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Hello:

As I explained on my user talk page, I've been mostly off WP for almost a year (I think) and am rusty. I'm also a little strapped for time. I will start my comments at FAC, but rather than holding forth more extensively there, I'm penning my thoughts here, and you are welcome to take them or leave them. I'm still reading your article, and enjoying reading it, as usual.

My thoughts:

Lead

[edit]
  • Controversialist: Is the word common enough these days for an encyclopedia entry lead sentence?
    • The first attested use per OED was in 1750. The frequency of use at the time was 0.055 per million recorded words in written English, or once per 8.5 million recorded words. The frequency of use at its peak in 1870 was 0.95 per million words, which is more or less once per one million recorded words in English. By 2010 the frequency was back down to 0.12 per million words, or approximately once per 8.4 million words in English. By March 2023, it had slipped further to 0.015 times per million words in English, or once per 66 million words. (I'm doing the sums in my head, so they might not be exact, but they are probably not far off the mark. In any case, it is not the numbers per se, but the relative drop in usage that might be informative.)
  • Plymouth Brethren I don't know what the reigning dogma is at MOS about links, ...
    • ... but for those readers who don't want to click out early in the lead, could that link be paraphrased in some succinct way?
      • General non-FAC remark: Shades here of the childhood of Wingate of Wingate's Circus, whose biography I read in high school. As for an oppressive father, shades also of Mandell Creighton, who too lost his mother as a child, but whose father, though not a zealous evangelist, never remarried and lost his temper easily. Similarly, Creighton's father was not generous in supplementing his son's less-than-adequate postmastership (a tuition waiver) at Merton.
  • "was not allowed to go to school until he was fourteen, and was largely self-educated. He was admitted to the University of Oxford"
    • Would the following be more easily understood by a novice reader: "was not allowed to go to school until he was fourteen. Largely self-educated and lacking in means (/financial resources), he was admitted to the University of Oxford as an unattached student. He gained a first-class bachelor's degree in 1884, and election to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford the same year."?
  • "Feeling a vocation to minister to the urban poor, Henson served in the East End of London and Barking ..."
    • I'm guessing "vocation" is used here in the meaning of "conviction," rather than "occupation," but would most readers know this, assuming my conjecture is correct? Would "Conscious of a conviction to minister to ..." be less ambiguous for some?
      • PS Actually, I like "feeling" here with "occupation" too (e.g. in the meaning of feeling one's way among likes, dislikes, and propensities to arrive at an occupation), but I'm not sure this is implied.
  • "before becoming chaplain of an ancient hospice in Ilford in 1895."
    • Unless "ancient" is used in the meaning of long-established or very old, its 1185 CE (the year of its founding) would be smack in the medieval period. Perhaps "ancient" has some other specialized meaning in this context, but generally, its use might confuse readers who click on the link and probe further.
  • "In 1900 he was appointed to the high-profile post of vicar of St Margaret's, Westminster and canon of Westminster Abbey."
    • This might be a personal peeve. I doubt the word "high-profile" existed in 1900; of course, that is not reason enough not to use it, but would something like: "The year 1900 brought him into the public eye as vicar of St Margaret's, Westminster and canon of Westminster Abbey." be better? Your call.
  • More soon. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:16, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for these points. Very helpful, and I look forward to more. Tim riley talk 11:40, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "While there, and as Dean of Durham (1913–1918), he wrote prolifically and sometimes controversially."
    • Would "While there, and thereafter as Dean of Durham (1913–1918), he wrote prolifically and sometimes controversially." emphasize the time sequence more to a novice reader?
  • He was tolerant of a wide range of theological views; because of this some members of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England accused him of heresy and sought unsuccessfully to block his appointment as Bishop of Hereford in 1917.
    • Would a subordinate clause here be better? E.g. "As in these writings he showed tolerance for a wide range of theological views, some members of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England accused him of heresy and sought unsuccessfully to block his appointment as Bishop of Hereford in 1917."
  • "In 1920, after two years in the largely rural diocese of Hereford, Henson returned to Durham as its bishop."
    • As the fact of it being rural is unknown to the reader, the definite article might not be appropriate. Would the following be better? "In 1920, after two years at Hereford, a largely rural diocese, Henson returned to Durham as its bishop."
      • Someone could very well ask though: why are we mentioning "rural" at all? I.e. is "rural" here serving to minimize or depreciate Hereford in some way? Would the following be better: In 1920, after two years at Hereford, a largely rural diocese, Henson returned to the industrial city of Durham as its bishop. The north-east of England ...?"
  • "Henson was opposed to strikes, trade unions and socialism, and for a time his forthright expression of his views made him unpopular in the diocese.
    • Would the following be better: "Henson was opposed to strikes, trade unions and socialism, and for a time his outspoken opposition to them made him unpopular in the diocese.?" (Some borderline alliteration here, though not of stresses.)
  • The remaining sentences in the lead are fine.
    • (Non-FAC remark) I have the Oxford World's Classics version of all three Books of Common Prayer somewhere. Will look at the 1928 version more carefully. Thanks.

