence, on the 
 theme that always lay nearest to his heart, though 
 it was too sacred to be always on his lips. The 
 most important thing that existed for Henry 
 Whitehead was his religious faith, which with him 
 was the central fact of the inner life, while at the 
 same time it was the guiding principle of all his 
 outward acts. In the first place, with regard to 
 religious dogma his belief was absolutely simple 
 and sincere. The fundamental tenets of Christi- 
 anity were not things he enforced by argument ; 
 indeed a reader of his discourses might fancy him 
 unconscious of the fact that the tenets could ever 
 be questioned, or that arguments had ever been 
 used about them. Whitehead's attitude, however, 
 was not due to any mere Paradisaical ignorance 
 of the shadows and difficulties of actual life, but 
 to a faith that had ascended through these to a 
 region where they disappeared in the light of all- 
 embracing truth. One of those sincere Christian
 
 AS A WRITER I93 
 
 dogmatists who wrestle in argument with the 
 doubter or the profane, might have thought him 
 indifferent to this side of the preacher's mission, 
 but this was not the truth of the matter. He knew 
 that there are other methods of persuasion besides 
 argument, and indeed no argument could be half 
 so effective for the purpose in view as the mere 
 fact of the absolute rest in Christian doctrine of 
 such a man as Whitehead. An intellect the most 
 penetrating, most skilled in the detection of 
 sophistries, a surpassing knowledge of the human 
 heart and keen insight into the real needs and 
 difficulties of his fellow men, a mental integrity 
 withal, and an intrepid courage that would never 
 have suffered him to palter with or belie conviction 
 all these were his, and to what conclusion did 
 they lead him ? To an open and manly self-sur- 
 render, to a subjection of his whole moral and 
 spiritual being to what was to him the great fact 
 of the human universe, the filial relation through 
 Christ of man to God. This fact, he felt, is one 
 that speaks for itself ; once known and recognized, 
 it must needs work its own influence, just as the 
 mere life of Christ or of Paul was in itself per- 
 suasive as being something independent of and 
 above their distinctive words and actions. The 
 fact that such a man, so capable of argument, 
 did not argue, says more for the conclusion in 
 which he was content to abide than a thousand 
 homilies. 
 
 "But in Whitehead's Christianity there was
 
 194 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 more than this. It is beautiful, it is touching 
 even, to see the strong man putting off his intel- 
 lectual harness, and losing himself in humility in 
 the divine love and truth. No one ever obeyed 
 more sincerely the sublime injunction : ' Except 
 ye become as little children ye shall not enter 
 into the kingdom of Heaven.' If ever denizens 
 of that kingdom have lived on earth, if ever its 
 methods and its spirit have been apprehended 
 by mortal and fallible men, among these men is 
 Henry Whitehead. 
 
 " From his apprehension of the essential prin- 
 ciple that is at the heart of Christianity the 
 all-importance of the Spirit, the comparative 
 indifference of outward words and acts he drew 
 a practical corollary, ' Where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is there is liberty.' The thoughts and acts 
 of all those who are living in the kingdom of 
 Heaven should proceed from the heart. If that 
 is right with God, then the outward expression of 
 the life is perfectly free and spontaneous, and 
 the actual form of it matters little. It will often 
 be unexpected, even paradoxical, but if it pro- 
 ceeds from the right source the essential point 
 has been gained. From this conviction, which 
 we might call the ' Word of the Lord ' that came 
 to him, arose his instinctive shrinking from 
 exercising authority or influence over others, except 
 in the way of helping to clear their spiritual vision, 
 and so purify will and action at their springs. He 
 expresses himself on this point in the characteristic
 
 AS A WRITER , 95 
 
 phrase that opens a sermon on 'Freewill in 
 Well-doing,' the text of which is from the Epistle 
 to Philemon, in the spirit and manner of which he 
 naturally took the keenest delight : ' It is worth 
 while taking any trouble to let a man do right of 
 his own accord.' Hence he seemed to adopt at 
 times in dealing with others a policy that might 
 be termed one of laissez faire. He would efface 
 himself, not from any want of sympathy or interest, 
 but because he believed that only one thing really 
 mattered the relation of the heart to God. That 
 relation seemed to him so inward and sacred a 
 thing that it could not be worked upon by the 
 ordinary clumsy methods of argument or moral 
 suasion. It was repugnant to the Christian ideal 
 for any one to thrust himself upon his fellow, 
 or attempt to force the actions of others in directions 
 that seemed, in his own limited view, to be the 
 right ones. Believing as he did implicitly in the 
 reality and potency of the direct intercourse of the 
 Divine spirit with the human, he would judge it 
 best to stand aside and suffer this to proceed in 
 its own good way and to its own results. 
 
 "In this attitude, as in his complete unworldli- 
 ness in all that concerned his personal career, he 
 was simply carrying this principle out into practice. 
 His friends were at times tempted to feel half 
 provoked at his self-effacement. ' Here is a man,' 
 they would say, ' to whom has been granted an 
 exceptionally clear insight into important truths of 
 life, and yet he takes no pains to make his message
 
 196 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 heard by as many of his fellows as he can. We 
 do not ask him to "strive or cry," but only to 
 follow the example of the Master who taught the 
 many in frequented places as well as the few in 
 solitudes. We do not want him to discard the 
 lesson conveyed in the words, " Man, who made 
 me a judge or a divider over you?" while yet he 
 might help by decisive moral impact some of those 
 who are hardly to be touched by the more subtle 
 spiritual influences.' The thought is a natural 
 one, and yet, on the other hand, he may have been 
 doing a higher work for his fellows by this absolute, 
 almost Quixotic reliance on the ways of the Spirit 
 as against the ways of the world, than if he had 
 adapted himself more to the ordinary standards. 
 It was not in his character to become like the 
 keen and mobile Apostle to the Gentiles, 'all 
 things to all men,' in restless endeavour to win 
 them by one means or another to Christ. He 
 stood apart in a sort of monumental isolation, a 
 notable figure of his time, though so little observed 
 of his contemporaries. His teaching has come 
 down to us in unalloyed purity, and it is for those 
 who accepted it to use their opportunities to spread 
 the influence of it into wider and yet widening 
 circles."
 
 APPENDIX I 
 THE EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 
 
 A farewell speech, addressed to friends assembled to take leave of him, 
 at the ' Rainbow Tavern,' Fleet Street, on January i6th, 1874, by the 
 Rev. H. Whitehead, Vicar of St. John's, Limehouse. 
 
 MY good friend, the chairman, 1 has said kind things of me, to 
 which you have warmly responded, and you have given me 
 a beautiful cup, on which your names, and those of other 
 friends who have contributed to it, are to be inscribed; for 
 which manifestations of your goodwill I heartily thank you. 
 But, were I able to express my thanks ever so eloquently, I 
 could give you no adequate idea of the pleasure afforded me 
 by such a meeting as this, at which, when I look round, I see 
 familiar faces more or less associated in my memory with every 
 parish with which as a clergyman I have been connected. 
 
 Those parishes are seven 2 in number, all situated in London, 
 and I have passed through them with no immunity from the 
 proverbial fate of the rolling stone. But now that so great an 
 authority as the Bishop of Manchester has spoken disrespect- 
 fully of the process of, as he calls it, " vegetating twenty years 
 
 J J. G. Fitch. 
 
 2 St. Luke's, Berwick Street, from June 15, 1851, to March 25, 1856; 
 St. Matthew's, Westminster, from March 25, 1856, to December 25, 1856 ; 
 Holy Trinity, Clapham, from December 25, 1856, to Aug. 25, 1864; St. 
 Anne's, Highgate Rise, from August 25, 1864, to September 29, 186 
 Peter's, Stepney, from September 29, 1867, to Dec. 25, 1869 ; S 
 Hammersmith, from December 25, 1869, to March 25, 1871 5 S 
 Limehouse, from March 25, 1871, to February 25, 1874.
 
 198 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 in one place," I perhaps ought not to waste any regret upon 
 the "moss" which the "rolling stone" is alleged not to 
 "gather." Whatever else I may have failed to gather, it is 
 no slight compensation to have had the good fortune to gather 
 friends ; in which respect, if in no other, the rolling stone has 
 perhaps some advantages over its stationary brother. 
 
 Now the promoters of this meeting wish me to tell you the 
 story of my London life. It will, I fear, be rather a long story; 
 and, though I need not be deterred from telling it by any fear 
 that I may have to address an unsympathetic audience, I do 
 not think I could presume to make such a demand upon your 
 patience but for the opportunities it will afford me of talking 
 about my London friends. 
 
 There are but two of you whose acquaintance I do not owe 
 to London ; and those two are a remnant of a society which, 
 if its origin be traceable to Oxford, is more identified in my 
 mind with London. It so happened that soon after I had 
 been appointed to my first curacy there sprang up among the 
 old pupils of Mr. Mark Pattison, the present rector, then 
 fellow and tutor, of our college, a desire to present him with 
 a token of our respect and gratitude. The meetings of the 
 London committee, which undertook the carrying out of this 
 object, were found to be so well attended and so pleasant, 
 that, instead of dissolving itself when its primary purpose was 
 accomplished, this committee grew into a sort of club, which 
 met in various places, sometimes in the very room in which 
 we are now assembled. This club has long been but a tradi- 
 tion of the past. Only two of its members, Thomas Kebbel 
 and Robert Pritchard, 1 besides myself, are here to-night. Of 
 the rest, some are in their graves, others have left London, 
 others are in distant lands ; and if, perchance, a report of the 
 present gathering should reach our antipodes, it may interest 
 the former secretary of our social club, Gowen Evans, 2 now 
 conductor of the Melbourne Argus, and Frank Simmons, 3 now 
 
 1 R. A. Pritchard, D.C.L., Registrar of the Probate Court. 
 
 a Mr. Evans died while these sheets were passing through the press. 
 
 'Since dead.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 199 
 
 principal of Dunedin College, to know that their names were 
 mentioned with affectionate remembrance within these walls. 
 I lived in those days in Soho Square, a place, by reason of 
 its central situation, easy of access, and friends readily found 
 their way to my rooms. Mr. Pattison, when in town, would 
 sometimes look in upon me, and once or twice I caught sight 
 of him in church, when, I am ashamed to confess, I felt a 
 secret satisfaction at its not being my turn to preach. I know 
 now, as I did not then know, that the severest critics of ser- 
 mons are not the men of Mr. Pattison's calibre. 
 
 The church at which I was then officiating was St. Luke's, 
 Berwick Street, Soho, where I had the unusual experience of 
 serving under three successive incumbents. You often hear 
 of a vicar changing his curates, but not of a curate at the 
 same church changing his vicars. Of course I do not mean 
 that I had any hand in bringing about these changes, 
 though I must not assume that you will take this for 
 granted when I call to mind a story told me the other 
 day by one who is now sitting at this table. He has 
 known a rector who, having difficulties with his curate, 
 said, " It has come to this, that either you or I must go." 
 " Very well, sir," replied the curate, " / do not mean to go." 
 So the rector went home, and, after due consideration, sent off 
 his resignation to the bishop. This was not the way I parted 
 with my first incumbent, Mr. Stooks, 1 who had kindly given 
 me my title to orders at a time when it was not so easy to 
 obtain a title as it has of late years become. Nowadays the 
 demand for curates is greater than the supply, and even a 
 young man in search of a title can pick and choose from the 
 numerous answers to his advertisements. It was very different 
 in my young days. But if I had my time to come over again, 
 and curacies were " plenty as blackberries," I would begin by 
 preference at St. Luke's, Berwick Street. " It is a place," said 
 Mr. Stooks, " for such as care more for the approval than for 
 the applause of men " : an excellent saying, which I commend 
 to the serious consideration of all candidates for orders. 
 1 Hon. Prebendary of St. Paul's.
 
 200 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 When I had been at St. Luke's fourteen months, Mr. Stocks 
 was transferred to St. Anne's, Highgate Rise, and on leaving 
 recommended me to his successor, Henry Jones, 1 whom, for 
 the sake of distinction, I will call Harry Jones the First. He 
 too was in due time promoted, and departed, recommending 
 me to his successor, Samuel Arnott. 2 Some years after I had 
 left St. Luke's I was one day walking down Parliament Street 
 with a London incumbent, when we met Mr. Jones, who 
 turned and walked with us to Westminster. " It is very 
 pleasant," said my companion, " to see the friendly way in 
 which you two men can meet each other." " But why should 
 it be otherwise ?" asked Mr. Jones. " Well," said the other, 
 " I have had, whether as curate or incumbent, a different 
 experience." Whereupon I remarked that I had been for- 
 tunate in my incumbents. I am sorry that neither of the 
 three whom I have mentioned could be here to-night, the more 
 so as two of them are kept away by illness. To this day they 
 are my friends. And now, as though I had a vested interest in 
 the friendship of the incumbents of St. Luke's, here sits, this 
 evening, Harry Jones the Second, now rector of St. George's- 
 in-the-East, but for fifteen years widely and honourably known 
 as incumbent of St. Luke's, Berwick Street. I was never his 
 curate, but it seems to me the most natural thing in the world 
 that we should be friends. I am very glad he is here, for 
 he can tell you that St. Luke's is a place well worth remem- 
 bering. He knows why it is that an interval of eighteen years 
 has not obliterated from my memory the recollection of such 
 men as James Aldous the churchwarden, and Edward Orme 
 the clerk. Did time permit, I could tell many a pleasant 
 anecdote of Mr. Aldous, who lived next door to me in Soho 
 Square, a venerable man of imposing aspect and somewhat 
 eccentric force of character. It must suffice to say that my 
 intercourse with him imbued me with a respect for the office of 
 churchwarden, which further experience has in no way tended 
 to diminish, and which, if it ever had been diminished, would 
 
