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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2020
This article examines South Africa’s contribution to the spread of Anglican ritualism in the mid-nineteenth century and seeks to add a South African voice to the growing contemporary scholarship in this area. It begins by examining the role of South Africa’s first Anglican bishop in fostering a climate conducive to ritualism. This is followed by an examination of some of the early developments which were considered ‘popish’ by colonist congregations. The second part of the study focuses on two examples of advanced ritualist parishes paying attention to ‘signs’ of medievalist revivals and the confident manner in which ritualism was discussed. The author finds that after an initial period of fairly robust antagonism towards ritualism by colonists, a general movement towards ritualist practices began to emerge. The sources consulted for this article include letters, newspaper and periodical articles, archival material and a couple of unpublished theses.
Andrew-John Bethke is lecturer in music theory and choral studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
2 See Peter B. Nokles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1769–1857 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 25–43; W.S.F. Pickering, Anglo-Catholicism: A Study in Religious Ambiguity (London: SPCK, 1991), pp. 17–23; and John Shelton Reed, Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism (Nashville, TN: Tufton Books, 1996), pp. 3–28.
3 See Reed, Glorious Battle, pp. 16–21.
4 William Franklin challenges the idea that the Oxford Movement was entirely an academic or doctrinal affair. He shows how Pusey, unlike Keble and Newman, tried to influence parish life directly through his beliefs. In particular he wished to create visible Bodies of Christ – close-knit communities centred in the local parish church. These communities were to be places where Christ’s message of the brotherhood of humanity could be demonstrated through regular celebrations of the Eucharist and non-segregated seating (in other words, no pew rents). Pusey’s work in his own parish, his foundation of St Saviour’s in Leeds, his support of Wantage parish, his generous financial giving and his sermons all point to this conclusion. Pusey’s concern for the Church’s impact in an ever mechanized society was prophetic. He foresaw the gradual secularization of England, and felt that the only way to curb this powerful tide was to create the kind of all-encompassing parish life which he sought to embody at Leeds. At Wantage in particular, the idea seems to have borne incredible fruit. See William Franklin, ‘Puseyism in the Parishes: Leeds and Wantage Contrasted’, Anglican and Episcopal History, 62.3 (1993), pp. 377–95.
5 ‘Camdenites’ is derived from the Cambridge Camden Society, the name of Neale’s group of like-minded clergy and laity. The group was later renamed the Ecclesiologists.
6 Nigel Yates, Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830–1910 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
7 Steward Brown and Peter Nockles, The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World 1830–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
8 Calvin Hollett, Beating Against the Wind: Popular Opposition to Bishop Feild and Tractarianism in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1844–1876 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016).
9 Joseph Hardwick, An Anglican British World: The Church of England and the Expansion of the Settler Empire, c. 1790–1860 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014). Alex Bremner, Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire c. 1840–1870 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013).
10 Scholars and lay people speak of the ‘high church’ or ‘Anglo-Catholic’ nature of the Province, see Michael Nuttall, ‘The Province of Southern Africa’ in Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 315–21 (318). However, for the most part, they are not referring to the theological tenets of Tractarianism, nor typical theological issues within Anglo-Catholic circles. Instead, they tend to refer to the outward ceremonial of the liturgy and the accompanying ornaments and vestments. Note the implications of Rebecca Harrison, ‘Africans Ditch Anglican Ritual for Pentecostal Party’, The Mail and Guardian: Africa’s Best Read (February 2007), https://mg.co.za/article/2007-02-07-africans-ditch-anglican-ritual-for-pentecostal-party (accessed 26 July 2019).
11 Rodney Davenport, ‘Settlement, Conquest, and Theological Controversy: The Churches of Nineteenth-century European Immigrants’, in Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport (eds.), Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social and Cultural History (Cape Town: David Philip, 1997), pp. 51–67 (52).
12 Lewis and Edwards speak of the British Colonial state paying for a building to seat 1100–1200 people, including a pulpit, reading desk, clerk’s desk and an altar. Cecil Lewis and Gertrude Elizabeth Edwards, Historical Records of the Church of the Province of South Africa (London: SPCK, 1934), p. 20.
13 Peter Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1963), p. 23.
14 Note the strong negative response of the congregation at St Paul’s in Durban when a priest tried to preach in a surplice (1856–57) – discussed below. See Ian Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, MA thesis, University of Natal, 1977, pp. 169–70.
15 Barry Smith, ‘Christian Music in the Western Tradition’, in Elphick and Davenport (eds.), Christianity in South Africa, pp. 316–18 (317).
16 See Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa, pp. 22–24 and 35. Also see Pauline Megan Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown (Cape Town: Howard Timms, 1982), p. 46. Hinchliff notes that clergy were not necessarily against the diocesan structures that a bishop would bring, but the congregations themselves seemed to prefer the independence to which they had become accustomed.
