CENTRE FC.R. NEWFOUNDLAND STUDIES TOTAL OF 10 PAGES ONLY MAY BE XEROXED (Without Author's Pennission) Resistance to Bishop Edward Feild in Newfoundland 1845-1857 Harbour Buffett: A Case Study by Calvin Hollett, B.A., B.Ed., M.C.S. A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History Memorial University of Newfoundland October 2002 St. John's Newfoundland 11 Abstract This thesis sees religion as a major category of social history. Its focus is the evangelical opposition from 1845 to 1857 to the Tractarianism of Bishop Feild ofthe Church of England. The people of Harbour Buffett, Placentia Bay, and Thomas E. Collett were catalysts in that opposition which echoed back to England, itself. Refusals to pay to the Church Society were not the source of the opposition but merely one avenue of resistance to the theology and practice of Bishop Feild. Bishop Feild introduced Tractarianism to Newfoundland in the context of a robust Roman Catholicism under Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming and a vibrant, expanding Methodism. The latter cooperated with the evangelical Anglicans in the Newfoundland School Society. Feild drove both to toward political collaboration with Roman Catholics in bringing about Responsible Government by pressing for a denominational school system under the control of his clergy, These factors were prominent in Placentia Bay with its expanding economy, population and access to government services. Harbour Buffett was founded out of a desire of a scattered and mobile people, mainly of the evangelical Church of England, to centralize and establish a community with a school and a church. In this effort Archdeacon Wix and Bishop Spencer provided leadership. The Methodists and Newfoundland School Society were also a significant support in the community's evangelicalism which became a major obstacle to the introduction Bishop Feild's Tractarianism to Newfoundland. That evangelicalism, however, did not succeed. 111 Acknowledgements So many by their help and support have enabled me to do this thesis. I thank God; my wife, Myrna Hollett; my father, Llewellyn Hollett; my mother, Susan Hollett (now deceased); and a number of friends - Marion Forsey, Martin and Anne Mack, Brian Shaw, Joy and Louis Best, Roger and Donna Down, Louise Best, Ed Chafe and Ken Tulk. I am especially grateful to Mrs. Rita Collett and David Collett who were so generous with a rich vein of primary sources. Professionally, I thank Dr. James Hiller, my supervisor, who oversaw all aspects of the thesis. I also thank Dr. Linda Kealey, Dr. Christopher English, Dr. Shannon Ryan, Dr. William Reeves, Dr. Jeff Webb, Dr. Christopher Youe and Fran Warren of the History Department; the Graduate Studies Department; and my Examiners, Dr. Barry Moody and Dr. John FitzGerald. The people at the Centre for Newfoundland Studies were enormously helpful - Joan Ritcey, Debbie Andrews, Glenda Dawe, Colleen Field, Jackie Hillier, Carl White, Jane Deal, Janet Gates, Susan Hadley and Rosmary Healey; as were Cal Best, Melanie Tucker and Ron Kirby at the Public Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. Thanks also, to Julia Mathieson at the Anglican Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador Archive and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist Archive; Larry Dohey at the Archives ofthe Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's; Joanne Costello and Rose Marie Power at the Maps Division of the QE II Library; Susan Foley at Queen's College; and the volunteers at the Newfoundland and Labrador Archives ofthe United Church of Canada. lV Table of Contents Abstract 11 Acknowledgements l1l Table of Contents lV List of Abbreviations v Chapter 1 - Introduction 1 Chapter 2- Tractarianism: Theology and Politics 25 Chapter 3 - Placentia Bay 58 Chapter 4- Harbour Buffett 99 Chapter 5- Opposition to Bishop Feild: Harbour Buffett, 1849-1852 135 Chapter 6- Opposition to Bishop Feild: 1853-1857 179 Chapter 7 - Conclusion 231 Bibliography 239 Appendix: Archive of the late Thomas Collett, Harbour Buffett 253 Map: Placentia Bay 272 Map: Harbour Buffett 273 1 Chapter 1 Introduction On August 10, 1851, when Bishop Edward Feild of the Church of England visited Harbour Buffett, Placentia Bay on one ofhis episcopal voyages, a mere 13 communicants attended the church. What is more, a number of these were "strangers who arrived on the previous day."1 The population ofthe settlement was at least 240, of whom nearly 200 were members of the Church ofEngland.2 The contrast with Bishop Aubrey Spencer's visit in 1844 was pronounced. On that occasion, 23 persons were confirmed and "the whole congregation accompanied [him] to the boat."3 A writer to The Public Ledger who spoke of these events asked, "What has caused that ... change?"4 This is the question that I will investigate in this thesis, and in endeavouring to answer it, I will study the people of Harbour Buffett. The focus of the thesis is the opposition to the Tractarian Bishop Edward Feild at the local level. Before Feild's arrival in 1844, there was in Newfoundland an indigenous evangelical Anglicanism characterized by substantial local initiative, ownership and vitality. The thesis claims that it was this evangelicalism which presented the major 1Thomas E. Collett, The Church ofEngland in Newfoundland (St. John's: Joseph Woods, 1853), p. 15. 