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Anglican Chaplaincies in Post-Napoleonic Europe: A Strange Variation on the Pax Britannica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John E. Pinnington
John E. Pinnington
Affiliation:
Mr. Pinnington is lecturer in history inthe University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
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Extract

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars took the English into Europe in unprecedented numbers, and, once there, they stayed. Commerce and industry followed inevitably in the wake of the armies; colonies of Englishmen sprang up in places not previously centres of international trade; English industrialists promoted factories and railways, operated and maintained by English workmen. The new industrial aristocracy chose to spend its vacations in Europe, usually at the fashionable watering places, and some were sent by their physicians into more or less permanent European exile. Not without reason did the Christian Remembrancer ask rhetorically, in 1845, if there was yet a square yard of ground in all the five continents which the restless curiosity of the English traveller had not raked over. Yet, if psychologically, there was no longer “any such thing as a foreign country” for the affluent nineteenth century Englishman, Europe remained for all practical purposes the limit of the horizon: and it was within this ambit that the transformation was most substantial. Sporting members of parliament had their château in Provence or their schloss in Hungary where their forebears had been content with a shooting-box on the Yorkshire moors, and undergraduates went off fly-fishing during the long vacation to Norway rather than to Wales. Altogether, the knowledgeable Anglo-German, George Biber put the English population on the continent in 1845 at between 200,000 and 300,000.1 There was no doubt about it; whatever government policy was to be, England's psychological isolation from Europe was at an end.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 327 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1970

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References

1. Biber, G. E., The English Church on the Continent, 2nd ed. (London, 1846), pp. 1–2Google Scholar; Colonial and Continental Church Society, Continental Minute Book, 1851, p. 11Google Scholar: Commonwealth and Continental Church Society, London; Christian Remembrancer, (07 1845), p. 61.Google Scholar

2. Biber, op. cit., pp. 1–2.

3. Knight, H. J. C., The Diocese of Gibraltar (London, 1917), pp. 31, 37Google Scholar. The Levant Company at Aleppo may be taken perhaps as showing more than patriotism in resisting the introduction of Presbyterianism during the Commonwealth.

4. The order arose out of a complaint that the English at Hamburg were introducing Calvinist worship and government. Laud also seems to have had Delft in mind and enjoined in a letter thence in June 1634 that all merchants residing abroad must conform to the Church of England. Knight, op. cit., pp. 24–25.

5. Ibid., p. 26.

6. Townshend, S. and Adams, H. J., History of the English Congregation and its Association with the British Factory Gothenburg (Göteberg, 1946), pp. 5, 12.Google Scholar

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8. Knight, op. cit., p. 58, citing the Colonial Church Chronicle. The Turks, it was said, thought the Levant Company merchants entirely without religion.

9. This was particularly feared at Leghorn. See the Rev. Charles Neat to Bishop Howley, 27 Oct. 1827, Fulham Paper (U.S.P.G.–United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London), iv, 578. There was considerable government correspondence between 1825 and 1828 over the question of whether the factory there had ever “legally existed,” and there seems to have been bad blood between the consul and one of the merchants. Both consul and king's advocate argued that there had been no legal British establishment until the appointment of the consul. Memorandum in F.O. 83/462, (Public Record Office, London (probably drawn up by the Under-Secretary, Wilmot Horton).

10. F.O. 83/462; C.C.C.S., Continental Minute Book, 1856, p. 11.Google Scholar

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15. Fulham Papers (Lambeth), 17 and 22; Biber, Ibid., pp. 69 et seq.

16. C.C.C.S., Minute Book, op. cit., p. 360.

17. Biber, op. cit., pp. 49, 57–66.

18. Biber, op. cit., pp. 33–37; the Rev. Hall, Thomas to Howley, Bishop, 8 12, 1820, Fulhare Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 563.Google Scholar

19. Steven, William, History of the Scottish Church at Rotterdam (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 283–4.Google Scholar

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21. Deutz, Frederick Oudsehans, History of the English Church at the Hague, 1586–1929 (Delft, 1929), pp. 13–14, 29, 35, 42–45, 48, 56–58, 109Google Scholar. Few of the clergy since 1595 had been episcopally ordained, and the church always had a full Presbyterian system of deacons and elders.

