63 Years a Vicar: The Life and Times of Henry Burnaby Greene, Vicar of Longparish, Hampshire, England 1821-1884

By Martin Coppen

The Revd Henry Burnaby Greene was the vicar of the north-west Hampshire village of Longparish for a remarkable 63 years in the middle of the nineteenth century. He oversaw the restoration of the parish church and masterminded the rerouting of the village street. This detailed but short biography is also a description of the changing times of an isolated agricultural community, through the dangerous unrest of the Swing riots into the more prosperous and stable period of mid-Victorian England, with better education, welfare and the railway on the local horizon. With his careful research and transcriptions of newspaper reports and the few letters which survive, the author has provided the first published record of this beautiful village and the work and relationships of a very devoted and loyal servant both of the parish and of the Church of England. '63 Years a Vicar' is also a history of the Burnaby, Greene and Woodcock familes during this century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Coppen
• Release date: Aug 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9780993321610

Martin Coppen

Martin Coppen is a retired Church of England priest who lives in Andover, England. He was parish priest of four country parishes nearby for over twenty years. His interest in local history, particularly of the churches and church people, was kindled through stories which older parishioners told of the clergy they remembered, and the display lists of past vicars in church. Through writing a series of guide books for his churches, his interest in architecture and church building grew. He asked himself, how did this church which I am praying in come to be like this? What was it like for those who have prayed here for the past thousand years?

Book preview

63 Years a Vicar

The Life and Times of

Henry Burnaby Greene

Vicar of Longparish, Hampshire, England

1821-1884

Copyright 2015 Martin Coppen

Published by Maryacre Publishing at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Foreword by John Woodcock

List of Illustrations

Family and Early Years

63 Years a Vicar—1821-31

63 Years a Vicar—1831-51

63 Years a Vicar—1851-71

63 Years a Vicar—1871-84: the Final Years

Curates

Acknowledgements and Thanks

Bibliography

Appendix 1: The 1845 Correspondence on Family Pews

Appendix 2: Obituary and Funeral Report

Appendix 3: Extracts from the Will of Henry Burnaby Greene

Appendix 4: Extracts from the Auction Catalogue of Henry Burnaby Greene’s Effects

The Illustrations and Tables

Endnotes

About the Author

Foreword by John Woodcock

It is as a descendant of Henry Burnaby Greene, through his wife Amelia (my great, great aunt) that I have been accorded the privilege of writing this foreword to Martin Coppen’s scholarly recognition of a remarkable man.

The gift of the living of Longparish (the advowson, that is, or the right of appointment to a benefice) has been in my family since 1765: more than long enough, in fact, for Burnaby Greene to have been appointed as vicar of Longparish, in 1821, by Henry Woodcock, Amelia’s uncle. In 1906 my father, Parry Woodcock, was appointed, also to Longparish, by his cousin, Stuart Johnson, my predecessor as Patron, whose mother was Henry’s grand-daughter. If all this sounds positively incestuous, so, in a kind of way, it was, though it is a practice of longstanding and one which produced in Burnaby Greene the most influential figure in the annals of the Longparish church.

I can but marvel at the extent and inclusiveness of Martin’s research. Already affectionately remembered as an assiduous and natural country parson, he is now revealed as an assiduous and natural historian, and the life of Burnaby Greene provides him with a worthy challenge. To have been the incumbent of the same parish for 63 years, as Burnaby Greene was, albeit with a good deal of help towards the end of his time, makes him something of a phenomenon, although the Guinness Book of Records has unearthed a Reverend Bartholomew Edwards, who was rector of St Nicholas, Ashill, Norfolk, for 75 years and 357 days, from 1813 to 1889. Being the days of long sermons, they must between them have spent months, even years, in the pulpit. The mind boggles!

It was obviously much to Burnaby Greene’s liking that his ministry coincided with the revivalist years of the Oxford Movement with its high Anglican ideals. There must be a fair chance that through Henry Woodcock, a Doctor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, Burnaby Greene, himself a considerable scholar, would have met such legendary figures within the Oxford Movement as John Henry Newman, John Keble and Edward Pusey, the last a good friend of the Canon. Had any one of these three ever come to Longparish he would have approved of the way Burnaby Greene had reordered the church and the conduct of the liturgy. In my father’s time (1906-33) the churchmanship was of a distinctly more evangelical disposition.

In personality, Burnaby Greene was undoubtedly autocratic. To have demolished a charming little house, much to the consternation of its occupants, and had the village street moved by a good 30 yards, in order to give himself a front garden after he had rebuilt the rectory, is proof enough of that. I recall hearing him described, by someone who had met him when a small boy, as being masterful and rather frightening with a flowing white beard. I have always understood too, that if he saw a choirboy larking about during one of the Sunday services, he would walk across to the school first thing on Monday morning and ask for the cane.

On the other hand, I have a letter written by my father to his sister (my Aunt Lucy) when he was a boy at Winchester College, describing the first visit he ever made to Longparish. It was to spend the day with cousin Henry during the summer term of 1872, and he called it the jolliest leave-out he had ever had. Arriving at Micheldever Station at 7.45 am he was expecting to have to walk the six miles to Longparish, but was spared that by finding a trap that was going there anyway. He was less fortunate on his return, having to leave Longparish on foot at 9.30 so as to catch the 10.50 pm back to Winchester.

I cannot tell you, he wrote to his sister, How much I enjoyed the day. I think it is the most perfect little nook there could possibly be, and wish I could get such a place when I am ordained. I like cousin Henry very much. He is very quiet, but has a lot of fun in him and seems as if he could not say an unkind word to anyone. He tipped me a sovereign, which was right good of him, and asked me to go back whenever I liked, which I shall always do if I can. In the event, he went back 34 years later as rector to the place of his dreams.

I am writing this when we are again in the process of looking for an incumbent. In no walk of life are things ever what they were, and the Church of England is no exception. The method of appointment is a lot more democratic, much less lordly and exclusive than it was when Burnaby Greene came on the scene. Ecclesiastically and demographically it is another world, and we should feel deeply indebted to Martin for telling us how it once was, thereby making a singular and invaluable contribution to our local knowledge.

John Woodcock. June 2014

Note from the Author

This book brings together and publishes for the first time many sources for the 19th century history of Longparish, focussed around the long incumbency of its vicar. The reader will be relieved that although much more could have been written, it was not. However, any future historian who follows the same path will be able to check this author’s conclusions through the references and transcriptions in the Appendices. I hope the more general reader will not be put off by their profusion.

Canon Martin Coppen

Rector of Longparish 2000-2013

Abbreviations used in the Notes

DNB—Dictionary of National Biography (accessed online).

HBG—Henry Burnaby Greene

HRO—Hampshire Record Office, Sussex Street, Winchester—the county archive.

ICBS—The Incorporated Church Building Society, a grant-making