Early years

[edit]
First half
  • General remark: The issue in this section is not so much the writing, which is smooth, but the sources and what they say. They leave his early childhood a bit opaque.
  • The sources can't be blamed much for this, as Henson was extremely reticent about his childhood. In his 12,000+ page, three-volume memoirs, he devotes just over three pages to his childhood and pre-Oxford years. – Tim riley talk 08:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Henson's biographer John Peart-Binns writes that Henson senior's "bleak outlook on the world" and "feeling of urgency to be prepared for the Second Coming" caused his family life to be one of all-pervading darkness.[2]
    • Why did the father have the bleak outlook in the first place? Is there anything about the father's character other than the preparation for the Second Coming that would have created an oppressive family atmosphere?
  • His wife shielded the children from the worst excesses of what the biographer Matthew Grimley describes as Thomas's "bigotry",[3]
    • Are the forms of bigotry described?
      • Not really. Henson says that after his mother died my father’s evangelicalism was deepened and darkened by his bereavement. He seemed to lose interest in everything except religion, and under the influence of some Plymouth Brethren who, about that time, came to live in our neighbourhood, his religion degenerated into bigotry. He never joined the sect, but he read their literature, shared many of their opinions and grew into their narrow intolerance". – Tim riley talk 08:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • but in 1870 she died, and, in Henson's words, "with her died our happiness".[4]
    • Moving. Simple and heartfelt.
  • Grimley comments that Henson's unhappy childhood "could have come straight out of the pages of Charles Dickens".[3]
  • From an early age the young Henson was a dedicated Christian and felt a vocation for the Anglican priesthood; his father's fundamentalist views were anathema, and left him with what Grimley calls "an enduring hatred of protestant fanaticism".[3]
    • This is also a bit perplexing. How did he manage to have this ambition at seven or even ten, when his father remarried? How did he come to know about Anglican priesthood presumably in a closed, not to mention doubting, family universe? Or is it a later early age?
  • In 1873 Thomas Henson remarried;[n 1] Emma Parker, widow of a Lutheran pastor, ensured that the children were properly educated. In Henson's phrase, "she recreated the home".[6]
    • Simple and eloquent.
  • She secured Henson access to his father's extensive library, and introduced him to the works of Walter Scott and translations of classical authors, helping to form his literary style.
    • This is perplexing again. We know nothing thus far about the father's library, let alone an extensive one. Do the sources say which books of Scott (e.g. Ivanhoe, a perennial favorite, at least in the 19th-century?) or which translations (e.g. Dryden's of Virgil and others?) HHH found memorable? Presumably, the translator's style would have affected the imbibed one.
      • I've deleted "his father's extensive library", which I think was my misreading of the sources. Thomas, we know, read religious publications, and had originally been an Anglican and may have owned religious works left over from his Anglican days, but again, I'm merely guessing and the sources don't say. The Scott novels were brought to the household by HH's stepmother, "along with translations of Thucydides and Plutarch. It was a curiously mixed bag, but I absorbed it with avidity". Tim riley talk 08:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Non-FAC remark: Unlike Creighton, born in 1843, who had both Greek and Latin at Carlisle Grammar School (for why else would his fellow students have nicknamed him "Homer?"), HHH, born in 1863, had neither. He certainly would have had Latin, were it not for an oppressive father.
  • He remained devoted to her – he called her Carissima – and once he was an adult he cared for her until her death in 1924.[3][7]
    • Nice.
      • Indeed, but I am unsure whether to offer a translation and risk spoiling the effect: "He remained devoted to her – he called her Carissima (dearest)…" My conclusion is that it is too clunky to add the translation, but I'd welcome a second opinion. – Tim riley talk 08:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree. A translation is not needed. Google brings up the meaning immediately. If there is a clamor for it at FAC, you could footnote it, but no more. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:35, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • I appreciate your detailed replies. PS I just realized that I created this page in user space not user talk space; as a result, it might not have many of the tools of talk space. I might transfer it to talk space if it makes it easier, but will let you know. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:35, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind where you post your comments as long as you keep then coming. At least two of your suggestions above rank as Eureka moments to me. Tim riley talk 12:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you. Will do. I just read Chadwick's chapter on Henson's childhood. It was written 40 years ago. Chadwick, who held the chair of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge—whose inaugural occupant was Mandell Creighton—and later the Regius Professorship—was very likely on the top of the heap in his field, Perhaps this gave him the confidence to write in a style, at once skimming the trees and delving deep, expansive and literary, impressionistic and detailed—that makes it enjoyable reading, but that perhaps most historians today would not attempt and many scholarly publishers might not accept. It will need quite a few more readings, at least for me, than one. Henson had a complicated childhood. His father had a complicated childhood. Henson was precocious—perhaps not to the extent of a Kipling or a Macaulay, but would not have been far behind in a supportive family environment. It seems even before the arrival of Emma Parker, Henson had been reading Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, and soon after, came to like Paradise Lost in his father's library. With those sorts of literary antecedents, at least for an English style, one could ask: who needs Walter Scott or the translated classics? So, all in all, I think Henson's childhood, being complicated and potentially of various interpretations, is probably best not probed deeper than it is in your excellent section. I'll move on to his Broadstairs years next. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:37, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Upon a second reading of Chadwick, ch 1, perhaps a couple of factual things could be added. Do you think there would be more context if the second sentence were replaced by some version of, "Thomas Henson was raised in a farming family in Morebath, south of Exmoor. As a young man, he had quarreled with his father and left home to go into business in London. By 1865, when Hensley was two years old, Thomas, aged 53, had prospered enough to purchase a property in Broadstairs on the Kent coast, to retire there at age 53 and devote himself to gardening and religion?"
  • Immediately after Martha's death, might the following sentence citing Chadwick be better than the one in place citing Grimley? "The older three boys having already left home, the gloom that befell the house after Martha's death, the drudgery that was experienced by became the lot of Thomas's the two daughters, especially the younger, in running a household comprising five children and a father, and Thomas's drift into ever narrower religious beliefs "together made a childhood purgatory worthy of the pen of a Dickens or a Bronte," in the words of historian Owen Chadwick. (Refactored a bit. As usual, you may take it or leave it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:52, 20 July 2024 (UTC))[reply]
  • Is it worth changing "From an early age the young Henson was a dedicated Christian and felt a vocation for the Anglican priesthood; his father's fundamentalist views were anathema, and left him with what Grimley calls "an enduring hatred of protestant fanaticism".[3]" to "The young Henson became a dedicated ... protestant fanaticism." but adding the following sentences before:
    • "Hensley Hensen was taught by his father to detest slavery. The first novel that moved as an adult he remembered moving him was Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.<Chadwick, p.3> Thomas Henson also forbade his children to go to school, play with other children, or go on holidays. Deprived of everything all outlets except religion, his the family, and his father's library, Hensely "escaped into the library. At an early age he became the voracious reader of the family."<Chadwick, p. 4> According to Chadwick, among the books in the library customarily commonly read by children in those days were John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Hensely also came to love developed a love for John Milton's Paradise Lost.<Chadwick, p. 5> Displaying Showing precocity, and having no recourse to other boys' books, he began to devour the was soon devouring mature writings in theology, including the eccentric ones. "By the age of fourteen this prodigious boy had read," in the words of Chadwick, "as deeply in divinity as many young men when they take holy orders."<Chadwick, p. 5> Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC) Revised for clarity. Whether I have succeeded I can't say. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:52, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I suspect, the rebellion against the father probably came in the early teenage years. There was very likely an adaptive phase that preceded it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Chadwick seems to corroborate this, but placing places it even later: By the time he was in his late teens and thinking for himself, he regarded sectarian evangelical religion as a monstrous evil to be fought with every claw. He had horror of the Plymouth Brethren – poisonous schismatics he once called them, several times by other opprobrious names, and never with tolerance. He had horror of over-emotional evangelical preachers, the missionaries of the later nineteenth century, the Baptist Noels of his childhood, the itinerant assailants of the brittle hearts of youth.<Chadwick, p. 7>
  • "He rose to be head boy of the school, but after a dispute with the headmaster during which Henson expressed "with more passion than respect"[13] his opinion of the head, he ran away from the school in 1879.[13]"
    • I wonder if we can call it running away. This seems more like an ethical departure or flight Would it be more accurate to paraphrase Chadwick here in some fashion? E.g. : When Thomas Henson moved from Broadstairs to Pegwell Bay in 1879, Hensley became a boarder at Broadstairs Collegiate School. He was soon appointed head boy, but not for long. An incident occurred in the dormitory involving a misdemeanour. Henson, when asked by the Head, identified described the misdemeanour but would not identify the culprits, leading him the Head to be accused accuse Henson of lying. Touched to the quick, he Deeply affected, Henson spoke intemperately to the Head in a confrontation before the whole school. That night, Henson wrote a letter to the Head, scaled the school wall, and walked the five miles back to the new Henson family home in Pegwell Bay, never returning to attending any school thereafter.<Chadwick, pp. 11–12> Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: I've just taken a look at the Early Years section of Hensley Henson. It is already on the longish side. Last night I was tired. So, if any of the suggestions above are accepted, they'll might need to be reduced quite a bit appropriately.
  • (HH cont.) "That apart, he found he derived little educational benefit, having already educated himself widely and deeply from books in his father's library."
    • Nice.
  • "Thomas Henson was against the idea, partly because his financial means had declined, but was talked round by his wife and gave his consent."
    Revised. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All Souls