22. Steven, op. cit., pp. 299, 330.

23. Steven, Ibid., p. 324. The Rev. Adrian Van Deinse supplied at Ostend until the arrival of the Rev. Moses Marcus.

24. The Resutts of an Ecciesiaslical Tour in Holland and Northern Germany (London, 1846), pp. 8–9Google Scholar. Perceval noticed, in the same context, the habit in parts of Germany (notably Weimar) of allowing Anglican children to be confirmed by Lutheran superintendents or their delegates.

25. There was even some common personnel through intermarriage; e.g. the Rev. Thomas Hoog and the Rev. John Scharp. Steven, op. cit., pp. 235–42.

26. The Rev. Sawyer, G. to Rowley, Bishop, 18 08. 1815, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.) Europe 1814, p. 297.Google Scholar

27. Murray's Handbook for Travellers, 3rd ed. (London, 1871), p. 7.Google Scholar

28. Bunbury, Selina, Evelyn, or a Journey from Stockholm to Rome (London, 1849), i, 205Google Scholar; Bunbury, Selina, Life in Sweden (London, 1853), i, 62–3Google Scholar; Barrow, John, Excursions into the North of Europe (London, 1834), p. 157Google Scholar. There was an Anglican chapel in Stockholm for a time, but it was closed down for want of worshippers. Cf. Sir Edmund Lyons to Palmerston, 19 Nov. 1851, cited in ‘Return to an Address of the House of Lords’, P.O. 83/159.

29. Bunbury, Life in Sweden, op cit, ii, 326–7.

30. Bunbury, Evelyn, op. cit., i, 188.

31. Bosworth to the Rev. G. H. Fagan, 2 April 1846, U.S.P.G., South Africa Papers, 1819–47, Box 2.

32. “J.M.” to Nuget Wade, 26 March 1833, Wade Papers (formerly in the possession of Miss Elmira Wade, O.B.E., South Stoke, Bath and now in custody of Pusey House, Oxford); ‘A Tour in Iceland in the year 1818,’ Brit. Mus. Add. MS 31,048, f.2v; C. Godfrey to Nugent Wade, 23 August (1836); Wade to Mrs. Lindberg, n.d. (possibly June 1834), Wade Papers. The English at ‘Elsinor’ seem to have been completely absorbed into Danish society in the generation after Wade, for there is no mention of any Anglican congregation in Denmark except that at Copenhagen in a report to the Foreign Office in 1866. Cf. Count C. E. Juel-Wind-Frits to George Petre, 16 March 1866, F.O. 22/335.

33. Although later an ardent Tractarian, at this time Wade was a High Church Evangelical.

34. Perceval, A. P., Result of a First Endeavour to Re-Establish in Germany the Ancient Ecclesiastical Missions from England and Ireland, in 186–1847 (London, 1847), pp. 38–9Google Scholar; Biber, op. cit., p. 40.

35. The Rev. Michael Martin to Bishop Howley, 23 Dec. 1817; the Rev. George Gaskin to Howley, 30 Dec. 1817 and 7 Jan. 1818, Fuiham Papers (U.S.P.G), iv, 220, 228.Google Scholar

36. The Rev. Trevor, Thomas to Rowley, Bishop, 5 02 1819, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 593.Google Scholar

37. Statements made by Consuls, Consular Chaplains and Church Committees relative to the Withdrawal of Government Grants to Chaplains (London, 1874), p. 54.Google Scholar

38. Cf. Blomfield, Bishop to Luscombe, Bishop, 13 11. 1843, Fulham Papers (Lambeth), 373, f. 12.Google Scholar

39. Blomfield, to the Rev. Bolton, W., 26 07 1843, Fuiham Papers (Lambeth), 370, f. 81.Google Scholar

40. Biber, G. E., Bishop Blomfield and his Times: An Historical Sketch (London, 1867), p. 399.Google Scholar

41. See my article “Bishop Luseombe and Anglican Order in Continental Europe.” Historical Magasine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 38 (12. 1969), 381–92.Google Scholar