2CNS, Census ofNewfoundland and Labrador, 1845, p. 18. By 1857 the population had increased to 313. Census ofNewfoundland and Labrador, 1857, p. 76. 3Collett, Church ofEngland, p. 16. 4Public Ledger, August 26, 1851. 2 opposition to Bishop Feild with his aggressive, novel agenda ofTractarian ritual and theology, and of central church financing. 5 As a case study, I will focus on the opposition in the settlement of Harbour Buffett in the middle of Placentia Bay. It was the headquarters of a Mission which consisted of such settlements as Oderin, Isle V alen, Spencer's Cove and Haystack, and the major resistance took place there between 1849 and 1855. The controversy generated pamphlets, and correspondence and letters to newspaper editors. By 1855 the clergyman of the Mission of Harbour Buffett who was at the centre of the controversy had moved elsewhere, as had the two colonial governors who were sympathetic to evangelical Anglicanism. The study of the religion of a people is an important element in understanding the past. In his article "A Note on 'Region' in Writing the History of Atlantic Canada," Ian McKay objected to 'regionalist' history being lumped together with other 'limited identities' history such as "feminist, working class and multicultural."6 Michael Gauvreau made a similar objection to diminishing the significance of religious history in Canada. He observed that "the new social history'' of Canada with its attention to "local, 5Tractarianism was a 'high church' movement within the Church of England toward a pre-Reformation emphasis. For example, clergy were elevated in authority as 'priests'. They wore surplices to denote that authority. The Holy Communion rite replaced preaching as the focal point of the service. The Communion Table became 'the altar'. Baptism replaced confirmation as the focal point of spiritual rebirth. Liturgy and ceremony pervaded all. 6Ian McKay, "A Note on 'Region' in Writing the History of Atlantic Canada," Acadiensis, XXIX (Spring 2000): 91. 3 class gender, ethnic, regional and occupational identities," disparaging of and inimical to national history, still joined hands with national history "in marginalizing the religious experience and in failing to recognize its creative role in shaping cultural traditions, social forms, and political ideologies."7 Religion is a major hinge on which the door of history swings. Instead of being a 'limited identity', religion "supplies a vantage point from which the historian can begin to consider and integrate issues of gender, class, ethnicity and region- all of which involve religious dimensions." It is not the only vantage point, of course, but it is one "by which the 'limited identities' of the 'new social history' can be synthesized into a broader pattern of cultural meaning."8 To clarify the study of religion Mark McGowan has suggested two divisions of religious history, namely, humanist and social.9 The former category refers to the 'top- down' history of leaders, elites, ideas and institutions. He succinctly summed up this scholarship as "the tendency to see religion as church and church as its clergy and leadership."10 Religion, however, is not just an institutional matter. It often constitutes in part the mentality and relationships in society. It is a matter of people. In his study of the 7Michael Gauvreau, "Beyond the Half-Way House: Evangelicalism and the Shaping of English Canadian Culture," Acadiensis XX (Spring 1991): 158. 8/bid. , p . 177. 9Mark G. McGowan, "Coming out of the Cloister: Some Reflections on Developments in the Study of Religion in Canada, 1980-1990," International Journal of Canadian Studies 1-2 (Spring-Fall1990), p. 179. 10/bid. ' 4 social dimension of religious history, McGowan observed that English-Canada historians have been "undoubtedly reductionist" in their treatment of religion and have not recognized it as "a vital force in the Canadian social fabric."11 He suggested that the social history of religion could be organized in three broad categories. Religion and society would encompass such sub-specialties as gender, labour and class. Religion and culture would include values, assumptions and commitments. A third category, with the designation "symbolic universes and practices," would examine the religion of ordinary people through such sources as artifacts, symbols and journals, to observe such phenomena as their "devotional life ... resistance to ecclesiastical authority and use of liturgical language. " 12 It is primarily within the latter two categories that I will pursue this study of the opposition of the people of Harbour Buffett to Bishop Feild. It will be a local case study, but not one in isolation.