 1 Confrater of Wyggeston Hospital, and Vicar of St. Nicholas', Leicester. 
 
 2 Vicar of Turnham Green.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 201 
 
 certainly have been re-established by my friend, Mr. George 
 Smith, churchwarden of St. John's, Limehouse, in whose 
 presence to-night I am glad to bear this testimony to the value 
 of an office the duties of which he most admirably discharges. 
 My good old friend Mr. Aldous has long been dead ; but Mr. 
 Orme still survives, and, though he no longer leads the re- 
 sponses, is still the clerk of St. Luke's. To say Amen is but a 
 small part of the duties of a parish clerk. He can be in his 
 way almost as useful as a churchwarden ; and when I mention 
 that Mr. Orme was the voluntary superintendent of our Boys' 
 Sunday school, it will be easily understood that his interest in 
 the affairs of the church was not of a perfunctory kind. St. 
 Luke's was fortunate in its officials. It was not the mere 
 nominal salary which could have attracted a substantial trades- 
 man like Mr. Orme to the clerk's desk ; nor could that object 
 have taken Thomas Robson, of the well-known firm of organ- 
 builders, into the organ loft ; no, nor could that alone have 
 drawn Joseph Gilson to the bellows. Many years, even in my 
 time, had he blown them (H. Jones : " He blows them still ") ; 
 and long may he continue to do so. Mr. Gilson is employed 
 during the week in a large workshop, and has not many 
 holidays, but some of them he has spent with me in other 
 places where I have since held curacies. I never forget my 
 St. Luke's friends, and it is pleasant to be reminded that they 
 do not forget me. The other day Mr. Robson, though I had 
 not seen him for many years, took some pains to do me an 
 unsolicited service, and I know that it is only from illness that 
 he is not with us at this moment. When I went to thank him 
 for his kindness we talked over the old days, just as school- 
 mates who have been long parted talk over the old school. 
 We talked of the men I have already mentioned ; also of 
 Joseph Randall, the St. James's national schoolmaster, who, 
 for want of accommodation at St. James's, had to bring his 
 boys on Sundays to St. Luke's, and whose uncomfortable posi- 
 tion in the gallery led me to suggest, at a meeting in S 
 James's vestry, held " to consider the causes of the neglect of 
 public worship by the working classes," that one cause of this
 
 202 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 neglect might be the unpleasant recollection they retained 
 of attendance at church in their Sunday school days. " Well," 
 said the Bishop of London (Dr. Blomfield), who was present, 
 " there is a good deal of truth in that." Mr. Randall, who is 
 now dead, was a prominent man in his profession, one to 
 whom the London schoolmasters were wont to have recourse 
 when they wanted a spokesman or a chairman. I had no 
 official connection with him beyond preaching to him on the 
 Sunday ; but he was the first of a series of schoolmasters 
 whose friendship I have highly valued, the last of whom, Mr. 
 Charles Clifton, of St. John's, Limehouse, I am happy to see 
 here to-night. Mr. Randall dearly loved a discussion, and 
 many a stoutly contested argument have I taken part in over a 
 cup of tea with him and his friend, James Richardson, the 
 scripture-reader of St. Luke's, a Scotchman, brimful of meta- 
 physics, and the most felicitous quoter of Burns and Scott 
 whom I have ever known. Mr. Richardson had in early life 
 enlisted in the Grenadier Guards, and had, by the force of his 
 character and talents, risen to the post of schoolmaster- 
 sergeant, which he filled with such ability that he became, as I 
 was informed by the non-commissioned officers whom I used 
 to meet at his rooms, quite a power in the regiment. Not 
 unfrequently I observed a red coat in St. Luke's church, and I 
 knew that it was some one or other of Sergeant Richardson's 
 " boys," as he always called them. Several of these " boys "- 
 Drum-major Green and others, with their wives I remember 
 meeting at supper at Mr. Richardson's house on the eve of the 
 embarkation of the regiment for the Crimean war ; and some 
 of the same, one of them having lost an arm, I again met 
 there on their return, when of course the battle of Inkerman 
 formed the chief topic of the conversation. Mr. Richardson 
 would sometimes spend an evening with me in Soho Square, 
 and more than one of my friends, and clever men too, whom 
 he met there, have acknowledged to me that they found them- 
 selves no match in argument and repartee for the " sergeant." 
 I need scarcely say that such a Scotchman as Mr. Richardson 
 knew the Bible almost by heart, or that such a soldier was
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 203 
 
 punctuality itself. We had a custom at St. Luke's, an excellent 
 one, established by Mr. Stocks, and continued by his suc- 
 cessors, of meeting together, clergy and scripture-readers, every 
 day at twelve o'clock at the vestry. One day, during the 
 cholera epidemic of 1854, the sergeant did not appear at the 
 usual place of meeting. I knew that there could be but one 
 reason for this unprecedented occurrence, and therefore on 
 leaving the vestry I went at once to Mr. Richardson's house, 
 where I found him in bed, and suffering from cholera. " I 
 knew you would come," he said. " And I knew," I replied, 
 " how I should find you when I did come." He then told me 
 how he had been engaged since we had parted on the pre- 
 ceding day, and in particular related a conversation he had had 
 with a man who had often been rude to him, but whose rude- 
 ness had now given way to fright. " And what," said this 
 man, "is the best thing to take for cholera?" "I don't know 
 what to take," said Mr. Richardson, " but I know what to do. 
 It may neither prevent nor cure cholera ; but it will save me 
 from what is worse than cholera, i.e. from fear." " But what 
 is your antidote ?" "I shall look up to my God," said the 
 sergeant, " and though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 
 Mr. Richardson recovered from his sickness to " fight a good 
 fight " in the cause of his Master for many a year to come. But 
 he is now in his grave ; and in the long list of my friends I 
 recognize no more honourable name than that of the ex- 
 sergeant of the Grenadier Guards. The cholera of 1854, as 
 you all know, ravaged the neighbourhood of Berwick Street 
 with unparalleled severity. Within an area of 250 yards radius 
 there were nearly 700 deaths in a fortnight, and close around 
 St. Luke's church was the thick of the slaughter. I could 
 point to four houses within an average distance of fifteen yards 
 from that church which collectively lost thirty-four of their 
 habitants in four days. But I will not dwell on the painl 
 scenes of the outbreak. It had its bright side. It did . 
 heart good to witness the behaviour of the people, 
 one house, a woman assiduously nurse as many as seven of Y 
 fellow lodgers, who died in quick succession during the I
 
 204 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 five days of September, and, by her calm demeanour, sustain 
 the spirits of the living, till she herself fell the eighth victim to 
 the disease. In another house a wife was watching by the 
 bedside of her husband, when late in the night a gentle tap 
 summoned her to the door to welcome the sympathizing 
 countenance of a stranger. " Your husband is ill," said this 
 unknown friend, " and you sat up with him last night ; I will 
 sit by him to-night": and then she proceeded at once to the 
 bedside to nurse the sick man. " There, he is better now," 
 she said in the morning, " I think you will be able to manage"; 
 and then withdrew as quietly as she came. Two or three 
 times afterwards she presented herself at the door, but only to 
 ask after the object of her tender solicitude, and immediately 
 to retire. She never gave her name. Another woman I had 
 observed manifesting such skill and courage in nursing cholera 
 patients in the house in which she lived that a few days later, 
 when I found a man struck down by the disease in a house 
 where no one seemed to know what to do for him, I went at 
 once to her and told her what I had seen. In less time than 
 I take to tell the story her bonnet was on and she was on her 
 way with me to the place I had mentioned, where she nursed 
 the sick man night and day for eight-and-forty hours, and had 
 the satisfaction of seeing him safe past the crisis. But these, 
 you may think, were exceptional cases. Well, the skill no doubt 
 was exceptional, but not the courage, nor the will to help. As 
 for panic, there was none ; which I confess somewhat surprised 
 me, as I had always heard and read that great pestilences were 
 invariably attended with wholesale demoralization of the popu- 
 lace. Of the clergy of the churches situated in the stricken 
 district it is not for me to say more than that they did their 
 duty ; but I may be permitted to say of my friend, Mr. Arnott, 
 then my incumbent, that, whereas he had gone for his holiday 
 just before the outbreak, a line from me briefly relating what 
 was happening in his parish brought him by the first possible 
 train to his post, and he had no more holiday that year. The 
 district visitors of St Luke's at that time were, as a body, 
 beyond question the best I have ever known. It may be that
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 205 
 
 in such a neighbourhood few undertake the office but such as 
 have a natural gift for the work. " It did my heart good to 
 look at her," said a poor man to me of one of our St. Luke's 
 visitors, who had gone to sympathize with him in a grievous 
 trouble which had befallen him. During the first two days of 
 the cholera outbreak I much wished to see this lady, but did 
 not happen to meet her, though I well knew that she could not 
 be far off. But on the third day, which was Sunday, just 
 before morning service, she came into the vestry, shook hands 
 with us all round, and scarcely saying a word retired to her seat 
 in the church. I never knew her come into the vestry before 
 or afterwards. She would be very much surprised were she to 
 hear me say, " It did us good to look at her." But no one 
 else who had ever seen her would be surprised. In seasons 
 of extreme peril there is magical influence in the speaking eye 
 of the spiritual enthusiast. And that was indeed a time of 
 peril. Bear in mind what I told you of the mortality close 
 around the church in which we were then assembled, and you 
 will understand that shaking hands was no conventional affair 
 that morning. The friend with whom one shook hands in the 
 morning might be dead before night, and buried before the 
 next night. There lay dead that very morning, just opposite 
 the church, a doctor who had gone his round on the Friday 
 morning, and whose death we first heard of in the vestry before 
 service. He had faithfully done his duty, as did every member 
 of his profession. Indeed I have never witnessed more admir- 
 able self-devotion than was displayed during that terrible 
 outbreak by the medical practitioners of the neighbourhood. 
 Of the truth of this remark were it not invidious to mention 
 names when all did nobly I could give many striking illus- 
 trations. Yet, for wholly exceptional reasons, I may say a few 
 words about Dr. John Snow as great a benefactor, in my 
 opinion, to the human race, as has appeared in the present 
 century. I am speaking in the presence of one, himself of 
 more than European reputation on the subject of cholera, Mr. 
 Netten Radcliffe, who, I well know, will bear me out in that 
 assertion. Dr. Snow had long believed that he had discovered
 
 206 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 the mode in which cholera is propagated, and fortunately he 
 was at hand to direct an inquiry into the cause of the Broad 
 Street outbreak, which inquiry resulted in a remarkable con- 
 firmation of his hypothesis. The story of his researches, and 
 of this investigation in particular, I have elsewhere 1 related at 
 some length, and therefore I will not now go into the subject. 
 What I here chiefly wish to dwell upon is the calm prophetic 
 way in which he would talk of the ultimate results of the doc- 
 trine which he had laid down. " You and I," he would say to 
 me, "may not live to see the day, and my name may be 
 forgotten when it comes ; but the time will arrive when great 
 outbreaks of cholera will be things of the past ; and it is the 
 knowledge of the way in which the disease is propagated which 
 will cause them to disappear." He died in 1858, and since his 
 death we have seen a complete revolution in the mode of 
 investigating the causes of cholera and typhoid, a revolution 
 already fruitful in beneficial consequences, and destined here- 
 after to achieve all the important results that he anticipated. 
 He did not in his lifetime receive all the recognition which 
 was due to his genius, though unstinted respect was paid to his 
 character. " Dr. Snow's views on cholera," said a medical 
 friend to me in 1855, " are generally regarded in the profession 
 as very unsound." " If that be the case," I replied, " heresy 
 may be as good a thing in your profession as some of you are 
 apt to suppose it is in mine." A portrait of Dr. Snow hangs 
 on my study wall, and ever serves to remind me that in any 
 profession the highest order of work is achieved, not by fussy 
 empirical demand for " something to be done," but by patient 
 study of the eternal laws. 2 
 
 From St. Luke's, Berwick Street, I migrated, in March 
 1856, to St. Matthew's, Great Peter Street, Westminster, 
 which was at that time, and for aught I know, may be 
 still, one of the strangest districts in London. It was then 
 called "The Devil's Acre." I shall not now refer to its 
 peculiarities, as I have described them in the pages of a 
 
 1 Macmillan's Magazine, December 1865, and July 1866. 
 
 2 Mr. Radcliffe here rose and made a few observations.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 207 
 
 review 1 well known to most of the present company. I 
 could get no lodgings nearer to my work than Pimlico, 
 where I lived in the same house with Sir John Ross, the 
 Arctic navigator, who, to my great regret, died just when 
 I had become well acquainted with him. I have in my 
 study, as a memento of him, a canister of spiced beef, 
 which he gave me, and which bears an inscription in his 
 handwriting to the effect that it has been twice to the Arctic 
 regions. I read the burial service over him at Kensal Green, 
 which I have reason to remember from the circumstance 
 of its having been the first occasion of my reading that 
 service; and another reason for my remembering it was the 
 crowd of Arctic sailors who stood round the grave. Sir 
 John used to sleep with his window open on the coldest 
 nights, and very cold it was on the night of his death, when 
 I sat on one side of his bed and our landlady on the other. 
 No one else was present. Of this landlady I must not omit 
 to relate that her attention and kindness to Sir John and 
 myself were in strange contrast to the characteristics which 
 some smart writers are never tired of ascribing to her class. 
 I never had occasion to find fault with her but once. " Your 
 charges," I said, after running my eye over the monthly 
 account, "are, I am sorry to say, incorrect." " Indeed, sir," 
 
 she said, "I had no idea" "But," I added, interrupting 
 
 her, "you had better hear me out. I merely wish to observe 
 that you have not charged me for several things which I 
 have had." This good woman used to exercise a vigilant 
 supervision over my visitors. On my return home one after- 
 noon I found on my table a note, written in pencil by a 
 intimate friend of mine, to this effect: "I would have wail 
 for your return, but I really cannot stay any longer, ft 
 landlady keeps coming in and out, and evidently t 
 a thief" I did not remonstrate with her for this, f< 
 she would have said, "Well, but you know you do h 
 very suspicious characters here sometimes"; and 
 not have denied the imputation, for many a tic! 
 1 Contemporary Review, February 1873.
 
