Sandham Memorial Chapel: Stanley Spencer's 'Holy Box'

Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere, North Hampshire, is a monument to those who served in The Great War and to the genius who created it.  The personality of the artist, Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), dominates the work.  It speaks more about coping through great adversity than about suffering, and in this respect is unusual for war related art.  The murals detail everyday war time experience.  As Stanley himself described it, this is a 'symphony in rashers and bacon' with a 'tea making obligato'. The art is inspired by the work of Saint Augustin, who helped Stanley endure his trauma. 

Stanley Spencer was born and grew up in Cookham in the east of Berkshire and had a life long love of the village.  He had a charmed childhood.  His parents were cultured and educated people, though by no means rich.  They cultivated Stanley's love of art and music.  He attended the Slade School of Art, where he was nicknamed "Cookham", berween 1908 and 1912.  He studied draughtsmanship and was soon recognised as an outstanding student.  

Stanley Spencer by Henry Lamb 1928

National Portrait Gallery 

Stanley served in the Great War initially as a medical orderly at Beaufort War Hospital, Bristol, which had been an asylum in peace time. His duties were lowly, consisting of scrubbing and scouring.  He felt the weight of gullt for not being in active service and about his inability to feel patriotic in terms of the conflict.   His attitude was transformed by Desmond Chute, who he described as 'Christ visiting Hell'. Chute introduced Stanley to Saint Augustine's Confessions, which taught him to find solace in everyday tasks and routine. This sounds to me like mindfulness; I must study Augustine more closely.  Stanley's immersion in daily living was his redemption and inspired his paintings in the chapel.  

Stanley left Bristol in May 1916 for training and eventual mobilisation.  He was pleased to hear he was to be deployed as a medical orderly in Salonika in Macedonia ( now Thessaloniki in Greece).  He loved the sea voyage to the area and felt inspired by Homer's Odyssey.  On arrival he was captivated by the landscapes and way of life but reality soon struck home.  Stanley had no problem with the 'enemy', that is the Bulgarian people. On the contrary, he felt a bond of 'universal brotherhood', despite this he was not afraid to be on the front line in a medical capacity.  Stanley found that the conflict challenged his religious beliefs.  Perhaps if he had lived in our era, he would have been a Buddhist.  While recovering from malaria in Salonika, he wrote to his sister that on his return he would learn fresco painting and paint a church.  Thus the seeds for Sandham Memorial Chapel and the Burghclere paintings were sown.  Giotto's Arena Chapel ( Cappella degli Scrovegni) in Padua was also an inspiration for Stanley's own 'holy box'. 

Cappella degli Scrovegni 1303-1305 

Padua

The loss of his brother, Sydney, towards the end of the war left Stanley devastated and on returning, he felt unable to paint.  Nonetheless, when he was appointed as a war artist he produced his amazing work 'Travoys with Wounded Soldiers arriving at a Dressing Station at Smol, Macedonia' which, like the Burghclere paintings, showed 'scenes of redemption not horror'.  Stanley did not start on the Burghclere sketches until he had finished 'The Redemption' (1927) which is in Tate Britain.  

Sandham owes it's existence to the benefactors, John and Mary Behrend.  They were friends of Stanley's friend and fellow artist Henry Lamb.  Having seen Stanley's sketches at Henry's house one weekend, they agreed to sponsor the project.  They insisted on certain conditions.  Stanley wished for the chapel to be in his native Cookham but the Behrends were insistent that it be built in their own village of Burghclere.  They had made their money in the Egyptian cotton trade but were not fabulously wealthy, merely comfortable.  The chapel was a huge and risky project for them.  Their art works were gradually sold off during the process.  They were genuine art enthusiasts and had been supporting the art world for some time.  They developed a close friendship with Stanley, which was also at times, fraught.  

The fabric of the chapel was completed in 1927.  Stanley spent the next five years producing the Burghclere paintings against the back drop of a disastrous personal life.  He had married Hilda Carline in 1925 and had two daughters, Shirin and Unity, but they were divorced in 1937.   Stanley promptly married the artist Patricia Preece, with whom he had become infatuated and who had taken over his finances, very much to her own advantage.  Patricia was a lesbian and continued to live with her partner, Dorothy Hepworth, and refused to consummate the marriage.  When Stanley's bizarre relationship with Preece finally fell apart,( though she would never grant him a divorce), he would visit Hilda, an arrangement that continued throughout the latter's subsequent mental breakdown. Hilda died from cancer in November 1950.  The painful intricacies of this three-way relationship became the subject in 1996 of a play, Stanley by the feminist playwright Pam Gems.

Stanley demanded a church, whereas the Behrends wanted a more secular building to house the paintings.  The plot of land was bought from 6th Earl of Carnavon in 1923.  Eventually the commission to create the 'holy box' fell to Lionel Pearson, who was sympathetic to Stanleys idea of a plain and simple 'box', with no ornamental features. The Behrends insisted on the addition of two alms houses for  practical and philanthropic purposes.  It was felt that a care taker and boiler stoker could live in one of them. I am glad we have them as they provide office and reception space and it would be nice if we could have a cafe once the car park is built.  The resulting complex is eclectic and functional. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Guildford in 1927. 