17 Gray’s diocese covered what is now the geographical region of South Africa. It was one of the largest dioceses in the world at the time.
18 Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa, p. 30. Nicholas Southey, ‘Robert Gray and his Legacy to the Church of the Province of Southern Africa’, in John Suggit and Mandy Goedhals (eds.), Change and Challenge: Essays Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Arrival of Robert Gray as First Bishop of Cape Town (20 February 1848) (Cape Town: CPSA, 1998), pp. 18–25 (20).
19 Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa, p. 83.
20 Warren Platt, ‘The Rise of Advanced Ritualism in New York City: The Rev. Thomas McKee Brown and the Founding of the Church of St Mary the Virgin’, Anglican and Episcopal History, 85.3 (2016), pp. 331–69 (332).
21 Reed, Glorious Battle, p. 112.
22 James Green was recruited by Gray to accompany him to South Africa in 1848. He was eventually appointed Dean of the newly created Diocese of Natal in 1854 and was to become a thorn in Bishop John Colenso’s side. Green became increasingly ritualistic throughout his ministry. See ch. 12 in Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’.
23 Declaration by James Barrow (October 1848) – Cory Library MS 16 653.
24 Barry Smith, An Historical Survey of Organs, Organists and Music at St George’s Cathedral, MA thesis, Rhodes University, 1968, p. 54.
25 Reed, Glorious Battle, p. 76.
26 Southey, ‘Robert Gray and his Legacy’, pp. 22 and 24.
27 Overall Gray’s leadership appears to have had a similar effect to that of Bishop John Henry Hobart of New York, a high churchman in the Episcopal Church, who exercised the role of setting the scene for ritualism to flourish; see Platt, ‘The Rise of Advanced Ritualism in New York City’, p. 332.
28 Hinchliff suggests that the ritualist nature of the Province can also be attributed to the fallout from the Colenso saga which ravaged the local church. Colenso, being an Erastian and Evangelical of sorts, was so demonized by the worldwide Anglican Church that contemporary opinion favoured a complete distancing from his churchmanship, missionary style and biblical commentaries. See Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa, p. 190. Bishop John Colenso’s (1814–83) philosophy was shaped by his encounters with Frederick Maurice and his reading of theologians such as Coleridge and Arnold. In particular, Maurice’s (1805–72) views about God’s presence in all cultures and his work in comparative religions were to find fulfilment in Colenso’s mission work with the Zulus in Natal. His mission work and published works did not endear him to his Dean and the Metropolitan and he was eventually excommunicated by a church court. For more information about the ‘Colenso controversy’ see Jeff Guy, The Heretic: A Study of the Life of John William Colenso 1814–1883 (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1983).
29 The Roman Catholic Relief Act had been promulgated in 1829, but the suspicion of Catholics and their worship continued throughout the nineteenth century.
30 ‘Puseyism’ was a derogatory insult derived from the name of Dr Edward Bouverie Pusey, one of the founders of the Oxford Movement. He was accused of introducing ritual practices into English worship. However, being a moderate man, his intention was to reform what he perceived to be the dullness of English worship and to ensure a reverence for God in church services. See Pauline Megan Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown (Cape Town: Howard Timms, 1982), pp. 6-8; and Franklin, ‘Puseyism in the Parishes’.
31 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, p. 29.
32 Guy, The Heretic, p. 56.
33 Guy, The Heretic, p. 57.
34 Guy, The Heretic, p. 11.
35 Guy, The Heretic, p. 56. The author of this quote does not define the difference between ‘Tractarian’ and ‘Puseyite’ tendencies – it may be that one represented theological moves towards Catholicism, the other ceremonial.
36 Nigel Yates, Buildings, Faith, and Worship: The Liturgical Arrangement of Anglican Churches 1600–1900 (London: Oxford University Press, rev. edn, 2001), p. 159.
37 Merriman was Archdeacon of the Eastern Cape (1848–71) and then Bishop of Grahamstown (1871–82).
38 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, p. 28.
39 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, pp. 46–47 and 57; and Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, pp. 169–92.
40 The South African Church Magazine and Ecclesiastical Review (November 1851), p. 336.
41 The South African Church Magazine and Ecclesiastical Review (November 1851), p. 336.
42 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, p. 28.
43 James Whisenant, ‘Anti-Ritualism and the Moderation of Evangelical Opinion in England in the Mid-1870s’, Anglican and Episcopal History, 70.4 (2001), pp. 451-77 (456–58).
44 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, p. 36.
45 Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, p. 171. The bishop eventually retracted his earlier insistence of baptisms occurring during the Sunday service, and the wearing of the surplice in the pulpit, but not without a great deal of angst from both sides. In fact, private baptisms were still common in the 1960s and 70s in the Diocese of Natal.