 208 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 man from Duck Lane and Pye Street had to come to me 
 for my signature on the back of his ticket; but I do not 
 think that my friend looked like a suspicious character. I 
 remained but nine months at St. Matthew's, and I cannot 
 say that I was sorry to leave it, though on looking back I 
 can see that my stay there was in several respects a 
 valuable experience. Especially I regard it as having been 
 of essential service to me that my preaching during those 
 nine months was confined to the afternoon congregation, 
 which rarely included more than half a dozen grown up 
 persons. One of the half dozen is now sitting at this 
 table, my friend William Driver, with whom I used always 
 to walk over Westminster Bridge after service to take 
 tea at his house in the Belvedere Road. He knows why 
 I now say that if I had despotic authority in ecclesiastical 
 arrangements, I would for a time confine the preaching 
 of every young clergyman to a very scanty congregation, 
 provided I could ensure that his hearers, though few, 
 should be fit. It would be a most wholesome discipline. 
 After tea I used to return over the bridge to spend 
 the evening in a ragged school in Pye Street another 
 useful experience. Our scholars, as was to be expected in 
 Pye Street, were rather a turbulent lot. "Really, sir," said 
 a man to me one evening as I passed him on my way to 
 the school, "I do think the police should put a stop to 
 this nuisance. Before this confounded school came here a 
 fellow could sit and smoke his pipe in peace on a Sunday 
 evening; but there's no peace nor quietness now." I 
 explained to him, but I fear without making much impression, 
 that he looked at the matter from a somewhat narrow point 
 of view, and that he must suffer for the good of posterity. 
 Ragged schools have now nearly had their day, but they 
 have in their time done a great work. The Pye Street 
 school is always associated in my remembrance with Mr. 
 John Macgregor, who used to come occasionally to deliver 
 the address with which the proceedings of a ragged school 
 invariably terminate. It was his regular practice to visit
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 209 
 
 some school for this purpose every Sunday evening, and I 
 doubt not it is in a great measure owing to his long experi- 
 ence of ragged schools that he is now one of the most useful 
 members of the London School Board. One of my fellow- 
 teachers in this same school, at that time a young man 
 reading for holy orders, was to have occupied the chair 
 which you see vacant on my right hand. His absence, what- 
 ever may be its cause, is, I well know, due to no lack of 
 sympathy with me, for I have no dearer friend. He had 
 a long way to walk from his lodgings to attend the school, 
 but he rarely failed to be at his post. After school he always 
 went home with me to supper, to my great satisfaction, for 
 at no time is the society of a congenial friend more acceptable 
 than when one's day's work is over on Sunday. Many Sunday 
 evenings he and I were destined to spend together in another 
 part of London, for he afterwards became my fellow-curate 
 at Clapham. Some of you will know that I am speaking of 
 John Healy, now vicar of Studley in Yorkshire, and to others 
 the name will sound familiar as that of one whom I am accus- 
 tomed to mention as one of the most instructive preachers 
 I have ever heard. Another of my Clapham colleagues, 
 Brownrigg Smith, is also associated in my recollection with 
 St. Matthew's, Westminster, where he used to preach occa- 
 sionally in the absence of Mr. Malone, the incumbent. The 
 first sermon I heard him preach so interested me that, instead 
 of going straight back to Pimlico, I walked with him to his 
 own home at Brixton, the City of London Freemen's School, 
 of which he was the head-master, and I was as much interested 
 by his conversation as I had been by his sermon. Soon after 
 I had become curate at Clapham, one of my college friends 
 came to see me, and in the course of conversation said : 
 "Have you fallen in with Brownrigg Smith out here?" 
 "Yes," I said, "he has called on me several times. Do 
 you know him?" "Do you like him?" he asked, without 
 answering my question. " Of course I do ; we shall be great 
 friends." " And why couldn't you be friends when I wanted 
 you to be friends?" He then reminded me that three or 
 
 o
 
 2io HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 four years back he had asked us both to his rooms. "And 
 I told both of you," he added, " before you came, that you 
 ought to know each other." Yet so little impression had 
 this meeting made upon either of us that when we next met, 
 at St. Matthew's, it was as strangers. So much for bringing 
 men together in order that they may be friends. It was after 
 I had been about two years at Clapham that Smith, being 
 appointed Sunday evening lecturer by the rector, became 
 my colleague at the parish church. 
 
 But I must explain to you how I got to Clapham. In 
 the last week of September 1856, I received a letter from 
 Harry Jones the First, then incumbent of St. Peter's, Croydon, 
 to the effect that his curate, John Tottenham, who was well 
 known to me, had been appointed to the junior curacy of 
 Clapham, and that he (H. Jones), having seen the rector, 
 was of opinion that I should apply for the senior curacy, 
 which was then vacant. I did not altogether coincide with 
 this opinion, having heard, on what I considered good 
 authority, that the rector was "a very fastidious man." 
 However, I wrote to the rector the same day, merely stating 
 a few facts, such as my age, degree, etc. On the evening 
 of the following day I was sitting without my coat, smoking 
 a long " churchwarden," waiting for a friend who had promised 
 to come to tea, when I heard the wheels of a carriage stop 
 at my door. " Surely," I thought, " my friend has not been 
 extravagant enough to take a cab ! " Presently my landlady 
 opened the door and announced " Mr. Bowyer." I rose to 
 receive the " fastidious man," thinking to myself as I did so 
 "Well, at any rate, the interview will soon be over." He 
 had my letter open in his hand as he entered the room, and, 
 standing still when he had advanced about a couple of steps, 
 with a fatherly tone in his voice and a merry twinkle in his 
 eye, he said : " Mr. Whitehead, there is one piece of informa- 
 tion in this letter which is quite unnecessary. I perceive 
 you are not a married man." I at once perceived that I was 
 destined to be his curate. He sat down and talked with me 
 some time, and as he rose to go said : " Have you got a
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 211 
 
 sermon for Michaelmas Day?" which happened to be the 
 following Monday. "Yes," I said; "the only saint's day 
 sermon I have." "Come and preach it then." So I went 
 to Clapham on the Monday, and preached my one saint's 
 day sermon to a congregation of eleven ladies. " You don't 
 seem disconcerted," the rector said afterwards in the vestry, 
 "at having to address a small audience." "No," I said, 
 "I am used to that." "Then, if you come here would you 
 like always to preach on the saints' days ? " " By all means." 
 It was then agreed upon between us that I should come to 
 him at Christmas, for I had of course to give the usual 
 three months' notice at St. Matthew's. Meanwhile friends 
 asked me what was to be my stipend, to which question I 
 replied that I didn't know. "But you surely will have an 
 understanding on that point?" "No," I said; "the rector 
 does not seem the sort of man with whom it is necessary 
 to stipulate." I heard, however, that my predecessor had 
 had ^150 a year a fabulous sum it seemed to me, who 
 had hitherto had but a hundred. When on Lady Day, 1857, 
 the rector gave me a cheque for ^37 ios., I slowly shook 
 my head. "What's the matter?" he said. I then related 
 to him the parting advice of one of my brothers, who lived 
 with me in Soho Square till he went to Australia: "Harry, 
 never take a curacy over a hundred a year." " But why not, 
 Jack ? " " There is sure to be something very disagreeable 
 in the background." However, if there was anything dis- 
 agreeable in the background in this case it was obliging 
 enough to remain there, for, though I was with Mr. Bowyer 
 for seven years and a half, I never found it out. But it 
 must be borne in mind, in behalf of my brother's judgment, 
 that the regulation stipend of a curate has considerably risen 
 since the day when he took up his parable. 
 
 During the whole period of my stay at Clapham I continued 
 to preach on the saints' days, sometimes to a larger, but not 
 much larger, and sometimes to a less congregation than my 
 original eleven. Indeed, I have on a wet morning preached 
 to one lady, but one well worth preaching to, that is, for my
 
 212 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 own sake ; I am not alluding to any particular lady ; some- 
 times it might be one, sometimes another. Preaching is, to 
 the preacher himself, a valuable means of education when 
 he can take it for granted that his hearers know the Bible ; 
 and these ladies did know the Bible. I am not so sure 
 that I could derive any benefit from preaching to a jury of 
 critics who sneer at sermons as "fit only for women." I 
 make them a present of the admission that they would derive 
 no benefit from me. I took great interest in these saints' 
 day services, among other reasons, because I had not to 
 choose my subject. One of my Clapham friends, who is now 
 sitting next to me, James Knowles, said to me one evening : 
 " I observe that whenever a saint's day falls on a Sunday you 
 always make the saint the subject of your afternoon's sermon." 
 " Yes," I said, " I have contracted a habit of preaching on 
 the saints." "But how," he asked, "do you find enough 
 to say about them, or at all events about some of them?" 
 He then had the patience to listen to me whilst I ran through 
 the calendar, mentioning one or more central ideas suitable, 
 as I thought, to each day. When I had finished he urged 
 me to publish a volume of sermons on these subjects, and, 
 as you know, I followed his advice. Mr. Knowles was a 
 regular attendant at the Sunday afternoon service, which for 
 some years I had entirely to myself. I took my fair share 
 both of reading and preaching in the morning and evening, 
 but, except during two intervals, when I preached alternately 
 with Tottenham or Healy, I was alone in the afternoon ; and 
 I always preferred preaching in the afternoon to preaching 
 at the other services. I am no orator, and often feel, when 
 addressing a large audience, that most of my hearers may not 
 be in sympathy with me. I have felt the same sometimes 
 when addressing a small audience, but not on Sunday 
 afternoon at Clapham parish church. I have pleasant recol- 
 lections of that afternoon congregation ; I see them now in 
 my mind's eye ; the churchwarden, Joseph Freeman, and 
 his family, with whom I usually walked to the church; the 
 Thorntons, Mr. Thomas Hamilton, Mr. Philip Cazenove,
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 213 
 
 and others, whom if I do not mention it is not for want of 
 remembering ; sometimes, in a secluded corner, the Indepen- 
 dent minister ; and now and then, when he happened to be 
 staying at the rectory, my dear friend the late Bishop of 
 Argyll. But if the bishop sometimes listened to me, it is 
 more to the purpose to call to mind that it was at Clapham 
 I first had the privilege of listening to him, and of hearing 
 both from the pulpit and in conversation those inspiring 
 utterances the latest expression of which you will find in his 
 posthumous work on Revelation considered as Light. I shall 
 always remember with pleasure that during his last illness 
 he trusted me to see this book through the press. It was 
 published a few days after his death. A memoir of him, 
 you will be glad to hear, is now being written by one of 
 the present company, Mr. Ross, vicar of St. Philip's, Stepney. 
 It was not often, owing to his weak health, that Bishop 
 Ewing could be induced to preach for us ; but whenever the 
 rector said, " I think the Bishop is preachable," it was always 
 glad tidings, at least to some of us, for I am bound to admit 
 that the bishop was not a popular preacher. But a preacher 
 may have somewhat to say that is worth listening to, though 
 he be not popular. The rector himself was a case in point 
 He had none of the arts of the "acceptable" preacher, yet 
 he could preach very acceptably to such among his congrega- 
 tion as had outgrown their taste for mere rhetoric. He had 
 a very humble opinion of his own ability as a preacher. 
 "Only think," he said to me one Sunday morning, as he 
 entered the vestry, "of the archdeacon asking me to preach 
 the visitation sermon ! " " And why shouldn't he ? " I ^ asked. 
 " Well," he said, " I know why he shouldn't, if he don't ; and 
 therefore I shall politely beg to be excused." I went to the 
 almanack which hung on the wall, and, having seen * 
 the lessons for the visitation day were, looked them out 
 a Bible, when I found in the second lesson a text 
 which I had heard him preach what I considered an e 
 sermon "Why," I said, "you have a sermon ready f< 
 occasion" "What," he said, "is the subject?"
 
 214 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 seeking," I said, and then quoted the text. 1 "But what," 
 he asked, "is there in that sermon specially applicable to 
 the clergy ? " " Well, for the matter of that," I said, " we 
 clergy are, of all men, under the greatest temptation to seek 
 after a sign ; but we shall be grateful to any one, especially 
 the preacher of a visitation sermon, who, in giving us a 
 word of counsel on that point, will pay us the compliment 
 of addressing us as men rather than as clergymen." "There 
 is something in that," said the rector. So he preached the 
 visitation sermon, 2 and very well he did preach it. The 
 clergy, as they came out of the church, were very emphatic 
 in their commendation both of the sermon and of the way 
 in which it was delivered. But it amused me to hear the 
 tone of surprise with which some of them expressed their 
 commendation. " I had no idea," said one to me, " that 
 your rector could preach such a sermon as that." " Indeed ! " 
 I said ; " how often have you heard him preach ? " " Oh, 
 never before to-day." " Then of course there was no reason 
 why you should have had any idea of his capabilities as a 
 preacher ? " " No, but one hears what is said of him in that 
 respect." " Well, you will know for the future what value 
 to attach to the opinion of your informants." "But to-day 
 is a special occasion. He surely doesn't always preach such 
 a sermon as we have heard this morning ? " " Just an average 
 specimen," I said, and then I told him what I have told you 
 about the history of this particular sermon. The fact is that 
 such a sermon as this, one which went to the root of the 
 matter instead of scratching the surface, does not find accept- 
 ance with superficial hearers. Yet those are the people who- 
 are supposed, at any rate who suppose themselves, to be 
 hungering and thirsting after something better than they get 
 
 1 " And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him, 
 seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him. And He sighed 
 deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a 
 sign? Verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this 
 generation." Mark viii. n, 12. 
 
 3 At St. Saviour's, Southwark, on June 7, 1859.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 215 
 
 from their clergy. No doubt when the autumn comes round 
 again, and the newspapers have space to spare, we shall 
 have the usual letters from " Paterfamilias " and others of 
 these hungering souls, complaining of our incompetence. 
 The editors will again sum up the discussion, suggesting this 
 or that remedy for what is assumed to be an unquestioned 
 grievance; and we shall perhaps once more be told that the 
 grand desideratum for supplementing our deficiencies is a 
 bill in Parliament permitting the laity to preach. Well, be 
 it so. For my own part, I have only one objection to urge 
 against the Occasional Sermons Bill, viz., that it does not go 
 far enough. I am not content with a bill permitting the laity 
 to preach; I would have them under certain circumstances 
 compelled to preach. I would introduce a clause to the effect 
 that any layman proved by credible witnesses to have taken 
 a prominent part in the weekly condemnation of the previous 
 day's sermons which goes on in the Monday morning omnibus, 
 should be bound under heavy penalties to appear in the 
 pulpit on the following Sunday. Such a measure would, I 
 am persuaded, be the best antidote for what is fast becoming 
 an intolerable evil, viz., the modern doctrine of the infallibility 
 of the laity. Meanwhile I have often wondered that no 
 clergyman ever takes up his pen to describe the sort 
 sermon that sends "Paterfamilias" home in an ecstasy c 
 delight at having heard a "splendid discourse." 
 the editor won't insert such letters. But it is more 1 
 that the clergy never write them; for the clergy are * 
 suffering race. Still I am of opinion that somethmg 
 be done in this direction, and I take this opportumty c 
 suggesting to Mr. Knowles, whose impartiality as edit 
 the Contemporary Review is well known, and who \
 
 216 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 to monopolise the omnibus criticism of the Sunday sermons. 
 I am very fond of Clapham, and often indulge in pleasant 
 recollections of it and its people. In order to do so I have 
 only to take down from one of my study shelves a volume 
 the contents of which are not unknown to some of the 
 present company. It contains a complete file of the Clapham 
 Gazette for the whole time (7^ years) of my residence there. 
 Wherever I have lived I have always taken great interest in 
 the local newspapers, and therefore I had not been long in 
 Clapham before I became an occasional contributor to the 
 Gazette, the publisher and proprietor of which, Mr. George 
 Meaden, soon became, and still remains, one of my most 
 valued friends. His ideas and mine respecting the mode of 
 conducting a local paper being quite in accord, he allowed 
 me to write as much as I pleased in his columns, and a 
 great deal, on all sorts of subjects, I did write for him. 
 Moreover, I induced a good many of my friends to join 
 us in the work. The Gazette was a monthly paper, and 
 early in each month, in order to arrange the programme for 
 the ensuing number, I used to get together as many as I 
 could of the staff to dinner at my lodgings, in which tactics 
 I was materially assisted by my landlady, Mrs. Bishop, who, 
 as some of you are well aware, was a first-rate cook. 
 
