Wateringbury clergy oppose legislation (1835)

Post date: Apr 03, 2012 9:24:19 AM

The Morning Post of 20th May 1835 reported at great length on a meeting of clergy of the diocese of Rochester held at the Crown Hotel, Rochester. The meeting had been the result of a 'requisition' to the Archdeacon signed by a body of 70 clergy including 'Robert Earle , Curate of Wateringbury and George Marsham, Rector of Allington'.

An address to the king was read as follows:

"Sire — We, the undersigned Clergy of the diocese of Rochester, in the county of Kent, convened at Rochester, in the said diocese and county, by the Archdeacon, in pursuance of a requisition signed by 70 of the Clergy of the said diocese, humbly approach your Majesty with the unfeigned assurance of our devoted loyalty and attachment to your Majesty's Royal Person and Government, and our firm adherence to the principles which placed the Protestant House of Brunswick on the throne. " As 'Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God,' devoted to our spiritual avocations, and unwilling to intermix in questions of political strife, we reluctantly quit for a moment our retirement, for the purpose of publicly expressing our opinions in opposition to the resolution of a majority of the Commons' House of Parliament, recently passed. " As British subjects, we are moved by no spirit of faction against the opinions of any political party in the State. We disclaim all hostility to those who conscientiously differ from our religious tenets; but we are bound in our higher office, by the most sacred obligations of gratitude and duty to the Divine Founder of our holy Church, to ' contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, ' more recently rescued by our Reformers from the corruptions of the Romish Church, and now committed unto us to keep; and we should be worse than unworthy of the high trust reposed in us if we should fail (in the discharge thereof) to proclaim before your Majesty and the people committed to your charge the imminent danger to which, in our opinions, the Protestant Church of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is exposed by that resolution, and we should esteem ourselves wanting in our duty if we were not openly to declare the reasons on which our strong conviction of that danger rests. "

There seems to have been a difference of views about the proposed government's legislation; the meeting broke up late with no conclusion having been arrived at and there is no record of any follow up meeting.

The issue at hand seems to have been the government's proposals (one of a number of proposed measures relating to Ireland) to have taken some of the income of the official protestant church in Ireland and apply it for other purposes. In parts of Ireland few attended the official church yet had to pay for its maintenance; absentee clergy were prevalent. Clearly in the clergy's minds was the possibility, a quite realistic one, that if this could happen in Ireland it could also happen in England.

Robert Earle also ran a private school in Wateringbury. In 1840 the Lincolnshire Chronicle of 16th October 1840 reported that "The Rev. R. Erle [Earle], of Wateringbury, to be Chaplain of Malling Union, vacant by resignation." George Marsham, described as Rector of Allington, also called Thouble Jacob Marsham, was vicar of Wateringbury from 1827 to 1840 (see Dead Vicar's possessions for sale).

Wateringbury had presented an anti-Roman Catholic petition to the House of Lords in 1827.