NEWS
Glorious music, familiar Christmas readings and a full nave, beautified with elegant floral decorations and candle light, made for a magnificent Carol Service on 21st December. Sarah Emes released the magic with a beautifully rendered solo first verse of Once in Royal, before the choir processed under the spectacular, candle-lit candelabra to their stalls. The choir sang the anthem Still, Still, Still and led the singing splendidly, their descants rising majestically over the hearty singing of the congregation. Many thanks particularly to Sarah and to organist David Blunkell for the preparation of the music.
After the service the draw took place for the two amazing hampers (filled by generous donations), and the delicious and beautifully decorated cake made by Jean Cooksley. This raised a record £315.00 for church funds. This memorable evening was rounded off with mulled wine, spiced apple juice, mince pies and hot sausage rolls.
We were delighted to welcome the Very Revd Joe Hawes, Dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, to preside at Eucharist on Christmas Eve.
Having travelled from windowsill to windowsill down the nave over the Christmas period, the figurines of the three Magi arrived at the crib in time for 6th January and Epiphany, the feast celebrating the visit of the Magi to the new-born Jesus, having been led by the star to Bethlehem. The event is depicted in stained glass in the left-hand window of the side chapel (see Snippets).
New lighting will be fitted in the nave on 2nd February which, appropriately, is the day of Candlemas. These LED lamps will provide an improved quality of light and be more efficient in terms of electricity consumption and longevity. Funded from the sale of the Learner teddy bears, this project offers a neat symmetry since it was Mike Learner who installed the electrics after the fire of 1979.
The visitors book contains 112 entries for the year 2023, representing 219 people (83 entries and 131 people in 2022), including groups such as the Hempnall Walking Group, the U3A, the Wensum Ramblers and a Salvation Army group from Chelmsford. Not all visitors sign, of course. Overseas visitors came from Finland, Canada, and four States of the USA (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Florida). Closer to home, there were visitors from Northern Ireland, London and 17 English counties. Two thirds of entries were made by people from Norfolk and Suffolk, and a quarter of these were from Beccles. The rectors who went to such lengths to beautify this church in the later 19th and early 20th centuries would be gratified by the appreciative remarks of today’s visitors – adjectives springing from the pages of the visitors book include: ‘heavenly’, ‘divine’, ‘very special’, ‘beautiful’, ‘superb’, ‘delightful’, ‘splendid’, ‘stunning’, ‘amazing’, ‘wonderful’, ‘magnificent’.
Many thanks for your donations towards post-service refreshments, which totalled £338.00 over the past year. Christmas card tree donations raised £125.00 for Water Aid.
Food Bank donations in December amounted to 233 items. Amy reports that donations for the whole of the year 2023 amounted to 2,346 items – a very similar quantity to the previous year (2,352 in 2022). Many thanks to Amy for continuing to administer this service and to everyone who contributes.
FORWARD PLANNING
There will be a Service of Confirmation on Sunday 17th March celebrated by the Right Revd Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough.
SNIPPETS – Edward & Agnes Finlay: chapel benefactors
When the present chapel of St Catherine was built in 1908 a number of benefactors provided the means for its beautification, including Colonel William Churchman (The Madonna Sewing) and the Revd Edward Bullock Finlay and his wife Agnes Maria Finlay, who are remembered in an inscription on the Epiphany window: In pious memory of Edward B Finlay, priest: who died at Salisbury January 13th 1896 and Agnes Maria his wife who died October 27th1908: wherefore may God propitiate their souls.
Three items in the chapel are associated with the Finlays. The Epiphany window, the trompe d’oeil and an old oak reading desk, originally from the library of Merton College, Oxford and donated in 1896, the year Edward died. The trompe d’oeil was painted in 1909, the year after Agnes died, and the memorial window was installed in 1916, both paid for with a £50.00 Finlay gift, which may have been a legacy left by Agnes: the Rector, Allan Coates, was one of two people granted probate in December 1908 after Agnes died. Both the trompe d’oeil and the window were designed by Frederick Eden, designer of stained glass and church fittings, who specialized in Anglo-Catholic interior embellishments.
The Finlays’ only link with Barsham appears to have been their connection with Allan Coates, and the nature of that connection remains obscure, though it is tempting to wonder if Edward Finlay was an Anglo-Catholic priest, like Coates. Only a sketchy record of Edward Finlay’s life remains. He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford in 1849 and next appears in the record as Second Master at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Dedham from 1853 to 1854. In the latter year he was ordained deacon, and priest in 1855 in the Diocese of Norwich. There followed a restless string of curacies, at Stratford St Mary (1854-1857), Frittenden, Kent (1857-1859), Gazeley with Kentford, near Newmarket (1859-1861) and Lavington, Sussex (1863-1864). His ministry then appears to come to a halt and he is described in the 1871 and 1881 census returns as ‘priest without cure of souls’, living respectively in Folkestone and Beaconsfield, and by 1891 he was living in Avebury, Wiltshire. I wonder if his wandering curacies and his apparently truncated ministry were the result of the persecution of Anglo-Catholic priests by the ecclesiastical and political establishments of the time.
Edward’s wife Agnes was the daughter of an Indian woman recorded only as ‘Culoo’ and Gerald Wellesley (1790-1833), the East India Company Resident in the Indian State of Indore, whose own father was Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805. Gerald Wellesley had three children with Culoo, who was his mistress, but in 1830 he decided that he and his children would return to England. He travelled separately from his children, who were put in the care of guardians, given the name Fitzgerald and described as Wellesley’s ‘adopted children and protégés’. Culoo does not appear to have come to England, so perhaps she died or was simply abandoned in India by Wellesley, who himself died in 1833. By this time Agnes was only eight years old and was brought up by guardians, eventually marrying Edward Finlay in Dedham in 1856 at the age of 31. It seems Edward and Agnes did not have children.
FEBRUARY DIARY
Sunday 4th February – Second Sunday before Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevdJonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 11th February – Sunday before Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
Wednesday 14th February – Ash Wednesday.
10am Holy Communion, Holy Trinity, Bungay. Revd Josh Bailey.
7pm Holy Communion, All Saints, Mettingham.
Sunday 18th February – First Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
Sunday 25th February – Second Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
No Service of Matins on Wednesday mornings in February.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]