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Thomas Chamberlain—A Forgotten Tractarian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Thomas Chamberlain, vicar of St Thomas’s Oxford for fifty years (1842–92), has fallen into undeserved obscurity. Except for a very brief memoir, written by Algernon Barrington Simeon just after his death, and a section in Thomas Squires’ history of the parish which is largely based on it, there is no account of his life and work. Yet in many ways his was the model tractarian parish. The Ecclesiologist acknowledged it as ‘an example of correct ritualism’ whilst a local evangelical regarded it as ‘the headquarters of the ultra devotees of the Pusey party’. The restoration and furnishing of the parish church were the epitome of tractarian ambitions. Chamberlain himself, with his energy and reserve, was regarded as an archetypal parish priest. Felicia Skene, ‘a person of strong feelings and decided opinions—, so admired him that she not only came to live in the parish to work for him, but also used him as the basis for her portrait of the dedicated clergyman, Mr Chesterfield, in one of her novels, S. Albans’s, or the Prisoners of Hope. Even lais sartorial habits were imitated, a sure sign of the regard in which he was held. One young man, about to be ordained to a title at St Alban’s, Holborn, wrote to his sister that he had been to Oxford to be measured by a certain tailor for his first clerical suit. ‘He makes things for Mr Chamberlain and his curates, so I think I am pretty sure of having mine correct.’
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1979
References
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32 Ibid p 108.
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34 Squires plate 7.
35 p 117.
36 Chamberlain, The Chancel pp 13, 19-20.
37 Ecclesiologist 14 (1853) pp 304, 305n.
38 Squires p 22.
39 Hymns used at the Church of S. Thomas the Martyr, Oxford (London 1866); also, Hymns, chiefly for the Minor Festivals (London 1863).
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41 Quoted by [R. D.] Hill, [A History of St Edward’s School] (privately printed 1962) p 18.
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55 The Builder (London) 13 October 1860 p 661; Guardian (London) 24 October 1860.
56 The rest of the window shows the Lamb of God on the heavenly altar adored by St Thomas and St Frideswide amongst others. In The Chancel (p 15), Chamberlain wrote, ‘The true object of Christian worship ... is nothing less than this – the joining with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, in adoration of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world . . . and receiving to ourselves the benefits of that Passion.’ He also wrote of ‘the heavenly mansions, of which the chancel . . . where is offered the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, is the acknowledged, but of course, inadequate type.’ [Ecclesiologist] 13 (1852) p 103.
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58 See n 54 above. The relevant passage is omitted in Squires. It is said to have been used at St Mary Magdalene’s, Munster Square, London on Christmas Eve 1854. See Ollard p 178.
59 Apart from internal evidence, it is explicitly attributed to him by his curate, W. H. Smithe. See Squires p 25.
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63 The Seven Ages of the Church (London 1856); The Acts of the Apostles (London 1856); The Epistle to the Romans (London 1870).
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65 W. H. Smithe quoted by Squires p 25.
66 See n 53 above.
67 Simeon p 8.
68 The GWR station was opened in 1852, the LNWR in 1851.
69 See Squires plate 91.
70 Now the shop of Oxford’s bed specialists!
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78 Christian Remembrancer 3 (London 1852) pp 231-43.
79 PH MSS, Marian Hughes’ Diaries, 1. All the unidentified quotations in the following paragraphs are from this source.
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81 He later became bishop of Emmaus. Church Times 29 January 1892.
82 The land was purchased by the NW Railway Co.
83 There is a draft dated S Agnes (either 21 or 28 January), but the fair copy is dated S Agatha (5 February). The discovery of these documents and the supporting evidence of the diary prove wrong the foundation date of 1847 given by Cameron, A., History of Religious Communities in the Church of England (London 1918)Google Scholar and often repeated.
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91 Guardian 3 February 1892.
92 Quoted by Hill pp 18, 21.
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