[edit]
  • No complaints here. Two standout sentences, especially the second. are: Aware that his quick tongue could lead him into indiscretion, he adopted and maintained all his life the practice of writing out his lectures and sermons in full beforehand rather than improvising or speaking from concise notes.[22] He preferred a quill pen, and wrote in a fine clear hand; he considered illegible writing to be a form of bad manners as tiresome as inaudible talking.
  • PS I just remembered: in the previous section do you think St Catherine's College, Oxford#History might serve us better as the wikilink for "unattached student?" Otherwise, I'm done with this section too. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ordination and east London

[edit]
  • The poverty Henson had seen during his six months in Birkenhead gave him a strong impetus to minister to the poor.[28]
  • While in this post he honed his speaking skills in public debates with atheist orators,
    • Perhaps "honed his speaking skills further ..." as he was already "a gripping speaker" at All Souls, unless the skills were specific to an atheist opposition?
  • He was never physically strong, and his relentless work at Barking put a strain on his physique.
    • Would "Never physically strong, his relentless work at Barking put a strain on his physique." make the logical connection with the following sentence easier for the reader?
  • Done. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:05, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Westminster

[edit]
  • he followed predecessors as willing as he was to court controversy including Henry Hart Milman and Frederic Farrar
    • Perhaps: he followed predecessors as willing as he was to court controversy, including Henry Hart Milman and Frederic Farrar? But it is possible this is an Americanism.
  • In October 1902 at Westminster Abbey Henson married Isabella (Ella) Caroline, the only daughter of James Wallis Dennistoun of Dennistoun, Scotland.
    • No yellow jumper that upon first sighting made young Mandell's eyes widen and heart skip a beat from the other side of the street? One sentence before would help. I understand it was impulsive.
  • The marriage was lifelong; there were no children.[34]
    • Nice.
  • Preaching at Westminster Abbey in 1912 he attracted international attention for naming and denouncing three British directors of the Peruvian-Amazon Company for the "Putumayo atrocities" – the mass enslavement and brutal treatment of indigenous Peruvians in the company's rubber factories.[42]
    • Anything in the sources here about cultural anti-slavery DNA he had inherited from Thomas Henson?
    This is about something farther up, the marriage. Chadwick has some context: is there enough for a context-sentence, or not worth it?The private journal changed. It became less introspective, more confidential, more ecclesiastical, at once important and dreary. This change of state was fostered by his marriage. The courtship was one of the shortest on record. The vow of celibacy vanished. Not without trace. On 7 July 1902 he dined with Charles Stuart Parker, a former Liberal colleague of Gladstone, and biographer of Sir Robert Peel. At the dinner he met Parker's niece and found her a very charming companion. Four days later he proposed marriage. She was Isabella Dennistoun, daughter of a west-Scottish squire. She was thirty-two, he thirty-eight. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:29, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Asquith considered appointing Henson, but decided, as he told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, that "it would be rather like sending a destroyer into a land-locked pool".[34]
    • Observation: There was a brother, Albert (?), a year older, who went into Tea and rose to be the rudest man in Calcutta. There is pugilism-DNA here that might have pre-dated the Plymouth-Brethren-DNA. (James Kirby, in Historians and the Church of England, OUP, 2016, may have called Henson an "ecclesiastical pugilist.") Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:20, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    PS The rudest man in Calcutta is from Chadwick, about some family traits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Damn it all, man, I am Defender of the Faith!"

Dean and bishop

[edit]
  • Among other views for which Henson was known were his disapproval of teetotalism campaigners and of socialism, and for his disbelief in social reform as an ally of religion.
    • Should we avoid mixing people and movements; in other words, either say, "Henson was known were his disapproval of teetotalism campaigners and of socialists, and for his disbelief ..." or "Henson was known were his disapproval of teetotalism campaigns and of socialism, and for his disbelief ..." but it is possible that his disapproval was that specific,according to the sources: applied individually to teetotalism campaigners and generally for socialism, not reducible to individual socialists ...
  • "Gore and his ally Bishop Weston of Zanzibar led the charge, and appear in Henson's journal as"
    • Nice.
  • Henson spoke out strongly, and ultimately unsuccessfully, against the proposed disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Wales
    • Do we want "but ultimately unsuccessfully?" Or even "but unsuccessfully" as success is an end result?
  • In doing so he addressed many nonconformist gatherings
  • "A serious doctrinal row within the Church seemed to many to put Henson out of the running for elevation to a bishopric."
    • I like this narrative technique, a kind of fronting, or inversion of order, but not of clausal elements but of sentences.
      • (Added later. 01:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)) In some ways, the marriage sentences are similar, but I feel they might be better served with a one sentence context, even if it comes after the announcement.
  • He was, as most of his critics failed, or refused, to notice, doctrinally orthodox on the resurrection, and content to accept the tradition of the virgin birth,
  • Davidson stated publicly that no fair-minded man could read consecutively a series of Henson's sermons without feeling that they had in him a brilliant and powerful teacher of the Christian faith
  • The adverb "consecutively" is in end position (after the verb) in the clause. Normally, it could come before the object (a series of Henson's sermons) if the object is a long string of words. Here it is borderline, i.e.: "Davidson stated publicly that no fair-minded man could read consecutively a series of Henson's sermons consecutively without feeling that they had in him a brilliant and powerful teacher of the Christian faith" sounds fine to me. But its not a big deal. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Against Davidson's advice for caution,
  • Nice
  • Davidson wanted Thomas Strong, Dean of Christ Church, to be appointed and pressed his claims on Lloyd George, but the prime minister took the view that the area needed Henson's practical skills and common touch rather than Strong's academic scholarship

