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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
The late Georgian Church was not exclusively the preserve of the graduate clergyman: Oxford and Cambridge universities produced too few graduates to supply all the titles for orders. My current study of ordination records indicates that between 1780 and 1839 about one in four new entrants to the Church had no degree and that the majority of ordinands in Wales and the Northern Province were non-graduates, generally termed by contemporaries as ‘literates’. Why is this relevant to the subject of the household? The answer lies in the way in which these non-graduates prepared for ordination. There were various well-trodden routes: for instance in Wales and north-west England some grammar schools provided tertiary level study. But most non-graduate clerical aspirants followed a schoolboy classical education with private study, often assisted by a clergyman. This essay is concerned with a subsection of this type of preparation, the domestic clerical seminary, in which students prepared for ordination while residing in a clergyman’s family. It will consider the markets for such institutions, the nature of the pre-ordination training provided by them, and what a recognition of the operation of these seminaries contributes to an understanding of the channels through which emerging currents of ideology and professional practice flowed in this period.
1 Percentage of ordinands who were non-graduates: England and Wales 23.1%; Northern Province 50.1%; Wales 61.9%. For an analysis of the educational backgrounds of those taking orders, see Slinn, Sara, ‘Non-Graduate Entrants to the Clerical Profession, 1780-1839: Routes to Ordination’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Nottingham, forthcoming).Google Scholar
2 W. H. Krause believed that Thomas Rogers, a former headmaster of Wakefield Grammar School, Yorkshire, with whom a number of ordinands studied, could obtain titles for orders: Charles Stanford, Memoir of the late Rev. W. H. Kranse (Dublin, 1854), 21.
3 Slinn, Sara, ‘Archbishop Harcourt’s Recruitment of Literate Clergymen. Part 2: Clerical Seminaries for Literates in the Diocese of York, 1800-49’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 81 (2009), 279–309, at 287-95Google Scholar; Stock, Eugene, The History of the Church Missionary Society, 4 vols (London, 1899–1916), 1: 88–90.Google Scholar
4 For Salisbury, see [Gauntlett, C. T.], Sermons by the late Rev. Henry Gauntlet! … with a memoir of the author, 2 vols (London, 1835), 1: vi–vii Google Scholar. For York, see Slinn, Sara, ‘Archbishop Harcourt’s Recruitment of Literate Clergymen. Part 1 : Non-Graduate Clergymen in the Diocese of York, 1800-1849’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 80 (2008), 167–87, at 184-7.Google Scholar
5 Graduate William Watye Andrew prepared with Arthur Roberts of Woodrising, Norfolk: Chadwick, Owen, Victorian Miniature (Cambridge, 1991), 17 Google Scholar. Graduate John Hepworth Gresham read with William Snowden at Bawtry following an unsuccessful appearance at York: York, Borthwick Institute for Archives, Ordination Papers [hereafter: Bl, Ord.P.], 1836: deacon:Gresham.
6 Some ordinands were clearly given specific advice and assistance by their college tutors, but this lay above and beyond the ordinary B.A. course at Oxford and Cambridge and the few works of divinity studied by all students for the B.A. were basic, popular texts. Graduates from Cambridge, where the B.A. course focused particularly on mathematics rather than classics, were notorious in some circles for their poor performance: see, for instance, Philograntus [James Henry Monk?], A Letter to the Right Reverend John, Lord Bishop of Bristol, Respecting an Additional Examination of Students in the University of Cambridge, and the different Plans proposed for that Purpose (London, 1822), 11-12; Eubulus, Thoughts on the Present System of Academic Education in the University of Cambridge (London, 1822), 13 (obliquely); Bird, Claude Smith, Sketches from the Life of the Rev. Charles Smith Bird (London, 1864), 74.Google Scholar
7 Pensioners of the Elland and Bristol clerical education societies were frequently sent to domestic seminaries for assessment; they then prepared either for university or for ordination, or else were dismissed as lacking aptitude.
8 Thomas Clarke’s obituary notes that he had ‘sent forth many able and excellent ministers into the Church’: Gentleman’s Magazine 63 (1793), 961. Balleine credits Clarke with training Basil Woodd, Edward Burn, Charles Jerram and William Goode for holy orders, although all took B.A. degrees before ordination: Balleine, G. R., History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London, 1909), 121–2.Google Scholar
9 For the ideal of parish-based clerical education, see [Snowden, William], The Church: The Case of ‘non-graduate clergymen’, usually called ‘literates’, dispassionately considered in a letter … (London, 1830)Google Scholar. For Snowden’s tutorial work, see Slinn, ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 297-301.