 Nearly ten years have passed since I left Clapham, but, 
 look which way I will round this table, I see faces which 
 remind me of those gatherings. There sits my co-editor, 
 the publisher, his very occupation at the present moment 
 reminding me of the old days, for he is taking notes 1 of 
 what I am saying. He and I did the reporting for the 
 Gazette, and, though as a rule we gave full reports of the 
 speeches of our parochial orators, I am afraid we occasionally 
 gave offence by omitting some of the most forcible of their 
 utterances. Mr. Meaden now represents the Clapham district 
 at the Metropolitan Board of Works. The qualities which 
 have caused him to be elected to that board were of great 
 service in the municipal department of the Gazette. But 
 1 The speech has been written out from Mr. Meaden's notes.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 217 
 
 other departments were equally well served. Some of you 
 who have perhaps wondered at the excellence of articles 
 on educational subjects in the columns of the Gazette, will 
 no longer wonder when I tell you that they were written by 
 our chairman, Mr. Joshua Fitch. 1 The vacant chair on 
 my right, as I have said, should have been occupied by one 
 of my Clapham fellow-curates. He was our chief political 
 writer, and I have especial satisfaction in recording that his 
 views on the American civil war, though out of harmony with 
 the leanings of some of our readers, were fully justified by 
 the result and consequence of that great conflict. No reader 
 of the Gazette will have forgotten the songs, chiefly on parochial 
 subjects, which formed so prominent a feature of its contents. 
 Well, here sits the writer of them, Mr. Driver, and of much else 
 that appeared in our columns, for he, like myself, was told off 
 to no particular department, but wrote whatever happened to 
 be wanted. It was not often that we could get an article 
 from my friend on my right, Thomas Kebbel, but what we did 
 get made up in quality for what it lacked in quantity. In those 
 days the mind of Clapham was much exercised on the subject 
 of railway communication to the City, and our vice-chairman 
 this evening, Mr. Galland, who had special means of infor- 
 mation on the subject, gave his fellow parishioners the benefit 
 of his counsel about it in the pages of the Gazette ; but, if my 
 memory serves me right, the ratepayers of Clapham at their 
 public meetings concerning this matter did not follow his 
 advice. On my left sits another of our contributors, Henry 
 Lewis, now vicar of Stowmarket, formerly incumbent of St 
 Paul's, Clapham, who not only wrote for us whilst he was at 
 Clapham, but after his removal to Stowmarket began in our 
 columns a very interesting series of papers on parochial politics 
 
 which, however, I take this opportunity of reminding him 
 
 that he never finished. There is another friend here to-night, 
 one whose presence gives me peculiar pleasure, who, though he 
 was not one of our staff, used indirectly to furnish us with 
 'One of H.M. Inspectors of Schools, and an Assistant Commissioner 
 under the Endowed Schools Commission.
 
 218 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 " copy," since he delivered many excellent lectures at Clapham r 
 extracts from which I was always glad, with his permission, 
 to insert in the Gazette. I am speaking of Baldwin Brown, 
 whose books also, as they came out, we used to review. Our 
 reviews were chiefly done by Brownrigg Smith, sometimes 
 by my college friend Alfred Church, at that time a master 
 in Merchant Taylors' School, and now head-master of East 
 Retford Grammar School. Not but what they assisted us 
 also in other departments. Indeed, Smith being always at 
 hand, was regarded by me as one of the regular staff, and 
 those of you who knew him, and have therefore felt the charm 
 of his conversation, will understand that our meetings for 
 arranging the contents of the paper were always deemed 
 incomplete unless attended by Brownrigg Smith. Other names 
 I might mention of gentlemen, and of ladies also, who 
 occasionally wrote for us for I never lost an opportunity 
 of securing a likely contributor but the only other name 
 familiar to any of the present company is that of my eldest 
 brother, whose " Village Sketches," which in their collected 
 form * have now reached their third edition, and are well 
 known to most country clergymen, made their first appearance 
 in the Clapham Gazette. My dear brother is now beyond the 
 reach of human praise, and therefore I have the less hesitation 
 in stating my opinion that these sketches, on the subjects 
 with which they deal, are the best manual for the clergy r 
 whether in town or country, with which I am acquainted. 
 As I have good reason to know that but for our Gazette they 
 would never have been written, I may fairly say that our paper 
 was of some use. And so it was, though not perhaps as 
 obviously, in many other ways. Yet I do not say that it was a 
 prophet in its own country. One evening at a dinner party in 
 Clapham, when something which had appeared in the Gazette 
 became a subject of conversation, a lady who was present, 
 
 1 Village Sketches, descriptive of Club and School Festivals and other 
 Village Gatherings and Institutions, by T. C. Whitehead, M.A., head- 
 master of Christ's College, Finchley, late incumbent of Gawcott, Bucks. 
 Third Edition. Routledge. 1870.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 219 
 
 hearing the Gazette mentioned, with which she did not know 
 
 that I had any connection, turned to me and said, " I suppose 
 
 it's a low vulgar paper?" I merely replied that I believed it 
 
 was so regarded by some people. I did not ask her whether she 
 
 ever read it, as I had no reason to suppose that, had she read it, 
 
 she would have had a different opinion of its contents. She 
 
 could not have failed to perceive that on several subjects it did 
 
 not represent the views of " society" ; nor would she have held 
 
 it in much better estimation, though doubtless she would have 
 
 expressed herself differently, had she known who were its 
 
 writers, for their political opinions were not in favour with the 
 
 circle in which she moved. " Isn't it strange," said another 
 
 lady to a friend of mine, " that so good a Tory as our rector 
 
 should have three such Radical curates?" The rector, no 
 
 doubt, was a Tory ; but his political creed, like that of many 
 
 other Tories whom I have known, had nothing in common 
 
 with that of those whose Conservatism is a mere clinging to 
 
 what is conventionally held to be the "gentlemanly" side. 
 
 That we were not very revolutionary characters the rector's 
 
 tolerance of us would of itself suffice to prove ; and as for 
 
 the Gazette, its Radicalism could not have been of a very 
 
 subversive type, when it numbered amongst its contributors my 
 
 friend Kebbel, who, for I know not how many years, has been 
 
 a very pillar of the Conservative press. By the way, one of the 
 
 articles he wrote for us was on the subject of "the Local 
 
 Press," in which he pointed out what service may be rendered 
 
 by a local newspaper, whether Liberal or Conservative, when 
 
 conducted with a due sense of responsibility for the character of 
 
 its contents. The full extent to which a conscientious editor 
 
 recognises this responsibility can be known only to himself, for 
 
 it is to be measured as much by what he leaves out as by 
 
 what he inserts. His readers do not know all that he leaves 
 
 out, and, even if they do in part know it, they sometimes hav 
 
 an imperfect apprehension of the mischief which would have 
 
 resulted from its insertion. " Why," said an excellent friend 
 
 mine once when I had either toned down or altogeth 
 
 omitted something he had looked for in the Gazette, "you have
 
 220 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 positively been guilty of garbling the news." Unfortunately, 
 what my friend called "garbling the news," or what I should 
 prefer to call judicious reticence, is not from a pecuniary point 
 of view the most profitable mode of conducting a local news- 
 paper, and that is why such papers sometimes become mere 
 receptacles of gossip. But our publisher was always more 
 solicitous for the character than for the circulation of his paper. 
 But to pass on or rather to go back. I have spoken of 
 Baldwin Brown's lectures at Clapham. They were delivered to 
 the members of an institution which occupied almost as much 
 of my time and attention as the Gazette, and which also 
 is closely associated in my mind with friends here present. It 
 was, I believe, through my connection with this institution that 
 I became personally acquainted with Baldwin Brown and Mr. 
 Fitch ; excellent lecturers both, and to me, as secretary of the 
 institute, particularly acceptable by reason of their readiness 
 to lecture whenever I wanted them. It is no joke having 
 to organize a series of lectures. I must not complain, however, 
 as I was well supported by many friends, some of whom had 
 never spoken in public until they did so at my request. 
 Amongst others Mr. John Morley made his first public address 
 from our platform; and the title of his lecture you will recognise 
 as eminently characteristic of the man : " Call a Spade a 
 Spade." This is not an occasion for a dissertation on lectures 
 and institutes, or I would gladly enlarge upon the subject. 
 And much else that interested me at Clapham must be passed 
 over. But my friend Lewis would have just cause for surprise 
 were I to close this part of my reminiscences without any 
 mention of two Clapham worthies, whom neither he nor I can 
 ever forget. Mr. Lewis was, as I have said, incumbent of St. 
 Paul's, Clapham, and when he wanted to be away from Clapham 
 for a few days I used sometimes to take his Wednesday evening 
 service. On the first occasion of my doing so, I saw in a 
 pew just in front of the reading desk two elderly gentlemen, one 
 of whom I knew to be Mr. Symes, the solicitor to the Symeon 
 Trustees, but who the other was I did not then know. They 
 were both of them very devout and attentive. After service Mr.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 
 
 221 
 
 Symes came into the vestry, introduced himself to me, and 
 asked me to go home with him to tea. The other gentleman 
 joined us as we went out of church, and we walked home 
 to Mr. Symes's house, talking as we went about some prominent 
 religious topic of the day. Mr. Symes took me into the dining- 
 room, where the other gentleman did not immediately join us. 
 Presently, however, he made his appearance bearing a tray 
 with teapot, toast, and everything appertaining to the meal 
 to which I had been invited, when it became apparent that he 
 was the butler. He joined as freely in the conversation, as he 
 had done out of doors. With both of these gentlemen I 
 subsequently became very intimate, and it greatly interested me 
 to find that Mr. James Montagu, the butler, did not abstain 
 from taking part in the conversation even when several persons 
 were present. Once at a dinner party, for instance, when 
 a discussion was going on concerning something which had 
 recently happened in the religious world, James, as he handed 
 me the potatoes, struck in, loud enough to be heard by all 
 present, with the remark : " I haven't common patience with 
 such cant and humbug." The impression produced upon the 
 company by this observation is not to be appreciated without 
 its being understood that James was a deeply religious man, in 
 short, a man whose natural piety appeared in everything he said 
 and did, as the following anecdote will show. He kept 
 chickens, and was much exercised in mind because some evil- 
 disposed person or persons continually stole them. It dis- 
 tressed him that there should be such wickedness in the world. 
 But at last he caught the culprit, a boy, in the very act, 
 collared him, and took him into the house to Mr. Symes. 
 " And then came the question," said Mr. Symes, when relating 
 to me the story, " what was to be done with him ? " 
 doubt it was a difficulty," I said ; " for you wouldn't like either 
 to prosecute or thrash him." " No, certainly not ; so James 
 and I retired into the next room, where we made the matter the 
 subject of prayer." "And what," I asked, "did you do 
 with the boy after all ? " " Well, we admonished him to cease 
 from evil practices; and then James took him" you would
 
 222 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 never guess where James took him " to a tailor's, to be 
 measured for a new suit of clothes ! " " And who shall say," 
 added James, addressing himself to me, " that this may not 
 have been the turning point of that boy's life ? " I had some 
 difficulty in repressing a smile; yet I am quite disposed to 
 believe that such treatment, when administered by such 
 men, might well be a turning point in the boy's life. James 
 and his master the former from his youth a servant in 
 Mr. Symes's family had grown up together; and "in death 
 they were not divided," for in the little churchyard at Petersham 
 they now lie in the same grave. For the most part the people 
 of Clapham bury their dead in Norwood Cemetery ; and so 
 many of my Clapham friends including three whom I have 
 mentioned this evening, Brownrigg Smith, Joseph Freeman, 
 and the Rector now lie there, that I have sometimes thought 
 that I should like to be its chaplain. With the rector especially 
 it has for me many associations. I was there with him when, 
 on the occasion of the death of one of his children, an infant, 
 he chose the site for his family grave. " And here," he said, as 
 we stood together on the spot which he had selected, " I myself 
 shall one day lie. It is good to follow out the reflections which 
 such a thought suggests." A few days afterwards I read the 
 burial service over his child. At all times courteous and 
 considerate, he was never more so than when himself in 
 trouble. "No, no," he said, when the undertaker, our parish 
 clerk, was about to mount the box of the mourning coach 
 on our return from the cemetery ; " ask Mr. Loat in here." 
 So I opened the door of the coach, and Mr. Loat came in. 
 Almost the last duty I performed as curate of Clapham was to 
 read the service, or rather the latter part of it for Brownrigg 
 Smith read the former part at the funeral of Mrs. Bowyer. 
 As we entered the cemetery we saw a number of the 
 parishioners waiting at the gates to follow the carriages to the 
 chapel, at the sight of whom the rector was much affected. 
 * I did not know," he said, " they intended to do this. It 
 is very kind of them." Arrived at the chapel, there not being 
 room for all to be seated, several of these parishioners stood in
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 223 
 
 a cluster near the door, as if unwilling to intrude. Seeing this, 
 he beckoned me to him, and asked me to tell them to come for- 
 ward. So I took them his message, and they came and stood 
 round the coffin. Slight traits these, no doubt, but to those 
 who knew him very characteristic of the habitual tone of 
 his mind. Nor did the charm of his manner fail him when 
 his own turn came to look death in the face. The last time I 
 saw him was about ten days before his death. He was sitting 
 in a chair, the nature of his disease not allowing him to lie 
 down. " I have now sat in this chair," he said with a smile, 
 " for nearly twelve months." " And how much longer," I 
 .asked, " do you think you will have to sit there ? " He said he 
 could form no opinion on that point, and added : " The end 
 will most likely be sudden ; but, come when or how it may, 
 I am in the hands of the Father." His end, as he anticipated, 
 was somewhat sudden. 1 Once more I read the burial service at 
 the family grave, and as we turned away from it I heartily 
 responded to the remark of one of his former curates, who 
 had come some distance to pay him the last tribute of 
 respect : " He was a man in a thousand." 
 
 I left Clapham on my wedding day, August 25th, 1864. 
 I had first met my wife in a reformatory, which she was in 
 the habit of visiting, and I married her from a hospital, 2 
 where for some months previous to our marriage she was 
 one of the voluntary nurses and a very good nurse too. 
 My friend, and present medical attendant, Mr. Frederick Reilly, 
 whose professional skill and more than professional kind- 
 ness have often been exercised in behalf of my family 
 and myself, nods his head in assent to that declaration ; and 
 so, were they here, would all the medical staff under whom 
 she nursed. "It were almost worth while to be ill," said 
 one of them, "to be nursed by her." "The only fault we 
 have to find with her," said the lady-superintendent to me, 
 "is that she over-works herself." On the occasion of my 
 marriage I did what I had seldom done before and have 
 
 1 On February 25, 1872. 
 
 "The Children's Hospital in Great Ormond Street.
 