Durham

[edit]
  • Henson was translated to Durham – England's most senior diocese after Canterbury, York and London[78] – in October 1920.[79] The appointment was challenging: the area was in grave economic difficulty, with the important coal-mining industry in a crisis caused by falling industrial demand for coal in the years after the First World War.
    • Should we change "the area" to "the Durham area?" For a split second as I read on, I was uncertain about what "area" had referred to. If the area referred to was larger, district, county, then it should probably be clarified. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:43, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ecclesiastically there was potential for friction, as the Dean of Durham, James Welldon, who had once been a diocesan bishop himself,[n 10]
    • I'm guessing the reader is probably left guessing what significance "who had once been a diocesan bishop himself," holds here. Are we hinting that he was unhappy at being overlooked, perhaps? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I imagine Welldon chafed at playing second fiddle, but that isn't specifically mentioned in the sources. I added the explanation because he was widely referred to as "Bishop Welldon" (see, e.g. the title of the Times obit I cite here) even after he became Dean of Manchester and then Durham, and think this would be ultra-confusing if done here. Tim riley talk 09:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • was temperamentally and politically at odds with his new superior, given to making public statements that Henson found infuriating.
  • Welldon, in Henson's view, "could neither speak with effect nor be silent with dignity".[81]
    • "view" should probably be spelled out. A reader might be left wondering whether the remarks were made in Welldon's presence, published by Henson and read by Welldon during the latter's lifetime, or written after Welldon's death, for they seems harsh. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm afraid I can't answer that. I have the quotation from two sources, but neither says when or where Henson said or wrote it. HH wrote in his journal "Welldon 'spoils the pitch' for everybody else" (31 Jan 1920), "Welldon is certainly a very unstable and foolish person" (15 Feb 1920) "Welldon is universally detested" (19 May 1920), "If he were a more trustworthy person, I should feel that a substantial advance has been made in getting his agreement. But in view of his too well founded character for "letting down" a colleague, I fear that I must not give much importance to his fair words" (18 December 1920) and so on. Tim riley talk 09:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • They clashed on several occasions, most conspicuously when Welldon, a strong admirer of prohibition, publicly criticised Henson's tolerant views on the consumption of alcohol.[82]
    • I'm thinking: "and how did Henson reply?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • He was charitable enough not to expose the Dean's hypocrisy: from his Journal: "He sate beside the Dean (Welldon) last night at the public dinner, & rather to his astonishment discovered that the very Revd gentleman was not a total–abstainer. In fact, they shared a bottle of champagne!" Tim riley talk 09:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        :) There was the Temperance Movement here, though maybe a little earlier. Were they Quakers, Shakers, Adventists, Mennonites, Mormons, Amish, or all of the above, I don't remember, but champagne, because of near de rigueur status in toasts, might have been excused by some.
        Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relations between the deanery and Auckland Castle, the bishop's official residence, improved markedly in April 1933 when Cyril Alington, the Head Master of Eton from 1917 to 1933, succeeded Welldon.[83] Alington was almost universally loved, and though he and Henson differed on points of ecclesiastical practice, they remained warm friends.
  • At the beginning of Henson's episcopate most Durham miners were on strike. He got on well with miners individually and conversed with many of them as they walked through the extensive grounds of Auckland Castle.[4]
    • There could be a slight cognitive leap for the reader here after "strike." Getting along well very likely emerged in the course of the walk throughs. Do you think, "were on strike. He engaged them by inviting them to walk through the extensive grounds of Auckland Castle, conversed with many, and got along well with them individually." might be more complete? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:28, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't know if that is true. I think I'd better stick close to the source (ODNB): "he sought out conversation with the unemployed miners whom he met on his daily walks in Auckland Park". Auckland Park, part of the castle grounds, is a public park, but I cannot discover when it became so.
  • Friction arose from Henson's belief that strikes were morally wrong because of the harm they did to other working people,[86] and he had, in Grimley's words, "a violent, almost obsessional", dislike of trade unions.[4]
  • His early concern for the welfare of the poor remained unchanged, but he regarded socialism and trade unionism as negations of individuality.
  • For the same reason he was against state provision of social welfare, though a strong advocate of voluntary spending on it.
  • Not sure we need "for the same reason." Very likely the reader will infer the logic if we write, "Henson also opposed state provision of social welfare, though he was a strong advocate of voluntary spending on it." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:28, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    PS Forgot to mention here too that I'm stopping for a couple of hours. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Will finish the review tomorrow morning. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:52, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Despite the clear majority of clergy and laity in favour of the revision, the House of Commons refused to authorise it, and voted it down in 1927 and again in 1928.[100] Henson's colleague Cyril Garbett wrote that the Commons had "made it plain that the Church does not possess full spiritual freedom to determine its worship".[101]
    • Do you think the following sentences from Brian Cummings's introduction to Cummings, Brian, ed. (2011), The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662, Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, Total pages lxxvi, 821, pp. xlvi–xlvii, ISBN 978-0-19-964520-6, quoted or summarized, might add something? "Yet even following a Royal Commission in 1906, the version of 1662 suffered no real threat of demise until 1928. In this year a full-scale new version was finally published. It caused protests in the House of Commons, however, where many MPs from a nonconformist background were astonished to find themselves being asked to vote in favour of a revised doctrine of transubstantiation, and defeated the bill on 14 June. The bishops, nonetheless, approved the book as an alternative to 1662 for use in worship." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Church instituted damage-limitation measures by permitting parishes to use the new unauthorised text where there was a local consensus to do so,[n 13] but Henson was horrified at what he saw as Parliament's betrayal of its duty to preside impartially over the governance of the Church, giving in to pressure from what he termed "an army of illiterates".[103]