46 See Reed, Glorious Battle, pp. 137–40.
47 By this time, the massive original Diocese of Cape Town had been split into three separate dioceses: Cape Town, Grahamstown and Natal.
48 Grahamstown Journal (24 May 1867).
49 Grahamstown Journal (24 May 1867).
50 Grahamstown Journal (24 May 1867).
51 Hinchliff, The Anglican Church in South Africa, p. 115.
52 Grahamstown Journal (31 May 1867).
53 Grahamstown Journal (31 May 1867).
54 Grahamstown Journal (7 June 1867).
55 Grahamstown Journal (7 June 1867).
56 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 390.
57 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), pp. 390–91.
58 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 391.
59 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 391.
60 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 391.
61 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 392.
62 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 392.
63 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), pp. 392–96.
64 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 393.
65 Church Chronicle, 5 (December 1884), p. 395.
66 Yates, Anglican Ritualism, pp. 68–69. He includes, alongside antiquarianism, the rejection of the English Reformation, the magnification of the church’s ministry and sacraments by Tractarians in opposition to traditional high churchmen, the ecclesiological movement and its emphasis on beauty and symbolism, the rise of the Roman Catholic Church in England at the time, and the colourful ceremonial and theology of the Catholic Apostolic Church.
67 Darby (‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, pp. 192–97), documented the full story, quoting reports from the press and the subsequent letters to and from the laity and the Bishop of Natal.
68 Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, p. 193.
69 The same article related: ‘This gentleman [Crompton] on entering the church, reverently bowed to the altar; (a gentleman sitting near the aisle, mistaking it for a personal salutation, returned the courtesy)’. Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, p. 193.
70 Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, p. 194.
71 Darby, ‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, pp. 194–95.
72 Darby (‘Anglican Worship in Victorian Natal’, ch. 8) provides a balanced and detailed view of Green’s work at Pietermaritzburg Cathedral, where he was Dean.
73 Whibley, Merriman of Grahamstown, pp. 28 and 35–36.
74 Sadly, the minute books for the early period of the parish are no longer available.
75 The Church Chronicle, 3 (February 1881), p. 58.
76 The Church Chronicle, 3 (February 1882), p. 58.
77 Bernarr Rainbow, The Choral Revival in the Anglican Church 1839–1872 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001), p. 94.
78 Platt, ‘The Rise of Advanced Ritualism in New York City’, pp. 346 and 358.
79 Yates, Buildings, Faith, and Worship, p. 144. Yates cites a survey in 1882 suggesting that 1.1 per cent of London parishes and 0.1 per cent of English and Welsh parishes used incense.
80 Yates, Buildings, Faith, and Worship, p. 144. The same survey suggests that vestments were being used in 4.1 per cent of London parishes and 2.8 per cent of English and Welsh parishes. Reed seems to corroborate what Yates claims, see John Shelton Reed, ‘ “Ritualism Rampant in East London”: Anglo-Catholicism and the Urban Poor’, Victorian Studies, 31.3 (1988), pp. 375–403 (384).
81 Yates, Buildings, Faith, and Worship, p. 139.
82 Yates, Anglican Ritualism, p. 59.
83 Platt, ‘The Rise of Advanced Ritualism in New York City’, p. 341.
84 Platt, ‘The Rise of Advanced Ritualism in New York City’, p. 340.
85 The name Thomas Helmore carried such weight, even in South Africa, that appeals were made to his authority in terms of local musical matters. In a letter to the Church Chronicle, C.J.H. Eberlein defended attacks against his recommendation of Chants Ancient and Modern (edited by Baker and Monk), in an earlier edition of the paper, on the grounds that Helmore had approved of the psalter (Church Chronicle, 3 [February 1882], p. 61). So final was this appeal that it brought an end to a debate in the newspaper which had spanned several months.
86 Rainbow, The Choral Revival, p. 86.
87 Rainbow, The Choral Revival, pp. 68–69 and Yates, Anglican Ritualism, p. 58.
88 Rainbow, The Choral Revival, pp. 68–73.
89 Church Chronicle, 2 (May 1881), p. 139.
90 This was Bishop Merriman’s second last year as bishop. He had faced numerous attacks concerning his churchmanship and leadership from the Dean of Grahamstown Cathedral. For him to openly display his allegiance must have meant that his presence in the parish was welcomed.
91 If this is the case, Herring’s recent thesis which distinguishes the early Tractarians (who tended to be pastorally aware in their innovations and kept the peace within their congregations) from the later ritualists (who tended to be less pastoral in their approach and thus cause more overt tension in congregations) may require a subsection of clergy and laity who represented both camps over a period of time. See George Herring, The Oxford Movement in Practice: The Tractarian Parochial World from the 1830s to the 1870s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
92 Frederick Oakeley, for example, recommended that his church have candlesticks, but that the candles not be lit lest it offend some. See Yates, Anglican Ritualism, p. 61.