 224 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 seldom done since I took a month's holiday. Not but what 
 any one of my incumbents would very readily have allowed me 
 at any time to take what holiday I pleased. Indeed I may 
 almost say that Mr. Stocks insisted upon my taking holidays. 
 It was to him I returned after this particular holiday, and I 
 remained with him as his curate, at St. Anne's, Highgate Rise, 
 for a little over three years. Here, as elsewhere, I enjoyed the 
 one luxury of the rolling stone, that of making new friends, and 
 was confirmed in my respect for churchwardens by my ex- 
 perience of what appears to be a permanent institution at 
 St. Anne's, the churchwardenship of Mr. Joseph Miles, of the 
 firm, or rather himself the firm, of Hamilton and Adams, 
 a man ever ready to do public service, and in private life 
 as ready to do kind and generous actions. I may briefly 
 describe St. Anne's, Highgate Rise, as in every respect, at least 
 in those days, the very converse of St. Matthew's, Westminster. 
 The speculative builder had not yet laid his rude hand on 
 its secluded fields and lanes, and the parishioners were few, 
 decorous and hospitable. My friend Mr. Gotto, who is sitting 
 here to-night, is doubtless now thinking with a sigh that the 
 fields behind his house are fast losing, perhaps have already 
 lost, their once rural aspect. It was a quiet uneventful time 
 with me, yet not altogether devoid of exciting incident, for 
 it was here that I caught my first glimpse, though but a 
 transient one, of preferment in the church. No, not exactly 
 my first glimpse ; for one morning, at Clapham, whilst reading 
 the Telegraph at breakfast time, I came upon a paragraph 
 to this effect : " The Bishop of Winchester has presented the 
 Rev. H. Whitehead, curate of Clapham, to the benefice of 
 Avington, Hants." I was very much astonished at this 
 announcement, but fortunately I did not write to thank his 
 lordship for his delicate attention, for two days afterwards 
 the editor announced that he had been "requested to state 
 that the clergyman to whom the living of Avington had been 
 presented was the Rev. W. Whitehead, curate of Camberwell." 
 Meanwhile letters of congratulation had poured in, one in 
 particular from my father, who wondered, as well he might,
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 225 
 
 why I had left him to learn my good fortune from the columns 
 of a newspaper. It was, therefore, a second glimpse of pre- 
 ferment which I caught sight of when, in June 1867, 1 received 
 a letter from the Chaplain-General, in which I was informed 
 that on the recommendation of the bishop of London (Dr. Tail) 
 he was ready to appoint me to the Arsenal Chapel at Woolwich. 
 I went down at once to Woolwich, and having looked over the 
 chapel was proceeding to inspect the minister's house, when my 
 curiosity was aroused by a portmanteau and hat-box in the 
 passage. " Whose is this luggage ? " I asked the housekeeper. 
 She replied that it belonged to a clergyman who was going to 
 take the duty on Sunday, and who had said moreover that 
 he had been appointed to the chapel. " But did he say who 
 appointed him ? " " Yes, the vicar of Plumstead." Of course 
 I reported this piece of information to the Chaplain-General, 
 who said he should contest the right of appointment and would 
 let me know the result. But, as six weeks passed without my 
 hearing anything more of the matter, I wrote to tell him that, 
 even if he should prove successful in the contest, I for my part 
 would rather not attempt to take possession under the 
 circumstances ; to which letter I received a very courteous reply 
 to the effect that the writer did not wonder at my reluctance. 
 With whom the final victory rested, whether with the Chaplain- 
 General or the Vicar, to this day I do not know. The Arsenal 
 Chapel, it may be as well to state, is not within the walls 
 of the Arsenal, nor, so far as I could make out, in any way 
 connected with the Arsenal except by the alleged right of 
 the Chaplain-General to the appointment of its minister. I did 
 not feel much disappointment at its slipping through my 
 fingers. Still, to a man who had been sixteen years in orders, 
 his first offer of preferment, no matter to what, might well be, 
 as I have described it, an exciting incident 
 
 It was during the time of my engagement at Highgate I 
 that I first became acquainted with East London. For fifteen 
 years had I lived in London, but had rarely, except 
 through passenger by railway, gone eastward of Aldgate Pump. 
 But in July 1866 occurred the East-end outbreak o 
 
 P
 
 226 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Having anticipated, for reasons familiar to all who have studied 
 the history of cholera in England, that the summer of 1866 
 would witness the fourth great epidemic of that disease in 
 this country, I had written for Macmillaris Magazine the 
 two papers on cholera to which I have already alluded, the 
 latter of which, relating to Dr. Snow's views and researches 
 on the mode of its propagation, appeared in the July number 
 of that magazine, just a fortnight before the East London 
 outbreak. It was through this paper that I became acquainted 
 with Mr. RadcliflFe, who kindly allowed me to accompany 
 him in some of the earlier stages of his inquiry into the 
 causes of this outbreak. He has been good enough to say 
 to you that I rendered him some assistance on this occasion ; 
 but the only assistance he needed was of a kind very easily 
 given, viz., the support of my arm whilst he limped about on 
 the banks of the Lea, still suffering from the effects of rheu- 
 matic fever. He brought his inquiry to a most successful 
 issue, as you may see for yourselves if you refer to his masterly 
 report to the medical officer of the Privy Council. 1 Meanwhile 
 I was chiefly engaged during this outbreak in helping my friend 
 the rector of Bethnal Green, for which purpose I was permitted 
 by Mr. Stocks to be absent for a month from my duties at 
 Highgate Rise. On this occasion, as in 1854, amid much 
 that was painful to witness, there was much also that is pleasant 
 to remember. Once more the behaviour of the people and 
 the exertions of the doctors were worthy of all praise. 2 But 
 perhaps the most noteworthy object of admiration during this 
 epidemic was the temporary cholera hospital in Spitalfields. 
 It was a large four-storied warehouse, the marvellously rapid 
 
 1 See pp. 267-369 of Appendix to Ninth Report of the Medical Officer 
 of the Privy Council, 1 866. 
 
 2 See Registrar-General's Return for the week ending July 28th, 1866, 
 Vol. XXVII., p. 246: "The medical men have no rest, and with the 
 health officers are nobly doing their duty ; brave men, ready to lay down 
 their lives for their patients. The people themselves are most patient ; 
 most willing to help each other, the women always in front, and none 
 shrinking danger. There is no desertion of children, husbands, wives, 
 fathers, or mothers from fear."
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 227 
 
 adaptation of which to the use to which it was put was one 
 of the most astonishing transformations I ever witnessed. 
 Having watched the organization of this place from the first, 
 and having frequently visited it, sometimes accompanied by 
 my wife, when in working order, I could see that the adminis- 
 trative ability which directed its minutest details was of no 
 common kind. Its staff of nurses was composed of ladies 
 hastily summoned from a great variety of sisterhoods. At 
 their head was that remarkable woman, Miss Sellon, who was 
 the sole organizer of the transformation of which I have 
 spoken, and sole director of everything that was done in the 
 place. Mr. Radcliffe, who accompanied me in one of my 
 visits to this hospital, bestowed unqualified commendation 
 upon all its arrangements. I have only to add, respecting 
 this epidemic, that Mr. Radcliffe's inquiry into its causes 
 resulted in further confirmation of Dr. Snow's doctrine on 
 the mode of propagation of cholera. No one has more 
 successfully than Mr. Radcliffe followed up the line of in- 
 vestigation initiated by Dr. Snow, and no one has more loyally 
 endeavoured to assign to Dr. Snow's memory the honour 
 which it deserves. 
 
 My brief sojourn in East London in 1866 led eventually 
 to my taking up my abode there, and in the autumn of the 
 following year I accepted the curacy of St. Peter's, Stepney. 
 Here I was enabled to feel myself a veteran in orders by 
 the circumstance of my serving under a vicar considerably 
 younger than myself. Not but what other circumstances, as 
 time went on, presented themselves, well calculated to induce 
 in my mind the like reflection. Thus, whilst resident in 
 Stepney, I was one day in company with Mr. Voss, the vestry 
 clerk of Bethnal Green, one of many friends whose acquaint- 
 ance I had made during the cholera epidemic of 1866, and 
 who, had he not been called away suddenly into Wales, would 
 have been here this evening. A certain benefice was vacant, 
 and we were discussing whether a friend of ours, a man o 
 many years' standing in the church, had any prospect of being 
 appointed to it. " But you know," said Mr. Voss, " that when
 
 228 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 a man has been nearly twenty years a curate, the dispensers of 
 patronage are apt to think that there is a screw loose some- 
 where." I admitted that such an idea was very natural, and 
 added that I felt the force of it in my own case. " Oh, I beg 
 your pardon," he said ; " I quite forgot." " But what does it 
 matter," I said, "if the cap fits? Why, for one screw that a 
 patron might suppose to be loose in myself, I could tell him 
 of a dozen." The first winter I spent in East London hap- 
 pened to be the great distress winter of 1867-8, respecting the 
 circumstances of which there is, from a clerical point of view, 
 much to be said. But if any of you wish to know what I 
 have to say on this subject I must refer you to a paper 1 to 
 which I have already alluded. This much, however, it is 
 worth while to repeat, that my experience of that winter has 
 left on my mind the lasting impression that the less the 
 clergy in their clerical capacity have to do with the relief of 
 temporal distress the better it is for all parties concerned in 
 the matter. I do not mean that they are to take no part in 
 the work; on the contrary they should take an active part 
 in it, but as laymen and with laymen, and above all in areas 
 not coincident with their ecclesiastical districts. I was there- 
 fore very sorry when, at the close of the winter which had called 
 them into existence, all the East-end lay committees for in- 
 vestigating and relieving distress were, with one exception, 
 entirely broken up. That there was any exception at all was 
 due to the sagacity and influence of my friend Edward 
 Hawkins, the headmaster of St. John's Foundation School. 
 Wherever Hawkins is located he becomes a centre around 
 which men cluster for some useful purpose or other. At 
 that time he was in Clapton, and amongst other valuable 
 institutions which he formed was a clerical club, the members 
 of which met monthly for study of the Greek Testament and 
 for social intercourse. Into this society I had the good fortune 
 to be admitted, and some of the pleasantest evenings I have 
 spent in London have been passed with its members. They 
 are represented here to-night by Alexander Ross, of St. Philip's, 
 1 Contemporary Kevinv, February 1873.
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 229 
 
 Stepney, George How, of St. Leonard's, Bromley, Professor 
 Cheetham, Lewis Shelford of Upper Clapton, George Green, 
 formerly of Clapton, now of Eastbourne, and by their " head- 
 centre," Hawkins himself. Another Green, well known to 
 some of you, John Richard, Ross's predecessor at St. Philip's, 1 
 is kept away from this gathering by ill-health, which, let us 
 hope, may mend, as he is one whom his many friends could 
 ill spare. I have only to add in connection with this part of 
 my story, that I suffered no sort of inconvenience from my 
 seniority in years to Albert Sitwell, the vicar of St. Peter's, 
 Stepney, who always treated me with respect and confidence, 
 as also did his parishioners, as Mr. Reilly, who was one of 
 them, very well knows. I remained two years with Sitwell, 
 or rather he remained that time with me, for I saw him out, 
 when he was promoted to Minster in Thanet and the rolling 
 stone had again to set out on its travels. 
 
 Having now served curacies in the north, south, east, as 
 well as in the centre, of London, it was but natural, if only 
 for symmetry's sake, that I should set my face westward, and 
 thither accordingly I went, to the extreme west, to St. Peter's, 
 Hammersmith, the vicar of which, George Tidcombe, was 
 another East London friend of mine, with whom I had become 
 acquainted in 1866, whilst he was curate of Bethnal Green, 
 and who, moreover, having himself once been curate of St. 
 Peter's, Stepney, had recommended me to Sitwell. But I 
 have detained you a long time, and (A. B. Evans : " We 
 should have had a special license "). Dr. Evans, I perceive, 
 is thinking of the last time he and I spent an evening together 
 in this house. Our vice-chairman, Mr. Galland, had asked 
 us to dine here with him. Some years had passed since the 
 doctor and I had last met. "Well, brother Whitehead," he 
 said, as we shook hands, " how is it that I am still unable 
 to congratulate you on your having attained the position of a 
 vicar ? " I replied that better men than I had waited as long, 
 and added : "Why you yourself, Doctor, were twenty years 
 curate." "That is true enough," he said; "but then, yot 
 1 Afterwards Sub-librarian at Lambeth Palace.
 
 230 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 know, I am a black sheep." What I said in answer to this, 
 and what turn the conversation presently took, it is not 
 necessary for my present purpose to relate; but we found so 
 much to talk about that we had no idea how the time slipped 
 away until we were reminded by the waiter putting out the 
 gas that it was time to go, and as our way home lay in different 
 directions we had to finish the conversation in Fleet Street. 
 That is why the doctor thinks we ought to have had a special 
 license this evening ; he is afraid lest I shall have to finish 
 my speech in the street ; wherefore it behoves me to get on 
 as quickly as I can. But the doctor, forsooth, is a " black 
 sheep ! " Well, when one sees a procession of sheep coming 
 along, isn't it a relief to the eye to catch sight of a blackamoor 
 in the midst of his monotonously white companions ? Do 
 we not instinctively feel him to be a sheep of individuality of 
 character ? Howbeit, if ...the doctor must needs be black, 
 there is another animal, celebrated in a line familiar to us all 
 from our schoolboy days, to which I would rather liken him 
 
 Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno. 
 
 It was whilst I lived at Stepney that my acquaintance with 
 Dr. Evans was thus pleasantly renewed. When next I had 
 the privilege of social intercourse with him it was as we sat 
 together, not metaphorically, but literally, under my own fig 
 tree at Hammersmith ; for there was a beautiful fig tree at 
 the back of my house, in a little garden which extended to 
 the river, and the doctor, who, whilst his own church in the 
 Strand was closed several weeks for alterations, regularly assisted 
 the vicar of Chiswick on Sundays, would sometimes come 
 down to my house between the hours of divine service, when 
 we would sit and talk in the garden ; and I need tell no one 
 who is acquainted with him that among the things to be 
 remembered by me in any retrospect of my London life a 
 foremost place must be assigned to the conversation of Alfred 
 Bowen Evans. A very pleasant place was that Hammersmith 
 house of mine ; for the river is an unfailing object of interest, 
 though the interest, it must be admitted, is of a trying character
 
 231 
 
 on the rare but inevitable occasions, of one of which I had 
 painful experience, when the stream floats the beer-barrels and 
 drowns the cats in the cellars or kitchens on its banks. But 
 even for such a drawback as this there comes ample compen- 
 sation on the day when one mounts the housetop, opera-glass 
 in hand, to watch at one's ease the progress of the University 
 Boat Race, here visible from Hammersmith Bridge to Chiswick 
 Church, to say nothing of the opportunity of observing the 
 practice for days and weeks beforehand. To any one living by 
 the riverside at Hammersmith the Boat Race day is a capital 
 occasion for entertaining his friends, and I sometimes think, 
 taking this and the general pleasantness of the site into con- 
 sideration, that if I should ever retire into private life I 
 should like to return to my riverside home at Hammersmith. 
 Amongst other advantages of my Hammersmith residence was 
 its proximity to the abode of one whom I am sure you are 
 all glad to meet here this evening. My first introduction to 
 him was on this wise. Walking one day down the Hammer- 
 smith Mall I met a man who came up and shook hands with 
 me, saying : " I attend your church, and I think we ought to 
 know one another." " Well," I said, " with all my heart. I 
 have looked into photograph shop windows, and therefore I 
 know you are George MacDonald. Moreover, I have read 
 your books, and know what manner of man you are." It 
 sometimes happens that one does not, on personal acquaint- 
 ance with a writer, find him exactly the sort of man one had 
 expected from his published works. But just what I had 
 supposed Mr. MacDonald must be such I found him to be, 
 and I have had abundant reason to consider myself fortunate 
 in being able to include him in the number of my friends. 
 
