Worship reputation for competitive forms of worship

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (77) explores how Bournemouth appeared to attract numerous clergymen as visitors. The resort’s worship practices had created interest amongst the country’s religious community. Press attention developed this attention into a reputation. Some lodging-house keepers may have specialised in accommodating specific denominations of clergymen.

Victorian Bournemouth (77): forms of worship

High-Church reputation

When the Reverend A. M. Bennett came to Bournemouth in the mid-1840s, he introduced and maintained strong views about correct worship in the resort. In their extensive use of ritual, his services reflected his adherence to the Oxford Movement, a contemporary religious trend which imitated Catholic worship forms. An article reprinted in several newspapers during 1874 began with the sentence ‘Bournemouth has long been famous for ritualism’. The piece referred to Reverend Bennett, the town having ‘long been known for its “advanced” services’. Nevertheless, the incumbent of the new church in Springbourne, St Clement’s, Rev. George D. Tinling, received the description of having ‘gone ahead’ of St Peter’s, Bennett’s church. Indeed, the Reverend Bennett preached the first sermon when St Clement’s opened. Early in his ministry, Bennett marked his spot by refusing permission for a funeral cortege of a Dissenter to have a blessing in his church.

Wider worship options

Congregationalists, however, flourished in Bournemouth’s early period, needing a larger church by 1864. In 1856, Mrs McWilliam, the wife of a successful builder and later Improvement Commissioner, specified a Dissenter to work in her drapery shop. A year later, she ran a stall at a bazaar held to raise funds for the Congregational church. By 1860, 100 attended its annual meeting; soon, the Hampshire Union Congregational society met at Bournemouth, attracting 50 ministers. By the 1860s, Bournemouth had Presbyterian and Wesleyan chapels. A Congregationalist Mission Hall had appeared in Springbourne. Dead dissenters no longer needed a blessing from the “High Mogul”, as they described Reverend Bennett. A Salvationist preacher lectured at Bournemouth for a fortnight in 1865. Dean McNeile, an evangelical, who came to live (and die) in Bournemouth, preached at the town’s Holy Trinity, a low church, Anglican worship quite different to the Reverend Bennett’s.

Victorian Bournemouth (77): religious reputation

Numerous clergymen

In 1862 the first meeting of the Vale of Avon Choral Society, comprising several parishes, occurred at St Peter’s, Bournemouth, Bennett’s church. Twenty clergymen and almost a hundred choristers attended. Clusters of clergymen visiting Bournemouth became a frequent theme. The satirist Grantley Berkeley thought the place had more divine services and greater church attendance than he had seen elsewhere. ‘Either the place has been very wicked, or it must become very good’. To test his observations, he visited the library where he consulted the Visitors’ List. Twenty-seven ‘fresh’ clergymen had arrived at Bournemouth that week. Another observer wrote an account of his Bournemouth visit a few years later. He came to a church – perhaps, St Peter’s – when a service to consecrate eight new bells happened. Present at the service, he found a ‘cloud of clergymen’, eager to witness or assist in the event.

‘Puseyite’ tourism

Early Bournemouth’s reputation acquired different aspects. It attracted the description of ‘fashionable’ from the beginning, press editors gushing about the aristocracy and other notables making the town their playground. The convalescent stay made by Disraeli in 1874 absorbed quantities of ink. Despite the Improvement Commission’s best efforts, the press continued to highlight their struggles with the town’s drainage system. It seems also, from coverage of divine affairs, that the Reverend A. M. Bennett made the town a showcase for Puseyite or High-Church worship. His services drew clergymen interested to observe their nature and mechanics. One visitor thought that the Christmas Day service ‘only wanted the odour of incense and the ringing of a little bell to have been identically Papistical’. Thus, the divine efforts of Reverend A. M. Bennett served Mammon as well since his practices drew many clergymen to visit the town and stay in its hotels or lodging-houses.

Victorian Bournemouth (77): ‘safe houses’

Religious hostels

The Arrivals and Departures database, collected for 1864, recorded guests and their addresses. Clergymen comprised four percent of arrivals, similar in number to ‘top people’ and members of the armed forces together. In most cases, the identities of the clergymen remain undetermined, but a few provide an illustration of their social profiles. Men at high levels in their career, a college Provost and a Bishop, came to Bournemouth, as well as others of less elevation. Men of different wealth attended, for example Reverend W. B. Hawkins, a landowner, whose estate reached almost £200,000. The estate of the Reverend A. P. Turquand, however, amounted not even to 1% of this. He had attended Oxford, while others identified studied at Cambridge. Some had schooled at Eton. Many stayed at the Bath or Belle Vue hotels, but others stayed at lodging-houses, which, in some cases, appeared keen on clerical guests.

Moorland Cottage

Ann Carter took lodgers at early Bournemouth perhaps for almost thirty years. Often, she kept Moorland Cottage, a building located towards the top of Richmond Hill. She ran her business sometimes with help from members of her extended, but interconnected family. An Independent Minister and family once stayed with a part of it. In 1861, the census listed a presbyterian minister staying at Moorland Cottage. In 1864, however, the database showed that almost as many clergymen stayed here as had either at the Bath or Belle Vue hotels. Advertising or word of mouth perhaps recognised Moorland Cottage as a religious hostel. This family may have dissented. James McWilliam, husband of the Congregational fund raiser, built Moorland Cottage. At least one of the clerical guests dissented, John Tyeth Feaston. Ann Carter, then, perhaps offered a port in the divine storm where Dissenters may have sheltered from the “High Mogul”.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (77) has shown how Bournemouth’s religious reputation attracted many clergymen of different persuasions to visit. The town had several places of worship. The High-Church ministry of the Reverend A. M. Bennett attracted some, repelled others. In some cases, the lodging-houses may have reflected this pattern by favouring clergy of one denomination or outlook over others.

References

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