    • Here too, does Cummings, xlvii, add anything as a footnote, perhaps, though this is more specific to BCP? : The bishops, nonetheless, approved the book as an alternative to 1662 for use in worship. The services for baptism and marriage, found a good deal of local approval, and many vicars felt more comfortable marrying their parishioners without reference to 'men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding.' " Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:31, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Non-FAC: I have to say that the remaining sentence in Matrimony 1662 (... and therefore is not by any to be enterprized, nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfie men's carnal lusts etc. ... but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained. does have some eloquence. And Cummings later alludes to these charms:"In 2000, to mark the millennium, Common Worship finally marked the real end of 1662, although in many churches diehards and enthusiasts are still allowed their dosage of sixteenth-century prose at least once a week. (Cummings, p. xlvii Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Together with the suspicions he had started to harbour that a socialist government might misuse ecclesiastical patronage, the Prayer Book debacle turned Henson from a strong proponent of establishment to its best-known critic.
    • Could this be explained more, perhaps? I'm thinking (admittedly as a neo-Darwinist and scientific atheist of upward of 30 years, (ie. rusty) but (unlike Christopher Hitchens and what have you) with sympathy for the religious impulse and some nostalgia): the only borderline-socialist before Attlee (who came too late for HHH) was probably Lloyd-George, though British history is not my strong suit either. What sorts of misuse and what sorts of patronage are we talking about? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:07, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    PS I'm assuming this is connected with the right of patrons to grant church livings to priests, but I'm not sure. Perhaps this could be better explained. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • In 1934 he was among the senior clerics who censured Dean Dwelly of Liverpool for inviting a Unitarian to preach in Liverpool Cathedral and Bishop David for permitting it.
  • He condemned American evangelism as practised by Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group; Henson wrote of Buchman's "oracular despotism"
  • Henson was critical of one of his clergy, Robert Anderson Jardine of Darlington, for conducting the wedding ceremony in France of the Duke of Windsor to a divorcée, Wallis Simpson, contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England.[108]
    • No comment about the marriage, but my mother, as a child, though a bit after 1936, had learned how to draw Mrs Simpson's underpants, i.e. knickers, using the numbers 1 through 10. She had taught it to me once. I tried just now but failed. 8 was the bottom hem. (I'm losing my focus here.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    More seriously, can we use an article of Julia Stapleton, A good deal of politics and no Christianity, 1970 to say something more both about the Windsors episode and also on Henson on Nazism (she describes him as an "early critic of Nazism.")? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a truly absorbing article, and I'm glad you drew it to my attention, but it goes into more detail on the Windsor marriage and the relations between WSC and HH generally than the ODNB does, and I'm using that as my yardstick, as I generally do. The Stapleton article, parenthetically, throws light on a mystery mentioned on my Lyttelton/Hart-Davis website in the [Volume 3 section], and I'm grateful for that. (And I wonder if you can throw any light on the Mandell Creighton query in the Volume 1 section?) Tim riley talk 16:30, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Very welcome. Look forward to reading about the mystery. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Henson supported the Allies' fight in what he saw as a just war to defeat godless barbarism; he wrote of "The deepening infamies of Nazi warfare – infamies so horrible as almost to shake one's faith in the essential Divineness of Humanity."[110]
    PS Stapleton above might have something. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:11, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is from a letter written on 22 January 1945. In passing, Hensley's way of signing himself seems odd to me: while Bp of Durham he signed himself "Herbert Dunelm (my italics) but in his retirement from diocesan life he signed himself "H. Hensley Henson, Bishop". His most personal letters, to inimates, are signed "Herbert" tout court. I don't think this need be rehearsed in the article, but I find it interesting. Tim riley talk 08:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      OK. The first camps were liberated in the spring or summer of 1944. So he did have knowledge. As for the signature, Chadwick refers to him as Little Herbert or Herbert in several places in the early years. Hold on. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      More detailed than I had anticipated, but, for my edification, really, but ample evidence that he was called Herbert at home, until 16:
"Herbert" until matriculating at Oxford?
      • p. 4:Little Herbert was brought up in a family where father never formally ceased to be a member of the Church of England but rejected the Church of England in his heart
      • p. 4: ... yet what Herbert called the extraordinary waywardness of the father, ...
      • p. 4: The career of a brother a year older than Herbert ...
      • p. 5: Brother Arthur's reputation for being the rudest man in Calcutta, and Brother Herbert's reputation for writing the most
      caustic diary ever written by a Christian bishop, are doubtless linked to father's horror at the ruins of humanity. Never curry favour by words. Speak the truth about this wicked world.
      • p. 6:Emma Theodora Parker, in the words of her stepson, recreated the home. She could bring order into the housekeeping, but no instant happiness for a disturbed family. She never won the affection of the eldest boy still at home,
      Arthur. Even for Herbert, whose future she made and who all his years would think of her more as a mother than as a stepmother, she never quite took the place of the real mother in the boy's affection. He later said of her that he always found her presence more challenging than consoling. She soon saw that Herbert was clever. She fed his mind with a wider range of reading, the novels of Walter Scott, historians in translation such as Thucydides and Plutarch.
      • p 6: he luggage was packed, the cab stood at the door waiting to take him to the railway station, and the Church of the twentieth century almost lost its strangest bishop when a telegram came from the brother in London saying that after all he could not have Herbert in the firm.
      ...
      • p 11: The three young children, aged fifteen, fourteen, and thirteen, were all baptized at Minster parish church, away from home, without any preparation. Then Herbert was confirmed after an odd preparation; partly by a high-church rector and partly by a low-church Irish curate. He endured these classes only because they were a gate to confirmation. He made his first communion at a large evening service at Christ Church, Ramsgate, and was not edified.
      • p 11: When Thomas Henson moved to Pegwell Bay, he left Herbert as a boarder at the Broadstairs Collegiate School. Not for long. Though the boy had been at school so few terms, something about his ability, and probably a good deal about his character, caused the headmaster to make this studious adolescent of sixteen, who refused to play games and spent his spare time drafting sermons, into the head boy.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Last years