42. Section xiii of the Consular Act of 1839 in the hands of Lord Melbourne or Lord John Russell provided a legal cover for such a war on the bishop despite government assurances that it did not condone the appropriation of powers by the congregation which a parish in England would not possess. All British subjects were accorded a right to subscribe, and subscription gave them great potential power over the chaplain who was instructed not to “unnecessarily” oppose anything they desired to adopt. In effect, therefore, a majority of Presbyterian residents could oust the incumbent chaplain and establish a chaplaincy of the Church of Scotland. For Funchal see Newell, H. A., The English Church at Madeira (Oxford, 1931).Google Scholar

43. Sir William Temple to Lord Clarendon, 28 March 1855, F.O. 97/259; pencil note in Lambeth Palace Library copy of Groves, Kynaston, Letter to a Friend on the Governing Principle of the Church of England as applied generally to her Continental Churchea (Boulogne, 1846), p. 25Google Scholar (cf. Tait Papers, Box 6, no. 365). For the frustration of High Church chaplains, see Wilson, H. Talbot, History of the English Church at Rome from 1816 to 1916 (Rome, 1916), p. 16.Google Scholar

44. Trevor, to Howley, Bishop, 24 06 1819, Fulkam Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 603.Google Scholar

45. Biber, The English Church on the Continent, op. cit., p. 47.

46. The leasing of the Jesuit chapel at Leghorn, a consecrated church, and the provision of one Anglican priest to solemnize marriages, encouraged the local inhabitants to regard the Anglicans “in a far more favourable light” and even to call them “Christians.” The Rev. Hall, Thomas to Howley, Bishop, 8 12. 1820 and Neat, Charles to Rowley, Bishop, 27 10. 1827, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv. 563, 577Google Scholar. For the Russian concession, made on condition that there was no party conflict in the congregation, see Disbrowe, E. Cromwell to Canning, George, 11/23, 09. 1825, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 1021Google Scholar. (The Leghorn privilege also involved a tacit agreement that there would not be competition and disturbance and for a time the activities of the Methodists caused the Anglican chaplain to fear for the security of his right. Cf. the Rev. Thomas Hall to Bishop Howley, 8 Dec. 1820, Ibid.

47. By the decree of 12 July 1790. Cf. The Book of Common Prayer compiled for the use of the English Church at Dunkirk (Dunkirk, 1791)Google Scholar, reprinted in Fragmenta Liturgica, ed. Peter Hall (Bath, 1848), p. 7.Google Scholar

48. See P.O. 97/199–200 for the long drawn-out dispute over what was the embassy chapel.

49. T. G. Billing to the Rev. George Tomlinson, 24 June 1839 and Tomlinson to Bishop Blomfield, 2 July 1839, F.O. 97/199; Marquis of Normanby to Lord Palmerston 2 July 1847 P.O. 97/199; Normanby to the Rev.William Charnier, 24 June 1850 (copy), 97/200.

50. Normanby to Charnier, 4 May 1850 (copy) and Charnier to Normanby, 7 June 1850, F.O. 97/200.

51. Tomlinson to Blomfield, 2 July 1839, op. cit. See also Viscount Granville to the Due de Dalmatie, 30 July 1839 (copy) Ibid.

52. The Rev. John Charles to Bishop Terrick, 20 June, 30 June and 6 Aug. 1770; Sir Joseph York to Lord Rochford n.d., (copy), Fulham Papers (Lambeth), Continental Chaplaincies (Amsterdam).

53. Cf. Dentz, op. cit., p. 31 for examples of the viciously anti-British and anti-Anglican tone of contemporary political verses.

