"I Remember" : Memories of a "Sky Pilot" in the Prison and the Slum

"I REMEMBER" "I REMEMBER" MEMORIES OF A "SKY PILOT" IN THE PRISON AND THE SLUM BY JOHN WILLIAM HORSLEY, M.A. Oxon RECTOR OF ST. TETER'S, WALWORTH ; HON. CANON OF SOUTHWARK ; MAYOR OF SOUTHWARK LONDON WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD. 3 & 4, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. &f////s>// {7tertJ6w. BR 1911 llll LIBRA k JAN 19 1976 TO MY OLIVE BRANCHES AND THEIR BUDS CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. EARLY DAYS ..... I II. OXFORD DAYS - - - - 38 III. AS A YOUNG CURATE - - - "54 IV. HAPPILY IN PRISON - - - '75 V. CLERKENWELL CHARACTERS - - - TOO, VI. WOOLWICH WORK - - - - - II9 VII. HOLIDAYS --.- - 148 VIII. PARISH ORGANIZATION - - - - 1 78 IX. GUARDIANSHIP AND REFORMS - - - 196 X. FREEMASONRY ..... 2 22 XI. WORK IN WALWORTH .... 234 XII. CONCLUSION - 262 VU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE CANON HORSLEY AS MAYOR OF SOUTHWARK, igiO Frontispiece J. W. HORSLEY AS KING'S SCHOLAR, 1856 - - l6 CORRIDORS IN CLERKENWELL PRISON - - - 80 CLERKENWELL PRISON AFTER THE FENIAN EXPLOSION 80 CANON HORSLEY AS GRAND CHAPLAIN OF ENGLAND, - 1906 - - - - - 224 IX — a M I REMEMBER CHAPTER I EARLY DAYS I that is a word that must occur with a frequency in a book of an autobiographical character, which would be unpleasant to hearers and harmful to its utterer if it came as frequently in ordinary conversa- tion. As the sign of self-assertion or of conceit, it is as ugly (to use an image familiar to me at Woolwich) as the Arsenal chimneys, which, with their naked perpendicularity and curveless lines, mar what once must have been a beautiful landscape from the Plumstead hills as one gazed across the green marshes, bisected by the gleaming Thames, to the distant blueness of Epping Forest. But in per- sonal reminiscences, when justified or invited, one " would not mend matters by substituting for " I such periphrases as "the present writer," or " he who now addresses an intelligent and indulgent audience." Therefore, let me begin boldly. I was born on — EARLY DAYS June 14, 1845, in a primeval forest, and in no born where I was born in con- parish ; and I was sequence of lunacy and murder. The forest was that of Blean, which once covered nearly all the country between Ashford and Whitstable, but was always pierced by the straight Roman Watling Street, from London to Dover, whereof the actual name survives in Watling Street in the City of London and Watling Street in Canter- hill bury. I was born also on the top of a Boughton Hill (the name—derived from the Saxon bartun, or enclosure for the gathered ? ; Boughton Aluph, cr0p S —is common in Kent Boughton-under- Blean, Boughton Malherbe, and Boughton Monchelsea, are all East Kent parishes, almost of identical size, varying only from 2,296 to 2,418 acres). It is a steep sandy hill between Faversham and Harbledown, on the Canterbury road, of such height that one sees to Hadleigh across the estuaries of the Medway and the Thames, and would see London but for Shooter's Hill, and the sea but for Lydden Hill, near Dover. On the top a few houses, and the church and vicarage built for my father, and the schools afterwards built by him, are known by the name of Dunkirk. The church was built only in 1840, while the my father being the first incumbent ; EARLY DAYS 3 third, the Rev. W. T. Springett, came there in 1854, and not only holds the living, but is vigorous now in 19 11. It is not a parish, but a ville, like the ville constituted by the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral ; and whatever may be the case now, I used to be told that, not having been born in a parish, I had no rights under the Poor Law—an assertion which I have only tested as a chairman, and not as an inmate of a workhouse. Some few years before my birth an insane person of fine presence, called John Thorn, finished an eccentric career by posing as a socialistic Christ, and persuaded some of the simple and illiterate woodmen and peasants of the district to follow him as such. A theft caused a warrant, the execution of which was entrusted to the village constable, John Mears, who, accompanied by his unmarried brother Nicholas, sought Thorn in the woods he frequented. Thorn, observing them, " drew a pistol, and said: Which of you is the constable?" Nicholas, mindful, probably, of his brother's wife and family, stepped forward and said, " I am," and was shot dead. The corpse was buried in Boughton churchyard, at the foot of Dunkirk Hill, on June 3, 1838, on a coroner's warrant. 