10 Pym, Robert, Memoirs of the late Rev. William Nunn (London, 1842), 56.Google Scholar
11 In 1813, Thomas Rogers gave William Kettlewell board and instruction for £50 p.a.: Wakefield, West Yorkshire Archive Service [hereafter: WYAS], Records of the Elland Society, C84/1, 8-9 July 1813, 7-8 October 1813. In 1828 William Gill paid him £30 for tuition alone: William Gill, Memoir of the late Rev. William Gill, ed. Gatty, Alfred (Sheffield, 1880), 4 Google Scholar. For Rogers, see Slinn, , ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 288–92.Google Scholar
12 The perpetual curacy of Wilsden was worth £46 p.a. For Barber, see Slinn, , ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 295–7.Google Scholar
13 Crane, Jane, Records of the Life of Win. H. Havergal (London, 1883), 182.Google Scholar
14 Dyson, Taylor, Almondbury and its Ancient School: Being the History of King James’s Grammar School, Almondbury (Huddersfield, 1926), 114 Google Scholar. For Smith, see Slinn, , ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 294–5.Google Scholar
15 Crane, Records, 27.
16 Episcopal Watchman 2 (1829), 240.
17 Crane, , Records, 181–2.Google ScholarPubMed
18 Bird, , Charles Smith Bird, 74.Google Scholar
19 At Cambridge, Charles Simeon, fellow of King’s College and perpetual curate of Holy Trinity, provided a focus for evangelical ordinands seeking the guidance and skills not offered by their formal course of studies. Simeon held sermon classes from 1792 and conversation parties – fairly formal question and answer sessions – from 1813, both of which were influential in forming evangelical doctrine and practice. Simeon did not provide supported pastoral experience but some undergraduates visited the prison, and assisted in the Jesus Lane Sunday School (founded 1827). For a summary of Simeon’s influence on ordinands, see Hylson-Smith, Kenneth, Evangelicals in the Church of England, 1734-1984 (Edinburgh, 1989), 70–6.Google Scholar
20 Pym, Nunn, 52-3.
21 [Gauntlett], Sermons, 1: cxiii.
22 Anon, ., Memoir of the Rev. John George Brcay, 2nd edn (London, 1841), 25, 62–3 Google Scholar; Anon, ., ‘Memoir of the Rev. R. C. Dillon D.D.’, Church Magazine 1 (1839), 289–95 Google Scholar, at 290; Crane, Records, 182; BI, Ord.P.1848:deacon:Chapman.
23 Anon, ., Memoir of Breay, 24, 65, 70–1, 74 Google Scholar; Anon., ‘Memoir of Dillon’, 290; BI, Ord.P.1848:deacon:Chapman; Crane, Records, 182; Pym, Nunn, 59.
24 [Gauntlett], Sermons, 1: cxiii; BI, Ord.P.1848:deacon:Chapman.
25 Anon., Memoir of Breay, 25-7, 67-8.
26 Their ability to focus on tutorial work, without the distractions of parish duty, probably accounts for their significant output; between them they were responsible for over ninety successful ordinands: Slinn, ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 290-1, 297-9.
27 Raikes, Henry, Remarks on Clerical Education (London, 1831)Google Scholar. Note, however, that some advocated superintended practical experience: see Bridges, Charles, The Christian Ministry, 3rd edn (London, 1830), 89–90.Google Scholar
28 Anon, ., ‘Memoir of the Rev. George Campbell Brodbelt’, Evangelical Magazine 9 (1801), 378–84, at 379.Google Scholar
29 Sargent, J., The Life of the Rev T. T. Thomason (London, 1833), 31 Google Scholar; Hicken, L., ‘Thomas Clarke of Chesham Bois’, Churchman 84 (1970), 130–3 Google Scholar. To Hicken’s list add ‘Philoprepos’: see Christian Lady’s Magazine 14 (1840), 62; and Baptist minister Richard Morris: Godwin, B., Memoirs of Richard Morris, late Pastor of the Baptist church, Amersham, Bucks, 2nd edn (London, 1819), 57.Google Scholar
30 Anon., Memoir of Breay, 64.
31 Knight, Samuel, Sermons and Miscellaneous Works …to which is prefixed a memoir by W. Knight (Halifax, 1828), xxxvii, xciv Google Scholar. For Knights work as a tutor for orders, see Slinn, ‘Literate Clergymen. Part 2’, 292-3.