54. Steven, op. cit., p. 280; Sawyer, to Howley, Bishop, 21 05 1816, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), Europe 1814–1828, 306 ff.Google Scholar; Sawyer, to Howley, , 4 09. 1817, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 328.Google Scholar

55. Letter of church wardens to S.P.G., 28 Feb. 1822, U.S.P.G. Archives, Europe and Near East 1820–45 box.

56. Cf. correspondence passim between Bosworth, and Blomfield, in the Fulham Papers (both U.S.P.G. and Lambeth).Google Scholar

57. Steven, op. cit., p. 281; Stone street to Howley, Bishop, 4 03 1817, Fulham Papers(Lambeth), Continental Chaplaincies Box (Brussels).Google Scholar

58. Bishops Howley and Blomfield made sure that no Calvinist was appointed in Holland so that the Dutch might see to best advantage the distinctive character of the Church of England and compare it with their own establishment. For this reason the Rev. Henry Tattam was appointed to Amsterdam in 1822 in preference to the Rev. R. D. Warner who was already settled in the town. The same occurred in 1825 when Warner passed over in favour of the Rev. John Jeans. Cf. Fuham Papers (U.S.P.G.), Europe 1814–1828, 343, 348.Google Scholar

59. Cf. Dentz, op. cit., pp. 49–50.

60. Mayers, to Howley, Bishop, 29 12. 1827, Fuiham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv. 703Google Scholar; Biber, The English Church on the Continent, op. cit., p. 3.

61. Mayers to Howley op. cit.; George During to John Bidwell, 2 August 08. 1827, P.O. 7/200.

62. Mayer to Howley, op. cit.; Biber, The English Church on the Continent, op. cit.; pp. 54–55.

63. Mayers to Rowley, 7 Feb. 1828 and Mayers, to Blomfield, , 09. 1828, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv. 707.Google Scholar

64. Coekburn to Planta, 3 Dec. and 9 Dec. 1817, P.O. 33/49. The chief supporters of Moodie, Joseph Butterworth and Benjamin Shaw were not among the petitioners to the government for aid towards the Anglican chapel, although a third man, Benjamin Home, both petitioned for support and protested against attempts to unseat Moodie. See petitions dated 18 Feb and 6 Dec. 1817, Ibid.

65. Planta to Mellish, 29 Dec. 1817 (draft), F.O. 33/50; Letter of Mellish to Senate, 17 Nov. 1817 cited in Mellish to Castlereagh, 6 Dec. 1817, F.O. 33/50.

66. Planta, to Howley, , 8 07 1819, Fulham Papers (U.S.P.G.) iv 723–4Google Scholar; resolutions dated 4 March 1820, Ibid., 751–3; Griero to Castlereagh, 10 Dec. 1819, P.O. 33/52.

67. Planta to Mellish, 20 July 1819, F.O. 33/52; Planta to Mellish, 10 Oct. 1820, F.O. 33/53; Mellish to Planta, 20 June, 1820,

68. Mellish to Syndic Von Sienen, 24 Oct. 1820 (copy), Von Sienen to Mellish, 3 Nov. 1820; Mellish to Von Sienen, 10 Nov. 1820 (copy); Von Sienen to Mellish, 24 Nov. 1820; “Mr. Parish's thoughts upon the British Factory at Hamburg’; Planta, to Howley, , 22 05 1821, Fuiham Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 787–9 and P.O. 33'50Google Scholar; the Rev. Baker, Richard to Howley, , 16 03 1821, Fulharm Papers (U.S.P.G.), iv, 792.Google Scholar

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70. Charnier to Normanby, 17 July 1851, F.O. 97/200.

71. Lord Stuart de Rothsay to Chateaubriand (copy), 3 June 1824; Canning to Stuart, 13 Nov. 1827, F.O. 97/199; memorandum dated 20 Feb. 1830; Bishop Luscombe to ArchBishop Howley, 16 April 1830, Ibid.; Luscombe to Granville (copy), 24 Jan. 1833; Granville to Luscombe, 30 April 1833; Luscombe to Lord Cowley, 1 Dec. 1845; Blomfield to Henry Addington, 31 Dec. 1845, Ibid.

72. Foreign Office circulars to consuls, dated 28 May 1860 aiid 24 April 1871, F.O. 83/159.

73. Lacroix to Lord John Russell, 30 April 1862, Ibid.

74. Instrcutions to Her Majesty's Consuls Respecting Grants to Church Establishments Abroad etc. (London, 1874), pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

75. A view reported by Bishop Luseombe in a letter to Lord Stuart de Rothsay, 10 Oct. 1828, F.O. 97/199.