Lighter Moments from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How

by William Walsham How

The following story will be recognised by many, in spite of the absence of names. When we were children it was one of our greatest treats to be taken to see the clergyman in question, who was very kind to us and used to ask us to play drums and other instruments in his quaint sitting-room. The occasions of his visits to our house were also much looked forward to, as he was sure to do something original. He once came to a dinner party and brought two or three musical-boxes which he set off, all playing different tunes at the same time, during dinner. This is the story that occurs in the notebook:

The first time that Archdeacon Wickham visited this deanery as archdeacon I drove him to a parsonage where the incumbent insisted upon his inspecting everything. In the garden is a little pond, and over this pond we beheld a strange erection of posts and planks, with a sort of saddle-like seat on the top. On the Archdeacon asking the incumbent what it was, he explained with great delight that it was a capital contrivance by which you could take exercise and make yourself useful by pumping water up to the church, where he had just been building a transept. So, saying that he would show us, he clambered up, sat down on the saddle smiling, and began to work the treadles eagerly. Unfortunately, however, the work at the church having been just finished, the pipe which had conveyed the water to the workmen had been cut off just above the surface of the water. The consequence was that he immediately produced a jet of water which shot straight upwards and almost lifted him off his seat, entirely upsetting the archidiaconal gravity. As we returned to the house the incumbent begged the Archdeacon to go into the back yard and smell the pump, which, he said, stank horribly. The Archdeacon protested that he had no authority over pumps, but he would take no denial, and when he got into the backyard he said, "Now, Mr. Archdeacon, if you will put your nose to the spout, I will pump." The Archdeacon was, however, quite equal to the occasion, and said, "No, I depute the Rural Dean to put his nose to the spout, and I will receive his report, and, if needed, pronounce an ecclesiastical censure."

Bishop Walsham How's love of botany took him frequently into the wilder and more mountainous parts of the neighbourhood, and in the course of these expeditions he made friends with the gentleman, since dead, of whom he tells the following story:

The Vicar of the little parish of Criggion, under the Breidden hills, asked me once to come there for a certain All Saints' Day, when he was going to have a meeting of choirs. I could not go, but seeing him a little while afterwards, I asked him how the choral festival had gone off. "Oh! very well," he said. "And how many choirs had you?" I asked "Oh, well, only two," he said; "L——'s from over the hill and my own." "And how many voices had you?" I next asked. "You should not be so inquisitive," he said, "but to tell the truth, there were only his Buttons and my own little maid!"

Before he went to Whittington, he had some experience of another quaint character among Shropshire clergymen, as is related in the following passage taken from the notebook:

Mr. C—— was curate of a parish near Shrewsbury when I was curate of Holy Cross and St. Giles' in that town. He was very eccentric in all his ways. Among other peculiarities he, though very High Church in views, adopted a very secular style of dress. Archdeacon Allen undertook on one occasion to speak to him on the subject, and at a Visitation very kindly and pleasantly remarked that his dress was not quite what was usual on such occasions. Whereupon Mr. C——, taking hold of the Archdeacon's coat, said, "Well, Mr. Archdeacon, you know this is not quite the correct thing: I believe it is an old coat made to do!" The Archdeacon could not resist a good laugh, and acknowledged that he was quite right in his supposition.

One day my good fellow curate, the Rev. F. P. Johnson, was walking along the road when he saw Mr. C—— approaching, a gaunt figure with long strides, in a striped waistcoat and blue muffetees, intoning at the top of his voice the prayer for the Queen's most excellent Majesty. He slackened pace, finished the prayer, duly sang the Amen, and then shook hands with a hearty "How do you do, old fellow?" On Johnson expressing astonishment at the performance, he said he was only saying Matins as in duty bound, and, since his rector would not have it in church and he had no time in his lodgings in Shrewsbury, he always said it as he came back from visiting the school in the morning. "If you had been a minute or two sooner," he added, "you would just have come in for the anthem. You know 'in choirs and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem.'" "And what anthem did you have to-day?" asked Johnson. "Oh," he replied, "I always have the same, for I only know one. When I come to that place I always sing 'God save the Queen.'"

Another time Mr. C—— was spending a day with Mr. Peake, then curate of Ellesmere. At noon he went up to his room, and Mr. Peake heard him whistling very strangely on one note. He went up, knocked at his door, and asked him what he was doing. "Oh nothing," said Mr. C——. "But what are you whistling in that queer way for?" said Mr. Peake. "Oh, well, if you must know," he answered, "I was saying my prayers." "Saying your prayers!" said Mr. Peake, "why, you were whistling!" "Yes, I know," said Mr. C——; "the fact is your maid was cleaning your room next to mine, and I thought she would think it odd perhaps if I intoned my sexts, as I generally do, so I thought I would whistle them to-day."

Several stories occur in connection with Oswestry, which was the market town for Whittington.

Extract from a sermon preached by a curate of Oswestry upon the scene between St. Paul and St. Peter at Antioch. The words were taken down at the time [N.B.—Hibernice legendum]: "So Paul seized the banner of the Gospel out of the hands of poor, weak, compromising Peter, and waved it in a flood of light and liberty over the head of the Galatian Church."