In Memoriam

Henry William Millbank

1880–1950

“The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.
Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for ever more.”

Henry William Millbank of Burrows Farm, Stanford Rivers, passed peacefully to the great Unseen on Friday, May 19th, and we laid his tired body to rest in the grounds of the church he loved so much and served so splendidly, on Tuesday, May 23rd, 1950, in the presence of a great company of people from every walk of life, who had come from far and near to pay this last honour to one who was so truly nature’s gentleman and faithful servant of God and man.

Faithful servant—that accurately describes him. Duty was his guiding star; service his deep desire; dependability his outstanding quality. You could always rely on Harry Millbank no matter what the task in hand might be. His word was his bond. If he said he would be there—if he promised his help—if he undertook any public duty—you could rely upon it he would carry out his promise, he would do his duty to the full.

That, from an all too brief association with him, is my judgment, and it is borne out by the many long-standing activities in which he shewed abiding interest from the time when, quite a young man, he was appointed to office.

He was but 23 years of age when the Rector—then Mr. Thomas—invited him to become Churchwarden of the Parish of Stanford Rivers. Prior to that he had shewn his quality as a Churchman, for 55 years ago he attended his first Easter Communion, and never once during those 55 years was he absent from this great Festival of the Resurrection of Christ.

That is a great record—a fine testimony to his devotion and reliability. For 46 years he served as Churchwarden and only on the rarest occasions was he ever absent from either morning or evening services of a Sunday, and he was never late.

One could rest assured that whoever else was absent, Harry Millbank would be there with a pleasant smile and a hearty greeting. Such long service is a rarity—such devoted service rarer still. It revealed the man; it testified to his sterling character; it made for confidence and called into being and nourished friendship and love.

Other Rectors—the Reverends Rolleston, Thomas, Earle, Sowerby, Elliott—are not here any longer to say what he meant to them, but I am certain from my own brief intercourse with him that they were very deeply in his debt for all he did for them and for all he meant to the Church during their incumbencies.

And not only the Rectors, the Churchpeople as a whole owed him much. It is no easy matter when a Rector dies, or leaves a parish, for the Church to carry on during the interregnum. This duty fell to our friend four times during his term of office.

For four lengthy periods he had to see to it that all services were properly covered. At the best of times this presents difficulties, but during the war years and immediately after it would be doubly difficult. But he never failed. Every service was adequately and ably covered, and for this alone the worshippers at Stanford Rivers are deeply indebted to him.

Moreover, beyond the borders of the Parish, in Rural Deanery and Diocese, he was well-known for his devotion to Church affairs, as the brief note from Canon Gallop, published in another column, testifies.

If we had nothing else to say this alone would set him apart as a true servant of God who served his day and generation with outstanding devotion and placed the village in which he lived under a very deep obligation to him.

But in addition to his direct service to the Church he gave of himself generously to the cause of Education. For many, many years he served as School Manager of the Stanford Rivers Church Day School.

This, in the palmy days when the School housed all the girls and boys of the village up to the age of 14, was an exacting business. Those of us who are still School Managers know something of the demands and anxieties attending the office—but they are nothing like they were 30 years ago when Diocesan financial help was practically non-existent.

At times it must have been very worrying to know how to make ends meet, and many men would have shrunk from the responsibility. It was not so with him. He faced it bravely, and though he would be the first to admit he did not achieve all he wished to achieve, he, nevertheless, did a very great deal under exceptionally trying circumstances.

For this service the residents of the village, old and young, owe much to him.

But there is more—indeed much more. To be chairman of a Parish Council and look after Parish matters in general can make serious demands on time and energy and patience. All these things are directly concerned with the village.

Add to them, however, the work he did as a member and, for a time, as chairman of the Ongar R.D.C., and the several committees connected with that body—as a J.P.—as a member of the Essex County Council—as a member of the County Education Committee—as chairman of the Managers of the Ongar Senior School—his activities for the Ongar War Memorial Hospital—as chairman of the Allotments Committee—as chairman of the Food Committee and the Agricultural Committee during the two wars—his interest as the organiser of the Ongar and District Ploughing Match—the Stanford Rivers Cottage Garden Show for many years, and you have a list of activities which reveal a very fine public spirit indeed.

He further helped his own village in securing for the people the two Parish Halls—one at Toot Hill and the other at Stanford Rivers. He was the last of the original trustees of these properties.

Comprehensive as this list is we should do him wrong if we did not make mention of the Essex County Agricultural Show with which he was so closely identified and his keen interest in the County Cricket and Football Clubs.

These services—all of them were, of course, voluntary—bespeak a fine local and County patriotism and a genuine pride in maintaining local leadership and government. They reveal a rare and precious spirit of selfless devotion. Indeed what the village and district and County owe to him is truly beyond computation.

And now he has gone. We shall see him no more in the flesh. Church, village, district and county will have to manage without him. He can never be replaced.

He belonged to a type of Englishman that, alas, is rapidly disappearing—the good old yeoman class which had its roots in the soil they cultivated, and whose services to the community were inspired by a simple faith in God—men who tried hard:

“To honour all men,
Love the brotherhood,
Fear God, and
Honour the King;”

men who accepted Christ as their Saviour; thought of the Church as His Body, prayed their prayers like His little children, and placed the keeping of His commandments—Love God—Love your Fellowmen—above all else.

Harry Millbank was one of these. He belonged to a generation which never thought itself clever, highly gifted, or great as the world counts greatness, but can anyone deny that they were “the salt of the earth,” and that their passing is leaving England very much the poorer?

Their simple faith, their simplicity of life, their devotion to duty, their ungrudging service, their kindliness, their understanding sympathy, their love of Home and Country—how they ennobled the common ways of life and for scores of thousands made life worth living!

Such men pass. Their voices are stilled. Their faces we see no more, but may we not say of our good friend—“He being dead yet speaketh”—in and through the example he set us, and the uplifting influence he shed abroad, in Home, in Church and School, in village and neighbourhood, and in the County?

May we not say in this sense—“His name liveth for ever more”? And may we not also rest assured that such a devoted servant of God has already heard his Lord’s greeting—“Well done thou good and faithful servant … enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”?

We leave him thus in the hands of God. Our loss is his gain. “He stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.”

“He has joined the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man’s search
To vaster issues.”

We mourn his passing. We shall miss him sorely—but we shall see the rainbow through our tears—a rainbow made by the sunlight of thankfulness for a life so transparently simple in faith and truth, uprightness and honour, duty and service inspired by the love and fear of God.

To his good wife and family we breathe our sympathy in their sore bereavement, for theirs is a greater loss than ours, and as we do, so we venture to say to them—Look up; be proud; you bear a name which, through him you loved, stands for noble service in the cause of God, and will ever be remembered in the village and County to which he belonged as a synonym of faithfulness and duty, a worthy life worthily lived.

God comfort you with His strong unfailing comfort and make you to know that your dear one is not dead, but alive; he has

“met his Pilot face to face
now he has crossed the bar.”

As we have so often prayed together in Church, he has found a safe lodging, a holy rest and an abiding peace in the love of God which is The Life Eternal.

“We know not where the islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
We only know we cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”

R. I. P.

J. H. WARD.