A Victorian Curate: a Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt
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D A Victorian Curate A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt DAVID YEANDLE AVID The Rev. Dr John Hunt (1827-1907) was not a typical clergyman in the Victorian Church of England. He was Sco� sh, of lowly birth, and lacking both social Y ICTORIAN URATE EANDLE A V C connec� ons and private means. He was also a wi� y and fl uent intellectual, whose publica� ons stood alongside the most eminent of his peers during a period when theology was being redefi ned in the light of Darwin’s Origin of Species and other radical scien� fi c advances. Hunt a� racted notoriety and confl ict as well as admira� on and respect: he was A V the subject of ar� cles in Punch and in the wider press concerning his clandes� ne dissec� on of a foetus in the crypt of a City church, while his Essay on Pantheism was proscribed by the Roman Catholic Church. He had many skirmishes with incumbents, both evangelical and catholic, and was dismissed from several of his curacies. ICTORIAN This book analyses his career in London and St Ives (Cambs.) through the lens of his autobiographical narra� ve, Clergymen Made Scarce (1867). David Yeandle has examined a li� le-known copy of the text that includes manuscript annota� ons by Eliza Hunt, the wife of the author, which off er unique insight into the many C anonymous and pseudonymous references in the text. URATE A Victorian Curate: A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt is an absorbing personal account of the corrup� on and turmoil in the Church of England at this � me. It will appeal to anyone interested in this history, the rela� onship between science and religion in the nineteenth century, or the role of the curate in Victorian England. DAVID YEANDLE As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com A Study of the Life and Career of Cover image: St Ives Vicarage, c. 1880. Courtesy of the Norris Museum, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, UK. Cover Design by Anna Ga� . the Rev. Dr John Hunt book eebook and OA edi� ons also available OPEN ACCESS OBP To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: htps://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1390 Open Book Publishers is a non-proft independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. A VICTORIAN CURATE A Victorian Curate A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt David Yeandle https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2021 David Yeandle This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: David Yeandle, A Victorian Curate: A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0248 Copyright and permissions for the reuse of many of the images included in this publication difer from the above. This information is provided in the captions. In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0248#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0248#resources Every efort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notifcation is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 9781800641525 ISBN Hardback: 9781800641532 ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800641549 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800641556 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800641563 ISBN XML: 9781800641570 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0248 Cover image: St Ives Vicarage, c. 1880. Courtesy of the Norris Museum, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, UK. Cover design: Anna Gatti. Fig. 1 John Hunt in middle age, c. 1878, courtesy of Mr John Hunt. Contents Preface xi Introduction 1 1. John Hunt 5 1.1 Family and Upbringing 7 1.2 Education 9 1.3 Hunt’s Scholarship 11 1.4 Hunt’s Marriages 13 2. Clergymen Made Scarce 15 3. Town Life 19 3.1 Ordination and First Curacy 19 3.2 First Metropolitan Curacy 20 3.3 Search for a New Curacy 25 4. Essays and Reviews Controversy 35 5. Unemployment and Applications 41 5.1 Theological Diferences and ‘Evangelical’ Credentials 41 5.2 The Curates’ Registry 43 5.3 The Guardian 44 5.4 English Graduates Only 44 5.5 Privilege and Parsimony 45 6. Final Metropolitan Applications 47 6.1 Mistaken Identity 47 6.2 Hoxton 48 viii A Victorian Curate 7. The Anatomist Curate 51 8. Country Life 57 8.1 Swallow, Lincolnshire 58 9. St Ives, Hunts. 61 9.1 Advowson for Sale 68 9.2 Ritualism 74 9.3 Beyond St Ives 86 10. Conclusions 87 11. Postscript: John Hunt in Otford 93 11.1 Transcription of Hunt’s Epitaph in Otford Church 101 12. Chronological Table of John Hunt’s Life 103 Appendix: Documents and Press Quotations 107 Text of Clergymen Made Scarce 108 [3] LETTER, &c. 110 P O S T S C R I P T. 141 Appendix II 181 The Anatomist Curate 181 An Inquest on an Inquest (Punch) 185 Clergymen Made Scarce (Punch) 186 Extraordinary Charge against a City Clergyman 188 Singular Freak of a Clergyman 192 Presentation of a Testimonial to the Rev. John Hunt 192 Lecture on St Augustine 196 Review of Religious Thought in England I 197 Review of Religious Thought in England II 198 Review of Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century 202 Review of Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century 203 Dr. Hunt’s Travels. 204 John Hunt, the Poor Man’s Friend 216 Contents ix His Services to Literature 217 His Views on Sunday Observance 218 His Views on the Church 219 His View on Temperance 220 His Views on Politics 220 His Journeys Abroad 221 John Hunt’s Obituary 228 Death of the Vicar of Otford 228 Dr. Hunt’s Sudden Demise. 228 The Funeral. 230 Bibliography 233 Select Works by John Hunt 233 Other Works Cited 234 Index 249 Preface My interest in John Hunt began during the time when I was Organist and Choirmaster of All Saints’ Church, St Ives, Cambridgeshire (2001– 2011). In the course of my enquiry into previous clergy at the church, my attention was drawn by Mr Bob Burn-Murdoch, former Curator of the Norris Museum, St Ives, to the rare copy in that museum’s library of the booklet by the Rev. Dr John Hunt, entitled Clergymen Made Scarce, which contains manuscript annotations by Mrs Eliza Hunt. Mr Burn- Murdoch, who deserves my special thanks, kindly provided me with a copy of the text. I am further indebted to the staf of the Norris Museum for help with locating material and permission to reproduce images from the Museum. My thanks are due to all those who have provided me with information and materials for this book: Mr John Hunt, the great-great- nephew of the Rev. Dr John Hunt, for answering my questions and for providing me with a photograph of his ancestor, as well as a family tree and other relevant documents and photographs; Mr Clive Southgate of St Bartholomew’s Church, Otford, for providing me with information about John Hunt’s time as Vicar of Otford; Mr Edwin Thompson of the Otford and District Historical Society, who has been very accommodating in supplying me with several items of importance from the Otford and District Historical Society archive, including the text of Harold Hart’s pamphlet and several photographs of interest. This book has been published with the generous support of the Goodlif Fund of the Huntingdonshire Local History Society, to which I am deeply indebted. Finally, I should like to thank friends and others who have helped me with suggestions and information or read and commented on parts of the manuscript, in particular Dr Charles Beresford, Professor Nicholas Boyle, Mr Ian Dobson, Mrs Bridget Flanagan, Professor John Flood, Mr Peter Glazebrook, Mr Rolf Lunsmann, Dr Carol Regulski, and Mr James Warren. © 2021 David Yeandle, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0248.15 Introduction The present work is based on a little-known booklet, published by the Rev. Dr John Hunt (born Bridgend, Perth, 1827, died Otford, Kent, 1907).1 The original copy that I have used is in the possession of the Norris Museum, St Ives, Cambridgeshire (formerly Huntingdonshire) and contains manuscript annotations by Mrs Eliza Hunt,2 the frst wife of the author. These provide a key to the many anonymous and pseudonymous references in the text. The frst edition of the booklet (1865) appears to be extremely rare. Reference is made to its availability by post from the freethinking publisher of liberal tracts, Thomas Scott, of Ramsgate.3 The second edition (1867) is still to be encountered in a number of libraries, including the British Library, but it is nonetheless rare, although it is now available online.