The Astonishing Accomplishments of the Polymath Parson

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n           There was once a breed ofnEnglishman, now almost extinct, that leaves you astonished by itsnaccomplishments  – the countrynclergyman. Why it should be that this particular profession should produce sonmany polymaths is a mystery, but we can, perhaps, get some sort of an answer byna cursory look at the works of Anthony Trollope (not exactly a slouch himself).nThe first of his Barsetshire Chronicles, The Warden, gives us a portraitnof a clergyman, Mr Septimus Harding, who enjoys a good living and income from hisnwardenship of Hiram’s Almshouse, a position that has few onerous duties andnleaves Mr Harding with plenty of time for his musical pursuits. 

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nIn the nextnnovel of the series, Barchester Towers, we meet other clergymen withngoodly incomes and light duties; one, a prebendary called Dr Vesey Stanhope hasnspent twelve years in Italy recovering from a sore throat, where he spends hisntime catching butterflies. Another, Rev. Francis Arabin, is a former OxfordnUniversity Fellow, whose Deanship of the Cathedral brings with it a beautifulnhouse in the Close and a garden of 15 acres. Yet another, Mr Quiverful, is thenfather of fourteen children. These would all have been instantly recognizablentypes to Trollope’s readers and are no mere caricatures, for we have realnVictorian clergymen who spent their time doing far more interesting things thannsimple clergying. 

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nOne such was the Reverend Sabine Baring Baring-Gould MA, whomnI mentioned almost in passing yesterday, as the author of The Book ofnWere-wolves. Born in 1834, Baring-Gould was named for his astonishinglynaccomplished uncle, Edward Sabine, and was a sickly child who spent much of hisninfancy touring Europe with his father and was taught by a succession ofnprivate tutors. He went up to Cambridge in 1852, took a BA and an MA, andnbecame a curate at St John’s Church, Horbury Bridge, West Yorkshire in 1864. Henwas popular with the Sunday School pupils, to whom he would tell stories, andnin 1865, he wrote the hymn for which he is best remembered, ‘Onward,nChristian Soldiers.’ 

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nHe said later that he had written the hymn in fifteennminutes and was not satisfied with some ‘faulty’ lines, but when Sir ArthurnSullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) added the now familiar tune (St Gertrude)nin 1871 it became one of the most popular hymns of all. In about 1866, he metnGrace Taylor, who had left school at ten to work in a mill, lived in povertynwith her mill-worker family, dressed in clogs and shawl, spoke with a broadnYorkshire accent – and she was fourteen. 

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nBaring-Gould’s bishop arranged fornGrace to go to stay with his relatives in York, where she was taught etiquettenand elocution, and the manners of an educated lady. Two years later, shenreturned home and, at the end of a service at Wakefield, Grace became MrsnBaring-Gould. She was by then sixteen, he was thirty-four, and neither familynwas overly impressed by the marriage, predicting the very worst would surelynfollow. 

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nThey moved first to Essex, and then in 1880, to Lewtrenchard, Devon,nwhen he had inherited the family estate of 3,000 acres, and where, when thenliving became vacant in 1881, he appointed himself to the post, becoming bothnthe Parson and the Squire, and where the former mill girl now had a staff ofnthirty servants. 

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nBaring-Gould did not like the bishops and they did not likenhim, he wasn’t fond of other vicars or meetings with them, he was a High ChurchnAnglican when it was not popular, and although he was intensely religious andnpeople enjoyed hearing him preach, he imposed a ten-minute limit on his sermonsnand if any of his curates exceeded his ten-minute rule in their sermons, henwould throw hymn books at them until they stopped. 

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nHe was absent minded – henonce bought forty pounds of meat from an itinerant butcher whilst distracted,nand had to throw a grand dinner to get rid of it all – and he didn’t care whatnanyone thought about him, anyone that is but Grace, who saved him from many anpotential situation; she would hold onto his often angry, spontaneous lettersnuntil the following day, when he had calmed down and thought better of sendingnthem. 

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nWhat he did enjoy was working, particularly writing, which he did whilstnstanding up, and over his lifetime he wrote over 1,200 publications – more thannany other author in the collection of the British Library, some of which havenyet to be published. He wrote about anything – a sixteen volume series on thenLives of the Saints, travel books, geology books, geography books, languagenbooks, folklore books, books about folk music, books about customs, books aboutnmyths and books about books. He wrote hymns, he wrote songs, he wrote poems, henwrote novels, but he considered his best work to be his collections of folknsongs, on which he collaborated with the legendary Cecil Sharp and which havenpreserved many songs that otherwise might have been lost forever. 

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nHe was annantiquarian, a historian, a geologist, a palaeontologist, an archaeologist, annanthropologist, a hagiographer, a travel writer, a folklorist, a philosopher, annaturalist, and a practical joker. He entered fictitious works into hisnbibliographies purely for the devilment of it, he put rubber bulbs and tubesnunder his tablecloth and if he thought a dinner guest had drunk too much, henwould make their plate wobble by inflating the bulbs, and when the Great Warnbroke out, he faked ‘call-up’ papers for step-mother’s elderly and plump pony,nmuch to the old lady’s consternation. 

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nWith an almost deliberate contrariness,nSabine and Grace had a very happy marriage, which must have upset their familynexpectations greatly, and had a total of fifteen children, all but one of whomngrew to adulthood. Grace died in 1916, after forty-eight years of marriage –nSabine had the words Dimidium Animae Meae (‘Half my Soul’) inscribed onnher tombstone. 

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nHe died in 1924, just a few days short of his ninetiethnbirthday, (possibly of old age). I keep repeating this, but if you have time tonspare, seek out some of his books and enjoy reading them. It is a far betternoption than some of the other things you might be tempted to do.

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