 Well, "it's a long lane that has no turning," and on Lady 
 Day, 1871, when I wanted but three months to complete my 
 score of years as a curate, I found myself, by the favour c 
 the bishop of the diocese, a vicar at last. I might, indeed, 
 have succeeded my friend Main Walrond, who is now s 
 opposite me, as vicar of St. Mary's, Charterhouse, since I 
 bishop was kind enough to offer it to me ; but as I found from
 
 232 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Walrond that his stipend, and a good deal more, had been 
 annually swallowed up by the expenses of the church and 
 parish, I did not feel able to accept the post. Verily there are 
 many London vicars whose lot no curate need envy, and 
 perhaps, on the whole, I have no cause to regret the sub- 
 ordinate position in which the first twenty years of my clerical 
 life were spent. What I said years ago I can now, with further 
 experience, repeat : " I have been fortunate in my incumbents." 
 I never left any one of them without retaining his friendship, 
 and, could I renew my youth, I should have no objection to 
 go the same round again. Its pleasures have been greater 
 than its pains. Nor have the advantages of my present 
 position been so many and great that I need repine at not 
 having attained it at an earlier stage of my career. The very 
 church itself, as those of you who have preached in it know, 
 is a difficulty of the most formidable character. A very skilful 
 speaker, for aught I know, might succeed in making himself 
 heard there, but its troublesome echo has baffled me. My 
 churchwarden, who, with other Limehouse ratepayers went 
 with me this morning on a deputation, of which I had to act 
 as spokesman, to the Metropolitan Board of Works, said as 
 we came out that it seemed to him as if I had found a new 
 voice ; yet in St. John's church he sits but a few yards 
 from the pulpit. I cannot then say I am sorry to leave 
 St. John's, Limehouse, though there, as elsewhere, I have 
 friends whom I cannot forget. One pleasant feature of my 
 return to East London has been the renewal of my connection 
 with the clerical club of which I have already spoken, several 
 members of which are now at this table. And there is a 
 veteran curate here to-night, James Roe, whose acquaintance 
 I made long ago when he was assisting my brother in his 
 country parish, and in whom I was glad to find a neighbour 
 in East London. For fifteen years he has, under circum- 
 stances of peculiar difficulty, ably served the curacy of St. 
 Thomas's, Stepney, of which parish, as the incumbency is now 
 vacant, I trust he will soon be the vicar. Should he be 
 appointed to that post I hope that he, as well as every East
 
 EXPERIENCE OF A LONDON CURATE 233 
 
 London clergyman here present, will give all the support he 
 can to the work of the Charity Organization Society, which, 
 for reasons I have elsewhere explained, has hitherto flourished 
 less at the East-end than in any other part of London. To 
 no class of the community is it of more importance than to 
 the clergy that this society should meet with encouragement 
 and support, and nowhere is the establishment of its practice 
 and principles more imperatively needed than in East London. 
 I have, as most of you are aware, for the last two years acted 
 as secretary to the Stepney branch of the society, and it is with 
 great reluctance that I relinquish this part of my East-end 
 work. With regard to St. John's, Limehouse, you all know 
 something about it, as I do not think there is any one present 
 who has not regularly received my monthly Parish Chronicle. 
 As people said they could not hear my sermons I resolved to 
 give them the opportunity of reading them in print, and for 
 this purpose became once more the editor of a parish news- 
 paper. One of the subscribers to my Chronicle said to me 
 one day : " Of course I never read the sermons." But on 
 the other hand some of you, and more especially Dr. Evans 
 and Baldwin Brown, used to ask me neither to omit nor 
 curtail them, and I followed your advice. It has been an 
 expensive luxury, and I could not have kept it going if friends 
 had not most kindly assisted me not in writing it for I 
 wrote it all myself but in paying the printer's bill. Amongst 
 others who spontaneously rendered me this assistance was 
 Stopford Brooke ; and he did me the further service of intro- 
 ducing me to Mr. George Howard, whom I thank for his 
 presence here this evening, and whom with his good father I 
 have also to thank for recommending me to the patrons of 
 the living of Brampton, in Cumberland, to which I am in a 
 few days to be presented. 
 
 I have now ended my tale; and a very long one it has 
 been. I had to the last moment misgivings as to whether 
 it would not be better to say only a few words in recognition 
 of your kindness both now and in the past. These misgivings 
 I confided during dinner to Mr. Knowles, who, at my request,
 
 234 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 promised to give me a hint to resume my seat if it should 
 seem to him that I ceased to retain your attention. As he 
 has not done so, then, if I have been too prolix, let him 
 share the blame. But, however that may be, I give you my 
 warmest thanks for the patience with which you have listened 
 to my story. I am going as far away from you as it is possible 
 to go in this country ; but distance cannot diminish sympathy, 
 and when out of my sight you will not be out of my mind. 
 A meeting like this well, I must not say it doth make amends 
 for leaving London for, though unless we had met to part 
 no such gathering of my friends could have taken place, it 
 undoubtedly makes me feel the more keenly what I am 
 leaving behind but it will be something very pleasant to 
 remember ; and when I think of the successively formed strata 
 of friends of whom it is composed, I am encouraged to believe 
 that new strata may still be added. The very pleasures of 
 memory in which I have been indulging to-night give birth 
 to the pleasures of hope.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 THE LATIN POEM QUOTED IN CHAPTER II 
 
 Consedere duces, nee consedisse pigebat ; 
 Cum subito surgit coenae septemplicis ultor 
 Bampager impavidus ; clamat, sociosque sedentes 
 Increpat impatiens : " Nunc, nunc insurgite amici, 
 Illos nunc animos, illas nunc promite vires, 
 Quse totidem vicere, iterum quae vincere possunt." 
 
 Dixit, et extemplo Gallus se jungit amico, 
 Tidvir et adsurgit, surgit quoque Maurica virtus, 
 Bampagro coram metuit sedisse Viator, 
 Ceuque recusantes Amphion carmine rupes 
 Divino movit, sic magna voce locutum 
 Gaudet Bampagrum nunc sEdes Sacra secuta. 
 Ast ubi vidit adhuc extrema in parte sedentes 
 Militias comites per tota incedit Atrides 
 Castra ferox ira (comitatur fidus Achates 
 Shavius ille bonus) diro vocat ore moratos. 
 
 Paruit imperiis, ad signum constitit agmen. 
 En venit ante alios omnes celeberrimus heros, 
 Felix nimirum qui tot per saecula mortem 
 Distulit atque suos dextra jam computat annos, 
 Nestoreo jussu pueros compellat, et idem 
 Mollibus hortatur verbis pcenasque minatur. 
 Ipse salutari cupiens et tutor haberi 
 Convenit Esptnius, dextra se parvus lulus 
 Implicuit, fratrem sequitur non passibus aequis. 
 
 Rampfield. 
 
 Cox. 
 
 Tidman. Morris 
 Walker. 
 
 A. J. Church. 
 
 Bampfield. 
 Shaw. 
 
 Espin and his 
 young brother.
 
 236 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Guy. Kebbel. Inde subit fortisque Gyas, fortisque Kebellus, 
 Nobile par fratrum, pariter quos deinde secuta 
 Ordine quadrate consurgit parva caterva 
 
 Tuting. Cui rex Teutonicus> quorum non segnior ullo 
 
 Dixon. Sander- Surgit Dixides. Aderant Sanderica proles 
 
 Forge. Burfield Et miles carus Vulcano et Burrager ingens. 
 
 Freshmen. Inde Neoptolomi veniunt, nova turba virorum, 
 Multi prseterea quos fama obscura recondit. 
 Sed tamen imperio non omnis paruit Aula. 
 
 Dick Ogle. Ipse gubernator mandatum spernit Achilles ; 
 
 Alcock. Assidet imberbis nee curat bella Patroclus ; 
 
 Undique Myrmidones detractant proelia saevi. 
 
 H. Whitehead. Nulla magistrorum Capiti reverentia Cano, 
 Quern circa laeti spumantia pocula ducunt 
 
 W. G. Lee. LcBvius ille niger, pugnis super aethera notus, 
 
 Evans. Hay- Et bonus Evander, necnon insignis Aloxis. 
 lock 
 
 Audit, et auditum temnit manus altera jussum, 
 
 H. F. Roe. Fama nota manus, cui Roemulus acer asylum 
 Rettulit, et cujus regnum sibi vindicat ipsi ; 
 Ipse sedet, dapibusque animum convertit, et una 
 Bent. Curtius illustris caro cum rege recumbit, 
 
 Ban-as. Palmer Barrasiusque ferox, et dux quem Palma supremos 
 Nobilis ad dominos terrarum sustulit orbis. 
 Jamque minis frustra fatuis iratus Atrides 
 Myrmidones tentat. Blando vox mitior urget 
 Admonitu ; verbosa et grandis epistola venit, 
 Sed frustra venit, nam surdior ilia caterva 
 Rupibus Icariis sedet aeternumque sedebit.
 
 NOTES ON THE LATIN POEM 237 
 
 NOTES ON THE LATIN POEM 
 
 [A few years ago Mr. Whitehead came across a copy of his Latin 
 poem that had been religiously preserved by an old College friend. 
 He took a good deal of pleasure in going over it, and recalling the 
 Lincoln contemporaries therein mentioned. These recollections 
 he embodied in some characteristic notes, in which he revives the 
 old times and dwells on incidents of his intercourse with the 
 acquaintances referred to in the poem. In the notes, which are, 
 as will be seen, mostly in the form of jottings, there is so much of 
 his own geniality and humour that his friends will be glad to have 
 the following selection from them in a permanent form.] 
 
 Bampager. Bampfield may or may not have been the originator 
 of the standing-up movement. Represented as such because his 
 name goes well into dog- Latin. For some reason called "coenae 
 septemplicis ultor." Supper club of seven men had given offence 
 to certain other men by meeting on Friday evenings. 
 
 Maurica virtus. Chas. Morris. First Class in Lit. Hum. 
 Went to America. Was Professor in Johns Hopkins University. 
 Once, when he was on a visit to England, Pattison invited him and 
 me to dinner at Simpson's in the Strand. Adjourned after dinner to 
 divan. Much talk about America. Morris very entertaining, bright, 
 cheery fellow ; intellectual, yet with trace of childlike simplicity- 
 childlike in best sense. Lately dead. 
 
 iEdes Sacra. Alfred Church. Too well known to need descrip- 
 tion. A sayer of good things, with extra effect given to them by 
 slight stammer. 
 
 All hitherto mentioned were Scholars. Not a man remained 
 sitting at their table. Many, "extrema in parte sedentes" on first 
 night, stood up later on. 
 
 Shavius. Shaw. Seeming at College to be rather mild sort. 
 Pattison told me in 1874 that not one of his pupils, except John 
 Morley, had developed intellectually since leaving College as muc 
 as Shaw. Dead some years.
 
 238 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Atrides. Bampfield. Reason for so styling him will appear 
 later on. 
 
 Felix. Senior Commoner. 1 Had deferred pluck ("distulit 
 mortem") by not going in for examination. Don't know whether 
 he ever did pass. If he did, it must have been on the memorable 
 occasion, in 1852, when the examiners passed all the men who still 
 went in under old style, to get rid of nuisance of two systems (old 
 and new) going on simultaneously. 
 
 Espinius. Espin. Then at bachelors' table, with his young 
 brother ("parvus lulus"), who, of course, had to follow suit. Lincoln 
 prolific of Chancellors, e.g., Espin, Tristram, and Christie. 
 
 Kebellus. Thos. Kebbel. Now a pillar of the press. Pleasant 
 companion, subtle sense of humour. Had many a delightful 
 evening with him and others at the ' Cock,' ' Cheshire Cheese,' 
 'Rainbow,' 'Edinburgh Castle,' etc. Great difficulty in getting 
 hold of him now when I go to London. He, too busy with 
 politics. Belongs to club. Old historical taverns ruined by 
 modern increase of clubs. Providential arrangement that Dr. 
 Johnson lived before the time of clubs. Should like to write a 
 paper on those old taverns. Present generation, however, wouldn't 
 appreciate it. Shall never forget one evening in particular at the 
 ' Cock,' with Kebbel, Frank Simmons, and Jack Healy, when a 
 venerable white-bearded man there became hero of scene as 
 ludicrous as anything in Pickwick. Kebbel at Oxford inseparably 
 associated in my mind with Austin of Exeter, inveterate practical 
 joker, brother of Alfred Austin, the poet. Memorable scene at the 
 farmer's ordinary on market day at the ' Roebuck.' Kebbel, 
 Austin, and I dining at the ordinary. Dinner over, and all with 
 serene composure smoking churchwardens at various tables in the 
 inn yard. " Excellent opportunity," said Austin, " for public 
 address." Forthwith stood on a chair, and harangued the company 
 for about a quarter of an hour on what he called "The Derange- 
 ments of the Post-Office," authorities of which had been trying on 
 
 1 The line "Mollibus hortatur verbis poenasque minatur," very applicable 
 to Felix. Remember his taking Stilwell and me down the river in my first 
 term, he steering, and S. and I rowing in pair oar. Fatherly advice from him 
 as veteran, on all subjects, to us as junior men. Presently some other boat got 
 foul of us. Strongest of strong language forthwith poured out by Felix on 
 occupants of said other boat. Fatherly advice continued to us immediately 
 afterwards. Impossible to convey idea of ludicrous contrast.
 
 NOTES ON THE LATIN POEM 239 
 
 some obnoxious experiment. Loud applause from the meeting! 
 Many another scene of like kind. 
 
