A Parochial Dispute

Letters to and from the archdeacon of Essex shed some light on a dispute between the Rev. W M Oliver (rector of Bobbingworth from 1838 to 1899) and his churchwarden, Mr Cure of Blake Hall. The archdeacon employed the rector of Stondon Massey to act as an intermediary, and seems to have dealt with what was obviously a troublesome affair entirely by letter.

The difficulties seem to have been triggered by the chronic structural
problems of the parish church. The vestry minutes reveal numerous repairs, and the underpinning of the nave in 1842. The two tiered timber framed bell tower at the west end was also in very poor condition; in 1818 a decision was made to pull it down, but it was still standing 20 years later when there were plans to encase it in brick and to cover the spire in copper. Mr Oliver intervened at this point and presented the vestry with the design for a new brick tower designed by ‘Mr Burton’ (probably Decimus Burton who was designing a new rectory in the neighbouring parish of Greensted) and he advanced £150 towards its construction. As a result, a new battlemented tower in yellow brick was completed in 1840 and the mediaeval timber structure was removed. It is possible that his early dealings with his dilatory vestry coloured his later views about the parish’s reluctance to update the church. In August 1863, he wrote to the archdeacon about the plans for restoring the chancel, which were in Mr Chancellor’s office in Chelmsford.

This was completed later in the year. Further correspondence indicated that the parish had made some sort of undertaking to rebuild the red brick nave with its timber tracery windows to the standard that he had established in the chancel. Red brick was very unfashionable for churches at this date.

The storm broke just before Christmas 1863 with a complaint from Mr Oliver to the archdeacon that Mr Cure was making considerable alterations without consulting him or the vestry. On Boxing Day the archdeacon wrote nervously to Mr Reeve, his local intermediary, mentioning the need for a faculty but asking him not to do anything ‘which may aggravate any heat’. Mr Reeve’s report was not encouraging. Mr Cure had taken down the vestry within the nave and built a new one in red brick, on the site of the former timber bell tower, as well as dismantling and reordering the pews without consulting the
rector. It was clear that Mr Oliver wanted the nave to be brought up to the standard of his re-built chancel, and had a strong objection to the red brick vestry, about which he had not been consulted. A fellow clergyman had rubbed salt into the wound by commenting ‘Well, Oliver, Mr Cure has built you a pig stye’. The archdeacon conceded to Mr Oliver that he had the law on his side, and that he should have been consulted by his churchwarden, but added ‘I venture to say to a brother clergyman (that) when peace is so desirable, much may be conceded’. His letter to Mr Reeve was more direct; ‘our great object must be to smooth over the difficulties and prevent a permanent breach between the two’.

For a while, all went well. Mr Cure apologised to his rector and plans were submitted for the proposed changes in the nave. However, it was not long before his churchwarden brought up another grievance. Mr Oliver’s ‘ornamental works’ to the chancel had taken place over Christmas – ceilings were pulled down, and pews were uprooted, including his own, part of which was taken by the new chancel arch. His new pew was too small for his family.

There had been serious disruption of public worship at an important time of year, with a significant shortage of seats. The archdeacon tried to mollify the rector by indicating that, though he felt that the pews were too high, he had no objection to the plans for the re-ordered nave, but it was too late.
At the beginning of February, Mr Cure wrote to the archdeacon to complain that the rector had preached a condemnatory sermon, aimed pointedly at himself. He had read the ‘awful denunciations from the 1st and 2nd chapter of the prophet Haggai’ while nodding meaningfully in his direction. [This book, at the end of the Old Testament, opens with Haggai reproving the people for not rebuilding the temple]. Members of the congregation had ‘felt their flesh creep’.

The parish was in a ferment and, more ominously, the wives of the two aggrieved men had had a meeting and made promises which their husbands could not possibly keep. Towards the end of February, in spite of the apprehensions of the wives, they had a stormy meeting in Mr Cure’s house about the height of the pews, but it seems that neither dared to mention the grievance over the sermon.

Some subsequent letters must be missing, but in early March Mr Oliver sent a copy of his sermon to the archdeacon. It has to be said that his attitude was not very conciliatory. He had been anxious for Mr Cure to hear his sermon which was ‘preached for his good and benefit, for his instruction and edification’. He intended ‘to teach him Bible notions on church building, a subject in which I fear he is lamentably ignorant’. He had agreed with Mr Cure five or six years earlier that they would rebuild the whole church, and share the expense; though he had set his own part of the church in order, little had been done to improve the nave. Frederick Chancellor’s letter of the previous year was quoted to underline the ignorance of his churchwarden.

The archdeacon’s reply was emollient – the rector was within his rights to preach as he had, and Mr Cure had not followed proper ecclesiastical procedures.

At this point the correspondence ends and presumably the storm had blown itself out. All that remains is the testimony of the building itself. The nave is still encased in late C18 or early C19 red brick, and the heavily battlemented vestry (‘the pig stye’) still stands at the west end. Part of the north nave wall collapsed at the end of the C19, but was repaired in red brick to match the rest. The only improvement of which Mr Oliver would have approved was the replacement of the timber traceried windows with stone ones to match those in the chancel – but this was paid for by Mr Oliver himself.

The truth was, perhaps, that though Mr Cure lived in a grand house, the parish was poor, rural and sparsely populated, and was simply unable to afford what the rector would have wished.

A drawing of 1862 shows Mr Oliver at the reading desk of the three decker pulpit in the body of the nave. The huge Cure family pew (later to be curtailed by the new chancel arch) is visible. Many of the congregation are standing, and within a couple of years the nave became even more crowded with the navvies who were extending the railway from Epping.

Overcrowding, as well as structural problems, must have been a challenge, and it was unfortunate that the solution was in the hands of two men who were temperamentally unable to work together.