Praise be: the creed of horse and hound

Who is the most famous vicar ever? This was the subject of a pub argument I once had with friends, all would-be clergy at the time, back in the days when such a waste of weekend afternoons — you know the drill, raised but cheerful voices, sleeping dogs, roaring fire, dimpled beer glasses all too quickly emptied — was allowed.

Various answers were given: St Peter, of Dibley, of Bray, the man who wrote Thomas the Tank Engine and so on. But to my mind, one of the most worthy candidates was a sometime Vicar of Swimbridge and Rector of Black Torrington, a clergyman whose name is now known far from the Devonian moors where he holloa’d and rode for decades in the mid to late 19th century.

This vicar was, is, of course, the Reverend John ‘Jack’ Russell. He is known, I am