 Sanderica proles. Sanderson. Vicar of Trinity, Hastings, 
 Prebendary of Chichester. Tall, good-looking, light-haired man. 
 Never seen him since College days, but have often heard good 
 account of him. 
 
 Miles cams Vulcano. Forge. Remember nothing about him 
 but his name. 
 
 Burrager. Burfield. No doubt called him "ingens" ironically. 
 Pleasant, active little man. Fluent of speech. Construed Tacitus, 
 as Talleyrand said the Duke of Wellington spoke French, " avec 
 beaucoup de courage." Remember Church saying to me as we 
 came out from Kay's lecture : " Burfield construes Tacitus very 
 freely and very wrong." Afterwards an excellent parish clergy- 
 man. Heard several good accounts of him as such. Dead some 
 years. 
 
 Achilles. Dick Ogle. Leader of opposition. Sat doggedly still, 
 like Achilles in tent. Explains Bampfield as " Atrides." First Class 
 in Lit. Hum. Subsequently Fellow of Lincoln. Took reading party 
 to Wales in long vacation, consisting of Bode and Branson of 
 Pembroke, Jack lies, Townsend, and myself. Two months at 
 well, I cannot spell it in North Wales, and one month at 
 Aberystwith. The latter month fertile in amusing incidents. 
 Mustn't attempt to enumerate them. Shouldn't know where to 
 begin or where to leave off. Last met lies long ago in the Strand, 
 turned in together to the ' Edinburgh Castle.' Had a long crack 
 there. Wonder were I to meet him now whether I should call a 
 venerable archdeacon 'Jack.' 'Edinburgh Castle,' 1 by the way, 
 was the original meeting-place of the old Lincoln Club. Ought 
 never to have left it. I opposed the change, but in vain. Fell to 
 pieces through deviation from original bill of fare, viz., rump steak 
 pudding and bowl of punch. Could tell a good story about that. 
 Did tell it in my speech at the ' Rainbow,' but left it out from 
 printed report in deference to feelings of beloved friends who 
 
 1 Edinburgh Castle now, alas, pulled down. Scene of many interesting 
 incidents ; this in particular : Man went in one evening and saw A. B. Evans, 
 Rector of St. Mary-le-Strand, there. "What, you here, doctor!" 
 seem surprised," replies doctor. "Well, I am, rather." " Easy to explain," 
 says doctor. " Lately appointed rector of church close by, and can now 
 afford to come to place of this sort."
 
 240 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 figured in story. Serious complaint from one who heard it, that 
 printed report omitted the best thing in the speech. Dick Ogle 
 long since dead. 1 Excellent man. 
 
 Patroclus. Alcock. Sat next to Ogle at senior Commoners' 
 table. Smooth-faced man, hence epithet " imberbis," though no 
 one wore beard in those days. Beard came in with Crimean 
 chaplains. 
 
 Capiti Cano. Met Bond at Carlisle Church Congress. Didn't 
 know him at first, but he quoted this line, and 1 said, " No mistake 
 about where we last met." 
 
 Long talk with him in smoking room of Border Club, Carlisle. 
 
 I sat at head of table on side of Hall opposite to Scholars and 
 senior Commoners, hence "quern circa." The three men next to 
 be mentioned sat right and left of me. 
 
 Laevius. W. Gurdon Lee. Black-muzzled, " ille niger." About 
 the best boxer in the University, " Pugnis super aethera notus." 
 Thereby hangs many a tale. Curiously humorous man. Lincoln 
 at that time rather strong in humorists, e.g., Lee, Stilwell, 
 Hodgson, Kebbel, Howard, Church, Frank Simmons, etc., all in 
 different ways. No end of stories of men drawn out and chaffed 
 by Lee without their knowing it. I once laid a wager with 
 Hodgson of half-a-crown that he couldn't stay in Lee's room 
 without bursting out laughing whilst Lee talked to old Mrs. 
 Vickers, mother of Lee's scout. "Done," said Hodgson, "can keep 
 my countenance under any circumstances." However, he lost the 
 bet. Had to rush out, and I with him, to get our laughing done 
 out in the Grove. 
 
 Talking of the Grove, I saw with great regret last time I was in 
 Oxford that the old buildings there have disappeared. Very likely 
 an improvement. Sentimental grievance to me. 
 
 Evander. Goiven Evans. First Class in Mathematics. Ought 
 to have taken double first, but wouldn't take trouble to read for Lit. 
 Hum., so took pains in that. Now, and for many years past, 
 manager of the Melbourne Argus. Was over here some two or 
 three years ago. Had an afternoon with him in smoking-room of 
 the 'Rainbow.' Interesting conversation about Colonial affairs. 
 
 J Jack lies also dead. He was one of those who refused to stand up in 
 Hall, and ought not to have been omitted in the hexameters. Became a 
 Fellow of Lincoln, and was afterwards Archdeacon of Stafford, Died some 
 four or five years ago.
 
 NOTES ON THE LATIN POEM 241 
 
 Talked also about old Lincoln times. Something caused him to 
 say, " Ah ! always had to complain of you as an encourager of 
 bores." Perfectly true accusation, at all events from him. Quick 
 impatient man, very intolerant of bores. But I look at the matter 
 from different point of view, regarding bores as raised up for two 
 useful purposes : (i) To serve as trials of patience, and (2) as means 
 when properly handled of bringing about humorous scenes and 
 situations. 
 
 Roemulus. H. F. Roe. Matriculated with me, but never moved 
 up from Freshman's table. Sat at bottom of that table, like a vice- 
 chairman, all his time. No doubt instrumental in keeping Fresh- 
 men seated during the controversy. A sort of king among them. 
 Hence the phrase, "caro cum rege." Dead. 
 
 Barrasius. Barras. Came from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Stroke of 
 the eight in its best days. Never so high on river before or since. 
 Yet would have made more bumps with a quicker stroke. Barras 
 better suited for long race. Frank Simmons substituted for him 
 same year at Maidenhead regatta, when Lincoln eight defeated 
 Brasenose, which had finished before it at Oxford. Barras drawn 
 out time after time by Lee to tell some old story about Harry 
 Clasper, after same fashion as parish clerk in Silas Marner drawn 
 out to repeat his favourite story in village public-house. Barras 
 dead long ago. 
 
 Don't know who wrote the "verbosa et grandis epistola," signed 
 "Pacificator." Fell flat. 
 
 Looking over the hexameters after this long interval having 
 had no copy of them until a day or two ago it seems to me as if I 
 rather scamped the work toward the close. Remember being 
 pressed for time about then afraid of Bampager & Co. giving up 
 the contest before I could get them out, which would have spoiled 
 their effect. No doubt names omitted which should have been 
 mentioned. But this to be said, that men are not mentioned here 
 because of their importance, but according as their names were 
 easy to manipulate.
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 LIST OF WRITINGS 
 
 Books. 
 
 " The Church and the People : Twelve Sermons preached 
 at St. Luke's Church, Berwick Street." London, 
 Skeffington, 1856. 
 
 " Lectures, chiefly on subjects relating to Literary and Scien- 
 tific and Mechanics' Institutes." By Henry Whitehead, 
 T. C. Whitehead, and W. Driver. London, Bosworth 
 & Harrison, 1860. 
 
 "Sermons on the Saints' Days." London, Bosworth & 
 Harrison, 1863. 
 
 "Sermons, chiefly on subjects from the Sunday Lessons." 
 London, Strahan & Co., 1871. 
 
 Parish Magazines. 
 
 Parish Chronicle of St. John's, Limehouse, Vol. I., 1871-72 ; 
 
 Vol. II., 1872-73; and Vol. III., 1873-74. 
 Eight Occasional Papers, Brampton, 1874-80. 
 Lanercost Parish Magazine. Covers only. Insides from 
 
 November 1890 to March 1896 inclusive. 
 
 Pamphlets and Articles. 
 
 " The Cholera in Berwick Street, Soho." London, Hope & 
 
 Co., 1854. 
 "The Outcast at Home: A History of the Belvedere 
 
 Crescent Reformatory." London, Hatchard, 1856.
 
 LIST OF WRITINGS 243 
 
 " Beating the Bounds." Lecture. Meaden, Clapham, 1859. 
 " Early Closing." Lecture. Meaden, Clapham, 1860. 
 " The Broad Street Pump : An Episode in the Cholera 
 Epidemic of 1854." Macmillaris Magazine, December 
 1865. 
 " The Influence of Impure Water on the Spread of Cholera." 
 
 Macmillaris Magazine, July 1866. 
 
 "Remarks on the Outbreak of Cholera in Broad Street, 
 
 Golden Square, London, 1854." Transactions of the 
 
 Epidemiological Society of London, Vol. III., p. 99, 
 
 1866-68. 
 
 " Mendicity from a Clerical Point of View." Contemporary 
 
 Review, February 1873. 
 
 " Experience of a London Curate." Meaden, Clapham. 
 " Lanercost Priory and Monuments in Choir and Transepts 
 
 of Lanercost Priory." (In part Authorship.) 
 " Notes on the Old Hutton Chalice and Hamsterley Paten." 
 "The Working of School Banks." Nineteenth Century, 
 September, 1887. 
 
 Contributed to the " Transactions of the Cumberland and \\'at- 
 morland Antiquarian and Archccological Society." 
 
 " The Milburns of Talkin." 
 
 "Robert Bowman's supposed Baptismal Register." 
 " The Transcripts of the Registers in Brampton Deanery." 
 "Old Church Plate in Brampton Deanery." 
 "Church Bells in the Deanery of Brampton." 
 " Church Bells on the Border." 
 
 " Church Bells in Cumberland Ward." Parts I and II. 
 "The Bells of Carlisle Cathedral." 
 "Church Goods in Cumberland, 1552." 
 " Brampton Presbyterians (i7th century)." 
 "Church Bells of Leath Ward." Parts I., II., III., IV., V. 
 " Keswick Town Clock Bell." 
 " Westmorland Parish Registers." 
 "Parish Registers in Brampton Deanery. ' 
 
 Q 2
 
 244 
 
 HENRY WHITEHEAD 
 
 Contributed to the " Transactions of the Cumberland and West- 
 morland Association for the Advancement of Literature and 
 Science" 
 
 " Brampton in 1745." 
 
 "The Monuments of the Nave and Aisle of Lanercost 
 Priory." 
 
 Reviews of Printed Parish Registers of Carlisle Diocese. 
 
 Dalston, 
 
 
 
 Colton, 
 Ravenstonedale, 
 
 Ulverston, 
 
 n 
 
 Penrith, 
 
 
 
 J5 
 
 Kirkoswald, 
 
 published in Carlisle Patriot, Aug. 4, 1893. 
 
 Feb. 9, 1894. 
 
 April 13, 1894 
 
 Feb. 26, 1894. 
 
 Oct. 5, 1894. 
 
 ,, Oct. 26, 1894. 
 
 Nov. 9, 1894. 
 
 Aug. 30, 1895. 
 
 ,, Nov. 23, 1894. 
 
 ,. Dec. 28, 1894. 
 
 Aug. 17, 1894. 
 
 Aug. 24, 1894. 
 
 M Sept. 7, 1894. 
 
 ,, Mar. 20, 1896. 
 
 Westmorland Parish Registers. 
 
 No. I., published in Penrith Observer, Dec. 5, 1893. 
 
 No. II., Dec. 12, 1893. 
 
 No. III., Dec. 22, 1893. 
 
 Crosthwaite Churchwardens' Accounts. 
 
 Three papers printed in April and May 1886, in the Kesivick 
 Guardian.
 
 LIST OF WRITINGS 245 
 
 Lectures in MSS. 
 
 The following is a list of some of his unpublished lectures : 
 " Clapham Ponds." 
 " Correspondence." 
 '' Moon and the Weather." 
 " Thick and Thin End of the Wedge." 
 " Cholera." 
 
 " George Fox the Quaker." 
 " Hall Marks on Silver Plate." 
 " Crosthwaite Churchwardens' Accounts." 
 " A Walk round Brampton." 
 " Belted Will." 
 
 " Brampton Old Church and Vicars." 
 " A Seventeenth Century Parish Clerk." 
 " Prince Charles Edward Stuart at Brampton." 
 " Jacobite Songs." 
 " Parish Registers, I. and II." 
 " Plea for retaining Parish Registers in sitti."
 
 INDEX 
 
 In the following Index f. and ff. mean following pages, and n. that the 
 reference is to the footnote as well as to the pages indicated.] 
 
 Alcock, Mr., 236, 240. 
 
 Aldous, James, churchwarden, 35, 
 200 f. 
 
 Arnott, Rev. Samuel, sometime vicar 
 of St. Luke's, Soho, vicar of Turn- 
 ham Green, 33, 200 n., 204. 
 
 Austin, of Exeter College, brother 
 of Alfred Austin, 19, 238. 
 
 Bampfield, scholar of Lincoln, 19, 
 
 21, 22, 235, 237, 238. 
 Barnes, Dr., of Carlisle, 155. 
 Barras, Mr., 236, 241. 
 Bell, Robert, of Irthington, 122. 
 Belson, Captain Frederic, 66. 
 Belson, Mary, see Whitehead. 
 Benham, Canon, 107. 
 Bent, Mr., 236. 
 Bethnal Green, match-box making, 
 
 77- 
 
 Bode, Mr., 239. 
 
 Bond, Mr., 240. 
 
 Bowyer, Rev. Mr., rector of Clap- 
 ham, 37, 66, 210 f., 213 f., 222. 
 
 Bowyer, Mrs., 222. 
 
 Brampton Parish, 89, passim ; see 
 Appendix III., 243. 
 
 Branson, of Pembroke, 239. 
 Broad Street Pump, 40, 41, 155 
 
 Appendix III., 243. 
 Brooke, Rev. Stopford, 84, 85, 233. 
 Brown, Professor G. Baldwin, 141 ; 
 
 reminiscences and notes about H. 
 
 Whitehead, 170-196. 
 Brown, Rev. Baldwin, 58, 59, 84, 
 
 218, 220, 233. 
 Burfield, Mr., 236, 239. 
 Burgess, editor of The Patriot, 142. 
 
 Carlisle, the Earl of, see Howard. 
 Carlisle, Lady, 137. 
 Cazenove, Philip, 212. 
 Chatham House School, I f., 18. 
 Cheetham, Professor, 229. 
 Christian, Bishop, of Whitherne, 138. 
 Christie, Chancellor, 238. 
 Christie, Rev. T., 151. 
 Chronicle, St. John's, 60, 83 ff., 
 
 172 ff., 183 n., 233, Appendix 
 
 III., 242. 
 Church, Alfred J., translator of 
 
 Tacitus, 19, 22, 59, 235, 237, 240. 
 Church Bells, 107, 1 10 ff. , Appendix 
 
 HI., 243-
 
 INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Church Plate, 107, 109, 136, Appen- 
 dix III., 243. 
 