[edit]
  • Overcoming the strangeness of being back in his old post after nearly thirty years he preached with vigour until cataracts made his eyesight too poor to continue.
  • He occupied a considerable part of his retirement writing a substantial work of autobiography, published in three volumes under the title Retrospect of an Unimportant Life.
  • The first was that he had not been at a public (i.e. fee-charging non-state) school, a fact to which he ascribed his lifelong feeling of being an outsider.
    • This is not so much about your description, but about his consistency. "Henson loathed class distinction, and was not antipathetic to social reformers, ..." What is the private school system if not a form of class distinction? Is there anything more in the sources (especially Chadwick, which I have just downloaded) about inconsistencies, even some hypocrisy, in his world-view? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think we're looking at this from the perspective of 2024. Granted that the top public schools such as Eton and Harrow were exclusive and expensive, but of the three places HH mentioned when he wrote "Had I been within reach of such a school as exists in Westminster, Birmingham, or Manchester it is probable that I should have gained an honourable entrance into the University, and enjoyed the inestimable advantage of what is described as "a regular education", Westminster was a public school but took many bright boys from poor families and was not posh in the Eton/Harrow sense, I have no idea which Birmingham school HH had in mind, and the third must have been Manchester Grammar School which wasn't a public school of the Eton or Harrow type. Tim riley talk 19:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Yes, that makes sense. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reputation