4 EARLY DAYS Strong measures were now necessary, and Major Armstrong and Lieutenant Bennett were ordered to take a detachment of one hundred soldiers from Canterbury. They met Thorn (or Courtenay, as he called himself) in Bosenden Wood. Lieutenant Bennett had joked with friends at Canterbury at having to see some active service before rejoining them at a ball that evening. Thorn shot him dead, and a tablet to his memory is on the north wall of the nave of Canterbury Cathedral. The soldiers, enraged, fired a volley. Thorn and seven of his followers were killed, while others were sent to penal servitude ; and in my early boyhood it was not desirable to mention " The Fray," as it was called at Dunkirk or Heme Hill, as so many had friends implicated. Thorn's body was buried secretly in Heme Hill churchyard, close by, the grave being flattened down so that disciples should not remove the body of one who had declared that if killed he would rise again in three days. My mother was one of few who knew the exact spot of the burial. The state of rural ignorance this incident revealed caused the Church to build a church, vicarage, schools and ; and legislation on behalf of national elementary education received a great impetus from the EARLY DAYS 5 discovery of the ignorance prevailing in rural districts which was revealed in the evidence at the trial of the rioters. Thus a murderous mad- man made me a Man of Kent, for I was the first baby born in the vicarage. The words " first baby " remind me of an amusing incident when I went, some years ago, to give a temperance lecture at Canterbury. As I was leaving the hall a portly dame, wife of a police-sergeant, introduced herself to me with the words: "Oh, sir, I must shake hands with you. You were the first baby I ever had." One began to recall a certain adage about its being a wise child that knows its own father ; but then she explained that she had been a little village maiden named Celia, who became a ministering spirit at the vicarage in order to give me an airing when in long clothes. As not only a firstborn, but as the first grand- child, I should have been the recipient of much babyolatry ; but there is a family tradition that my grandmother looked me all over, observed my crimson face and scarlet hair and my pugnose (all these distinctive adornments have " long disappeared), and said : Well, he has !" a good rim to his ear Honesty is rare when a baby is being exhibited, but Mrs. ; 6 EARLY DAYS Sankey of Dover was always as good as she was wise. I suppose I began my travels that year by going by stage-coach to Dover, but it is curious that I have never had any memories of Dunkirk, save that of finding a red fungus in a shrubbery, and of seeing my father cut down a tree which forked into two stems from the root. This may indicate the force of heredity, as I am the fourth generation of a family of East Kent naturalists but though my father died when I was not five, leaving four children for his young widow of twenty-eight to bring up, I never could remember him, though when my children were of that age I wondered how it could be possible that they should utterly forget me if then I had passed away. Both my parents were convinced and enthusi- astic Tractarians, as those were called who brought about a revival and reformation of the Church of England under the leadership of Pusey and Keble ; but they had no love for the additions of Rome to the Catholic faith. My father had gone to Manning for confession before that Archdeacon left the Church of England ; and Manning later on tried to get my mother to become a Roman. She, however, answered his EARLY DAYS 7 letter by saying that she was perfectly aware that he was an Oxford Double-First, and she would not presume to argue with him. My paternal grandparents died before my father was five. My grandfather was Colonial Secretary of Granada, in the West Indies, and was comparatively (but profitably) ruined by the emancipation of the negroes. His father kept the old coaching inn at Abingdon, near Oxford, and earlier there were many Horsleys at Didcot, from whom he may have come. The family tradition, however, is that we are of Border origin. A Horsley is mentioned in the " Percy Ballads." The grave of a John Horsley was one of the first to meet my eye in the churchyard of Carlisle Cathedral, and I saw many other memorials to Horsleys at Alnwick. The name of Grace Darling was in full Grace Horsley Darling, her mother having been a Miss Horsley. Considering that the name means " the glade in the forest in which horses were pastured," and that places called Horsley are not rare, it is curious that the name is not common ; whereas Cowley or Shipley, with the same kind of origin, are not so rare.

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