 Clapham Gazette, 59, 60, 216 ff. 
 
 Clapham Lectures, 60 ; quotation 
 from, 6 1 ff. 
 
 Clark, Professor, 140 n. 
 
 Clifton, Charles, schoolmaster, 202. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., description of T. 
 Whitehead, 3. 
 
 Collinson, William, parish clerk 
 (1666-1695), I2 2. 
 
 Cox, scholar of Lincoln, 19, 21, 22, 
 
 235- 
 
 Cracknell, of the 'Tantivy,' 15 n. 
 Crockfor(fs Clerical Directory, 143 f. 
 Crosthwaite Bells, 1 1 1 ff. 
 Crostkwaite Parish Magazine, III. 
 Crumpton, of Corpus, 28. 
 Crunden, driver of the 'Vivid,' 15, 
 
 17- 
 
 Dacre, Sir Christopher, 140. 
 Dacres, The, 101, 140. 
 David, sermon on, 185. 
 Davies, Dr. Llewellyn, 64, 105 ; 
 reminiscences of H. Whitehead, 
 
 IS9- 
 
 Dear, F. C., 177. 
 Denison, Edward, 86 n. 
 Denison, Rev. George Anthony, 144. 
 ' Devil's Acre,' 48, 50, 206. 
 Dixon, Canon, 154, 236. 
 Donovan, editor of the East London 
 
 Observer, 94. 
 Driver, William, ragged school 
 
 teacher, 47, 59, 60, 90, 93, 94 n., 
 
 95, 98, 208, 217. 
 
 Elijah, sermon on, 180. 
 
 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 
 
 parody on, 20. 
 English Illustrated Magazine, article 
 
 in, 13. 
 Epidemiological Society, 70. 
 
 Espin, Chancellor, 19, 236, 238. 
 Evans, Dr. Alfred Bowen, vicar of 
 
 St. Mary-le-Strand, 76, 84, 229, 
 
 230, 233, 239 n. 
 Evans, Gowen, editor of the ^fel 
 
 bourne Argus, 19, 198 n., 236, 
 
 240. 
 Ewing, Bishop, 58, 191, 213. 
 
 "Felix," senior commoner of Lin- 
 coln College, 22, 235 n. , 238 n. 
 
 Ferguson, Chancellor, 106, 109, 136. 
 
 Fielding, Rev. Mr., sometime vicar 
 of Brampton, 122. 
 
 Fitch, Sir Joshua, 59 n., 197 n., 
 217, 220. 
 
 Forge, Mr., 236, 239. 
 
 Fox, George, no. 
 
 Freeman, Joseph, churchwarden, 
 212, 222. 
 
 ' Friendly Societies,' 126 ff. 
 
 Galland, Robert, 59, 95, 97. 21 7. 229. 
 
 Gilsland and Greystoke, baron of, 
 140. 
 
 Gilson, Joseph, 35, 201. 
 
 Goodwin, Harvey, bishop of Car- 
 lisle, 154. 
 
 Goodwin, Miss, see Ware. 
 
 Gotto, Mr., 224. 
 
 Green, Drum Major, 202. 
 
 Green, George, 229. 
 
 Green, John Richard, 76, 93, 229. 
 
 Guy, F. Barlow, late headmaster of 
 Forest School, 19, 22, 236. 
 
 Hamilton, Thomas, 212. 
 Hart, Rev. R. H., 159, 160. 
 Hawkins, Rev. Edward, vicar of 
 
 St. Bride's, 71, 80, 91. 92, 93. 
 
 97,99, 104 f., 157. 228,229. 
 Haylock, Mr., 236. 
 Healy, Rev. J., vicar of Studley, 
 
 19, S3, 144 ff., 159, 209 2I2 > 2 3 8 '
 
 248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hill, Matthew Davenport, recorder 
 of Birmingham, 31, 46, 49 n. 
 
 Hodgson, Mr., 19, 240. 
 
 Hogarth, 49 n. 
 
 Holmes, George, bellringer, 112. 
 
 Home Messenger, article by H. 
 Whitehead, 152. 
 
 How, George, 229. 
 
 Howard, Mr., 19, 240. 
 
 Howard, Hon. Charles (Earl of 
 Carlisle), 30, 85, 136, 137. 
 
 Howard, George, 85, 233. 
 
 Howard, Lord William, 106, 140. 
 
 Howards, The, 101. 
 
 Jackson, Bishop, 31. 
 
 Jacobson, Bishop of Chester, 118. 
 
 Jezebel, 58. 
 
 Jones, Sir E. Burne, 116. 
 
 Jones, Harry, ' the First,' sometime 
 
 vicar of St. Luke's, confrater 
 
 of Wyggeston Hospital, 33, 41, 
 
 200 n, 210. 
 Jones, Harry, ' the Second,' vicar of 
 
 St. Luke's, rector of St. George's 
 
 in the East, 79, 200. 
 Jones, Henry, see Harry 'the First.' 
 Jonathan, sermon on, 185. 
 Joseph, sermon on, 57. 
 Jowett, Dr., 116. 
 
 Kay, William, principal of Bishop's 
 College, Calcutta, 18, 24, 239. 
 
 Kebbel, T., 19, 98, 169, 198, 217, 
 219, 236, 238, 240. 
 
 Kes, Jack, 239, 240 n. 
 
 Knowles, James, editor of the Nine- 
 teenth Century, 55, 81, 212, 215, 
 233- 
 
 Lambert, Rev. Brooke, vicar of St. 
 Alphege and St. Mary, Green- 
 wich, 98, 155. 
 
 Lanercost, parish of, 137 ff. 
 
 Langton, Stephen, 5. 
 
 Lee, W. Gurdon, 19, 236, 240. 
 
 Lewis, Rev. Henry, vicar of Slow- 
 market, 217, 220. 
 
 Liddon, Canon, 28, 190. 
 
 Limehouse, St. John's, parish of, 
 78 ff. 
 
 Lincoln College men, 18. 
 
 Lingham, Rev. J., rector of Lam- 
 beth, 44. 
 
 Losh, Miss Sarah, 122. 
 
 Louise, Princess, 115. 
 
 Lowe, Robert, 137 n. 
 
 "Lowell," 175. 
 
 M acDonald, George, 76, 84, 1 54, 23 1 . 
 
 Macgregor, John, 208. 
 
 Macmillan's Magazine, 41, 68. 
 
 Malone, Rev. Mr., incumbent of 
 St. Matthew's, 209. 
 
 Marshall, William, restoration of 
 Newlands Church by, 131. 
 
 Maurice, Rev. F. D., 5, 53. 
 
 Meaden, Mr., publisher of the Clap- 
 ham Gazette, 59, 2i6n. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, 38. 
 
 Mendicity, quotations from article 
 on, 71 f., 80 f. ; see Appendix 
 HI., 243. 
 
 Miles, Joseph, churchwarden, 224. 
 
 Mitchell, R., 18. 
 
 Montague, James, butler, 221. 
 
 Montefiore, Sir Moses, 157 n. 
 
 Morley, John, 59, 220. 
 
 Morris, Charles, 19, 235, 237. 
 
 Morris, William, 116. 
 
 Morvilles, The, 140. 
 
 Multon, Thomas de, Lord of Gils- 
 land, 122. 
 
 Multons, The, 140. 
 
 Newlands, chapelry of, 130 ff. 
 Newton Reigny, 133 ff. 
 Ninian's, St., Well, 121 n, 122 n. 
 Norwood, Rev. T. W., 121 n.
 
 INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Oddfellows, Brampton, 127. 
 
 Ogle, R., 19, 236, 239. 
 
 Orme, Edward, clerk at St. Luke's, 
 
 35, 42, 47, 200 f. 
 Osbertus, first rector of Brampton, 
 
 121. 
 
 Palmer, Mr., 236. 
 
 Parker, Henry, Fellow of Oriel, 
 
 28. 
 
 Parish Registers, 106, 107. 
 Pattison, Mark, 18, 25, 27, 37, 198, 
 
 237. 
 
 Pattison, Mrs., 26. 
 Pennington, Edward, 96. 
 Pitch, Jeffrey, 141. 
 Portal, G. R., 105. 
 Pritchard, Robert A., 198. 
 
 Radcliffe, John Netten, Inspector 
 of Public Health, 40, 69, 205 f., 
 n., 226 f. 
 
 "Radford, Dr., 18. 
 
 'Rainbow' dinner, 30, 36, 41, 53, 
 69, 87, 159 ; farewell speech of 
 H. Whitehead, Appendix I. 
 
 Randall, Joseph, schoolmaster, 35, 
 
 201, 202. 
 
 Rawnsley, Canon, no, in. 
 Reilly, Frederick, 223, 229. 
 Richardson, Sergeant James, 35, 
 
 202, 203. 
 
 Robson, Thomas, organist at St. 
 
 Luke's, 35, 201. 
 Roe, H. F., 236, 241. 
 Roe, Rev. James, 232. 
 Ross, Rev. A. J., 8 1 n., 213, 228, 
 
 229. 
 Ross, John, Arctic navigator, 51, 
 
 123, 207. 
 
 Saint Martin, 101, 106. 
 Saint Peter, 179 f. 
 Sanderson, 236, 239. 
 
 Sellon, Miss, 70, 227. 
 
 Sermons on the Saints' Days, 54 
 
 172, Appendix III., 242. 
 Sermons from the Sunday Lessons, 
 
 56, 172, 180 ff., Appendix III., 
 
 242. 
 
 Shaw, Mr., 235, 237. 
 Shelford, Lewis, 229. 
 Sherbrooke, Lord, see Lowe. 
 Sidebotham, Rev. J. S. S., 19; 
 
 reminiscences of H. Whitehead, 
 
 1 60. 
 Simmons, Frank, principal of Dun- 
 
 edin College, 18, 198, 238, 240. 
 Sitwell, Albert, vicar of St. Peter's, 
 
 Stepney, 71, 76, 229. 
 Smith, Brownrigg, 53, 59 n., 209 f., 
 
 218, 222. 
 Snow, Bob, driver of the ' Dart,' 
 
 13. 14, 17- 
 Snow, Dr. John, researches into 
 
 the orgin of cholera, 40, 41, 69, 
 
 205, 206, 226 f. 
 Stilwell, Mr., 19, 240. 
 Stocks, Rev. T. F., vicar of St. 
 
 Luke's, Soho, 29, 33, 68, 199 n., 
 
 203, 224, 226. 
 Stuart, Prince Charles, no. 
 Symes, Mr., solicitor to the Symeon 
 
 Trustees, 220 f. 
 
 Tail, Archbishop, 31, 68, 70, 225. 
 
 Tallyrand, 239. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 57. 
 
 " The Brotherhood," 98. 
 
 The Cholera in Berwuk Street ( pam- 
 phlet), 40; Appendix III., 242. 
 
 The Church and the People (sermons), 
 36, Appendix III., 242. 
 
 Thorntons, The, 212. 
 
 Tidcombe, George, vicar of St. 
 Peter's, Hammersmith, 76, 229. 
 
 Tidman, scholar of Lincoln College, 
 19, 21, 22, 235.
 
 250 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Times, H. Whitehead's letter on 
 
 reformatories in the, 43 ff. 
 Tottenham, John, 210, 212. 
 Townsend, Mr., 239. 
 Tristram, W. O., 13, 14. 
 Tristram, Chancellor, 238. 
 Tuting, Mr., 236. 
 
 Vallibus, Robert de, 139. 
 Verity, Felix, 19. 
 Village Sketches, 59, 164, 216 n. 
 Voss, vestry clerk, 227. 
 
 Waldron, Main, 231. 
 
 Walker, scholar of Lincoln College, 
 19, 22, 235. 
 
 " Walks round Brampton," 121. 
 
 Waterhouse, driver of the 'Comet,' 
 14. 
 
 Ware, Mrs., 109, 168. 
 
 Webb, Philip, architect, 115. 
 
 Whitehead, Catharine, niece of H. 
 Whitehead, reminiscences, 162 ff. ; 
 Mary, mother of H. Whitehead, 7 f. 
 
 Whitehead, May, wife of H. White- 
 head, 66 f., 75, 108, 223. 
 
 Whitehead, Thomas, father of H. 
 Whitehead, I ff. 
 
 Whitehead, T. C, brother of H. 
 Whitehead, headmaster of Christ 
 College, Finchley, author of 
 Village Sketches, 59, 100, 163 n. 
 
 Whitehead, Rev. Henry, birth and 
 parents, 1-8; training at Chatham 
 House School, 2, 3 ; account of 
 his father, 4 ff.; Sunday observ- 
 ances, 9 f. ; reminiscences of coach- 
 ing days and inns, 13 ff.; Lincoln 
 College, Oxford, a 'golden time,' 
 18 ff. ; his popularity, parodies, 
 and satire, 19 ff.; takes his degree, 
 28 ; deacon's orders, 29 ; London 
 
 curacies, 29 ; St. Luke's, Soho, 
 29 ; six other London parishes, 
 2 9. 30; see also Appendix I., 
 197 n.; life in Soho, 33 ff. ; cholera 
 epidemic, 35, 39 ff. ; views on 
 reformatories, 42 ff.; curate at St. 
 Matthew's, Westminster, 47 ; at 
 Clapham, 54 ; characteristics of 
 his sermons, 55 ff. ; the Clapham 
 Gazette, lectures, 59 ff. ; mar- 
 riage, 66; curate at St. Anne's, 
 Highgate Rise, 68 ; work during 
 the cholera epidemic, 69 f. ; curate 
 at St. Peter's, Stepney, 71 ; at 
 St. Peter's, Hammersmith, 76 ; 
 vicar of St. John's, Limehouse, 
 78 ; work at St. John's, 78-84 ; 
 accepts living of St. Martin's, 
 Brampton, 85 ; farewell dinner at 
 the * Rainbow,' 87 ; see also 
 Appendix I.; work in the north 
 and the south, 90 ; letters from 
 Brampton, 91-101 ; rebuilding of 
 the church, 97, 99, 103, 114 f.; 
 letters on the burial question, 
 104 f. ; love of archaeology, 106 ; 
 papers on parish registers, church 
 plate, and bells, 106 ff. ; new 
 church at Brampton, 115 ff. ; 
 leaves Brampton, impressions left 
 there, 117-126; sympathy with 
 tramps, 129; undertakes the 
 chapelry of Newlands, 130; life 
 at Newton Reigny, 133 ff. ; re- 
 fuses living of Morpeth, accepts 
 Lanercost, 137 ; his delight in its 
 history, 138 ff. ; sudden illness 
 and death, 146 f.; funeral at 
 Brampton, 147 ff. ; testimony of 
 his friends, 151-196. 
 Whitehead, Rev. W., curate of 
 Camberwell, 224.
 
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