32 Rogers, Thomas, Lectures Delivered in the Parish Church of Wakefield in the year 1802, 3rd edn, 2 vols (London: 1816), 1: 16.Google Scholar
33 Scott, John, The Life of the Rev. Thomas Scott, 2nd edn (London, 1822), 627 Google Scholar; Knight, Sermons, ciii.
34 For the ministries of Stowell and Breay, see respectively Marsden, J. B., Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Hugh Stowell (London, 1868), 46–8 Google Scholar; Anon., Memoir of Breay, 198-203, 477-88, 492-5, 497-9.
35 Scott, Life of Scott, 612.
36 Knight, Sermons, cii–iii.
37 Rogers, Charles, Memoir of Thomas Rogers (London, 1832), 25.Google Scholar
38 Halifax, WYAS, Shibden Hall Records, SH:7/ML/66.
39 Hicken, ‘Thomas Clarke’.
40 In 1815 George Baring, vicar of Winterbourne Stoke, seceded from the Church of England and was joined by a small number of other clergy from southwest England. Their doctrines were unstable but they held a high Calvinist view of particular redemption and tended to antinomianism: see Carter, Grayson, Anglican Evangelicals: Protestant Secessions from the Via Media c. 1800-1850 (Oxford, 2001), 105–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41 Crane, , Records, 18–19 Google ScholarPubMed; Carter, , Anglican Evangelicals, 144, 150–1.Google Scholar
42 Cooke, Esther and Rouse, Ellen, Brief Memorials of William Hurn (London, 1831), 267–71.Google Scholar During his life Hurn was not explicit about his reason for seceding, his Reasons for Secession from the Church of England being published posthumously in 1830. However, his theological perplexities were clear to his pupils. George Laval Chesterton described him as ‘an enthusiastic Calvinist’, always ‘wrestling with obscure doctrinal points’ and ‘prey to doubt and vacillation’: Chesterton, George Laval, Peace, War and Adventure, 2 vols (London, 1853), 1: 2.Google Scholar
43 Nunn was with Hurn in 1810 and in vacations until 1813; Pym, Nunn, 50-60, 68, 73. For Nunn’s subsequent relationship with his bishop, see ibid. 91-106; Shaw, Ian J., High Caluinists in Action: Calvinism and the City – Manchester and London, c.1810-1860 (Oxford, 2003), 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
44 Hulbert, Charles Augustus, Annals of the Church in Slaithvaite (London, 1864), 140–1.Google Scholar
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47 Winskill, , Temperance Movement, 1: 156 Google Scholar. Bardsley, James, Report of the Committee on Intemperance: For the Convocation of the Province of York (Manchester, 1874)Google Scholar. His son was John Wareing Bardsley: ODNB, s.n. ‘Bardsley, John Wareing’, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30581=, accessed 21 June 2012.
48 BI, Ord.P. 1833: deacon: Simpson.
49 The Cowherdites, or Bible Christians (not to be confused with the Cornish Methodist group of the same name), broke away from a group of Swedenborgians in Salford in 1809 under their leader William Cowherd. Cowherd and his successor James Scholefield preached the necessity of abstaining from meat and alcohol. Never a large group, their few English congregations were in the area around Manchester. See Pickering, Paul A. and Tyrrell, Alex, ‘“In the Thickest of the Fight”: The Rev James Scholefield (1790-1855) and the Bible Christians of Manchester and Salford’, Albion 26 (1994), 461–82.Google Scholar
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51 Rogers, Charles, Britannica, Lyra: A Collection of British Hymns, printed from the genuine Texts, until Biographical Sketches of the Hymn Writers (London, 1867), 127 (Cawood), 278 (Havergal)Google Scholar; Miller, Josiah, Singers and Songs of the Church, 2nd edn (London, 1869), 316–17 (Hurn)Google Scholar.
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54 See ODNB, s.nn. ‘Havergal, William Henry’, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12632>; ‘Havergal, Frances Ridley’, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12629>; ‘Havergal, Henry East’, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12631>, all accessed 21 June 2012.
55 Of dioceses where non-graduates formed a large proportion of ordinands, good series of ordination papers survive for Durham, but not for Carlisle or Chester. Domestic seminaries were not a feature of clerical education in the southern Welsh dioceses.
56 Of 114 literates ordained 1827-36, 39 studied with tutors (although not all on a residential basis); 29 attended St Bees Clerical College, and one each St David’s College, Lampeter, and Durham University.
57 Crane, Records, 180.
58 Peacock, M. H., History of the Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth at Wakefield (Wakefield, 1892), 146.Google Scholar
59 BI, Ord.P.1848:deacon:Chapman.