[edit]
  • had been the champion of no cause, the leader of no party, and the darling of no society; that I had written no book which had pleased the 'reading public'; and that, finally, my Journal was as destitute of public interest as of literary merit
    • That sounds a little like Michael Henchard's last will in the Mayor of Casterbridge. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:44, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Pray keep this to yourself, but I think Hardy was a much better poet than a novelist. Tim riley talk 19:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        :) Well I remember most of The Darkling Thrush but only the Last Will from the Mayor. So, you may have a point.
        Sorry I've been more distracted today than before. We have an 18-year-old cat which sits between the computer screen and the keyboard and which seems to have hurt her leg.
        So, I'll stop here. I await your responses if any. I'll then write a short summary at FAC. I enjoyed reading your article, as usual. All the best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General remarks before the concluding section

[edit]
  • I've been skimming through Chadwick and was shocked to find something that has made me reassess Henson. I would like to take a couple of days to go through Chadwick, if you don't mind.
  • Here is the entry from Henson's diary (in italics in Chadwick):
    • Ella went into labour on the evening of 7 January 1905. About 5 a.m. the doctor came to my study to say that the end had been reached. Ella was well, and the child was born dead. So ends another, surely the last of my dreams. The whole house mocks me at every corner with futile preparations for babyhood. I went to church, and celebrated at 8 a.m. with an effort; and twice I preached, fighting the while a desperate battle against the contemptible weakness which would sit down and cry. I looked at the dead boy: he is fashioned completely, and fairly proportioned though small: his tiny face had a care-stricken and sorrowful look which sufficiently confessed its father. It is no ‘still-born infant’ that I mourn, but my own son.
    • Tuesday, 10 January 1905: Kirshbaum [Henson's curate] accompanied me to Norwood, where the poor little body of my dead child was buried without other liturgy than its father's grief.

On 15 July 1905 Ella had a miscarriage.

These two calamities revived for a time the doubt whether he ought to have married.

Ella never again conceived. To them both, the state of childlessness was heavy disappointment. When their silver wedding came, Henson wrote that this childlessness had been the greatest shadow in their married life. Sometimes he wondered whether if he had been blest with children he would have been a better as well as a happier man.

The first calamity, in other words, was a full term miscarriage, i.e. after the 37th week of pregnancy, which is very traumatic for would-be parents. Anyway, I'd like to read Chadwick in a little more detail, especially about the inner life of the man, than I have thus far. There is also some material on Ella and how she coped with this trauma. I'll suggest a few things in the next couple of days.

When an ODND article is available, as here, I try to use it as a rough template for what to include and what to omit. The miscarriages are mentioned but only in passing. I also try to follow Wikipedia's policy of keeping the use of primary sources to a minimum, but I have added a sentence to each of the Westminster and Last Years sections. Tim riley talk 12:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll check the ODNB. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:01, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very sorry. Here was a request to review an article. I thought it was going to be simple thing. Chadwick, despite my initial grumblings, seems to have changed that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in no hurry. Please take all the time you need. Tim riley talk 11:23, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Thanks very much. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:27, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

First some simpler things:

  • The Vanity Fair cartoon: Chadwick (p. 88) thinks it was drawn by "Spy," i.e. Leslie Ward: To cope with their loss, i.e. Ella's two miscarriages, "Friends gave them ... an Aberdeen terrier, christened Logic, and soon famous among the cloisters of Westminster. When Spy drew a cartoon of Henson for Vanity Fair (Henson thought the cartoon villanous) Logic appeared trotting jauntily at his heels."
Yes, Chadwick is wrong. The caricature is not by Spy (who contributed no caricatures to Vanity Fair in 1912) but by "WH" (Wallace Hester), whose signature is visible on the image reproduced here. During 1912 WH contributed numerous caricatures including, in addition to Henson, Edward Carson, Dean Inge, Dean Ryle, Pietro Mascagni, Bishop Winningham-Ingram, Jack Hobbs, Harry Tate and Laurence Irving. I've added the dog to the caption. Tim riley talk 11:53, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I wish I had that ready talent as cartoonists do. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:15, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Preaching at Westminster Abbey in 1912 he attracted international attention for naming and denouncing three British directors of the Peruvian Amazon Company for what The Times called the "Putumayo atrocities" – the mass enslavement and brutal treatment of indigenous Peruvians in the company's rubber factories.[1]
    • Chadwick devotes four pages to "Putumayo," one of two subsections in Chapter 4: The Canon. Does Putumayo deserve a separate paragraph, as a matter of due weight? I think it might.
    • The world's attention was drawn by the report of Roger Casement. I think he perhaps should be named, as Chadwick describes the report at length and so had Henson in his sermon.
    • We should say what Putumayo is, i.e. "a high remote district in the upper Amazon" (Chadwick, p. 101) where the Peruvian Amazon Company "collected rubber" (ibid)
    • We should mention the date in 1912, i.e. 4 August 1912 ("On Sunday, 4 August 1912, Henson preached on Putmayo for three-quarters of an hour with the gloves off, " (Chadwick, p. 103)
    • The WP page is Putumayo Genocide, though WP is WP; that pages POV might be problematic.
      • So perhaps some version of the following in its own paragraph, perhaps even the last paragraph of the section (the current last para is set in 1909) normalized to your writing style including choice of concision:
        • In 1910 the mass enslavement and brutal treatment of indigenous Peruvians in rubber factories of the Peruvian Amazon Company at Putumayo, a district far up the Amazon,(Chadwick p. 101) were brought to the world's attention by Roger Casement, the British consul-general in Rio de Janeiro.(Chadwick p. 102) Preaching at Westminster Abbey on 4 August 1912 Henson publicly named and denounced in the face of some threat of litigation three British directors of the company.(Chadwick p. 103) Although the company attempted to damage Henson's reputation, the British government appointed a Select Committee to investigate the directors' responsibility, and The Times in a leader found the directors' actions to be unacceptable and cleared Henson of blame.(Chadwick, p. 104) Owen Chadwick writes, "In his old age ... three utterances of his life never failed to bring pleasure and gratitude to the memory, three moments when he spoke for a nation's revulsion against wickedness. Of these three utterances the sermon on Putumayo was the first."(Chadwick, p. 105) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:50, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Done. Tim riley talk 16:33, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • During his time at St Margaret's Henson published nine books, some of them collected sermons and lectures, others on theological questions and the role of Christianity in modern society.
    • If Putumaya is separated in its own paragraph, should we add the following sentence before? In 1909 Henson described a more formal conceptual basis of preaching in the Lyman Beecher Lectures at the Yale University Divinity School, later published in The Liberty of Prophesying.(Chadwick, p. 92) During his time at St Margaret's Henson published nine books, some of them collected sermons and lectures, others on theological questions and the role of Christianity in modern society.
I'm chary of getting into excessive detail. My current draft stands at 5,125 words and the ODNB article weighs in at 3,014. I simply don't want to go into that level of detail. Tim riley talk 16:31, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK. That's fine. Yes, I did check ODNB article and the 3K word size. So, I'll stop except for one last question:
  • Do we want to mention at the very end of his Westminster years (but before the deanery of Durham), the offer of Professor of Church History at Oxford and attached canonry at Christ Church by Asquith? Chadwick devotes most of the second subsection in Ch 4 to it. Essentially, the offer was made. Henson traveled to Oxford. Among those who wanted him to accept were Ella, the Archbishop of Canterbury, his foster-father--the Warden of All Souls from earlier days, and the PM himself. But there as another candidate (the second choice of Asquith), E. W. Watson, a friend who had taught him history in college, who was better qualified academically in Henson's view, and who needed the job more. There was also his sense that the Oxford department was too High Church for him. He returned to London and wrote to Asquith turning down the appointment and a second letter recommending Watson.
Again, I think this
If you'd like to include it, you can summarize it from Chadwick pages 106 through 108, or if you want me to, I can rewrite the above more formally and concisely.
Again, using the ODNB as my yardstick I'd prefer to leave this out. Tim riley talk 19:12, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, I'll wrap up--as I've already vetted the article for consistency and reading Chadwick further will likely only bring up other titbits for inclusion--and write a summary at FAC. I have to say, I really enjoyed reading your article and interacting with you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:45, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tu quoque! I have derived much pleasure from, and the article has been much improved by, your wise comments. I am much in your debt. Tim riley talk 19:16, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ "Putumayo Atrocities", The Times, 5 August 1912, p. 6; and "Rubber Directors Assail Canon Henson", The New York Times, 25 August 1912 (subscription required)
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