The embroiderer Madeline Clifton was a friend of thr Behrends and made the altar frontal in the chapel.  It is embellished with words from Saint John's gospel and The Tempest.  The silver chalice and alms dish were commissioned from the Casa Guidi workshops in Florence.  The nineteenth century altar cross was donated by Lord Justice Slesser, a friend of the Behrends and patron of Stanley.

The Behrends wanted a broader purpose or meaning for the chapel.  Society at that time would not have understood or approved of a chapel built solely for artistic and spiritual purposes.  It was therefore dedicated to Mary's brother, Harry Sandham, who died some months after The Great War, probably as a result of an illness, maybe malaria, contracted during the war.  His death certificate says he died of a ruptured spleen, which is indeed a complication of malaria.  There was also a suggestion that Mary had given him too much brandy which had contributed to the death.  Harry is referenced by a baroque plaque in the chapel which Stanley detested.  This had been the source of some conflict with his benefactors.  

The paintings consist of eight canvases on each side of the chapel with two wall paintings above them. 

These lateral paintings depict every day scenes both on the war front and in the hospital in Bristol.  Sorting kit packs and laundry, making tea and beds, accepting a convoy of wounded, all of this and more.  Totally life like but with a strange perspective, they are captivating. The culmination is the 'The Resurrection of the Soldiers' above the altar which dominates the chapel and other scenes.  

The Resurrection is based on a pattern of white wooden crosses.  Stanley wished the cross to produce a different reaction in everyone.  At the centre is a pair of dead mules, harnessed to a wagon.  Together with their handler they come back to life and turn to Christ.  These animals had a deep impact on the artist. The soldiers also return to life and shake hands.  More than a masterpiece, this is a deeply spiritiual response to the horror of war.  

 

Stanley was made an associate of The Royal Academy in 1932, the year the chapel was finished.  Stanley toyed with the idea of a sequel, the Church of Me, which would feature both sacred and erotic art.  This never came to fruition.  The Ship Building on the Clyde series became the actual sequel and is quite fitting though it does lack a holy place.   

In 1947 the Behrends could no longer afford the upkeep of the chapel and it was gifted to the National Trust.  We are fortunate indeed that the chapel is now open to the public, albeit at a cost.  

In 1959 Stanley was knighted and also returned to live in Cookham.  Sadly, he died of cancer the same year.  

 

The Aldworth Giants

It is a sunny Good Friday and we have an outing planned.  This week has been a holiday.  Tuesday we chilled out and swam, Wednesday was yoga and Thursday, Sandham Chapel (more later).  Today we are off to Aldworth, a small West Berkshire village.   It was recorded in the Doomsday Book as Elleorde, an Old English name meaning Old Enclosure or Old Farm.  It was then a tiny village, which according to the Doomsday Book numbered 'not more than twenty-five souls, all of them simple folk, villeins, serfs and swinherd!'  Let's see what has changed. 

In medieval times there was a castle at Aldworth, which stood on the site of what is now Beche Farm.  It belonged to the De La Beche family, who were powerful landowners and knights.  They were originally from Flanders and encouraged to settle in England by William of Normandy after the conquest. 

St Mary's church is our focus.  It dates back to around 1200. 

The Yew tree in the churchyard is at least 1000 years old and though it has been struck by lightning and blown over in a storm it is still partly alive.   

The church is of interest as it houses nine stone effigies to the De La Beche family.  The collection is the largest number of medieval memorials to a single family in a parish church. The figures are supposed to be life size representations and some are over seven feet tall, which has led to them being called the 'Aldworth Giants'.  There are indeed records to suggest they were a tall and proud family.  The effigies date from various times in the midddle ages but are all in a simple classical style.

Many were damaged by parliamentarians during the Civil War in the 17th century.  Some knights are missing the lower part of their legs, noses and arms, presumably because they were the easiest parts to break off.  More recent grafiti is also on evidence.

Here is Sir Robert De La Beche, knighted by Edward I in 1278.

Along with Sir Robert, his son Sir John, and grandson Sir Philip line the north wall.  

 


Sir Philip is the most impressive of the effigies.  He wears a mantle over his embossed leather armour to signify that he was valet to Edward II.  There is a dwarf squatting at his feet.   Sir Philip went around with a dwarf to emphasise his height and importance! 

This is his top end

Sir Philip had six sons: John, Philip, Nicholas, Edmond, Robert, Edward, and one daughter, Joan. He was sheriff of Berkshire and Wiltshire in 1314.  Along with his sons, he took part in a rebellion against Edward II in 1322.  They were defeated at the battle of Boroughbridge and imprisoned for five years.  Their lands were confiscated until the accession of Edward III in 1327, when they were restored to their former position.

Sir Philip's first son, Sir John, lies with his wife, Isabella, in the nave of the church together with his younger brother, Lord Nicholas De La Beche. 

Lord Nicholas became very important in the early years of the reign of Edward III. By 1336 he was steward of the province of Gascony in France, Constable of the Tower and custodian of the King's first son, Edward Prince of Wales, later the Black Prince. Lord Nicholas died in 1348, living just long enough to see the fulfilment of his duties in England and France, enjoy the victory over the French at Crecy in 1346 and the glory that the Black Prince found for himself in the battle.

Lord Nicholas' elder brother Sir Philip, the second son of Sir Philip De La Beche, lies together with his mother, Lady Joan, along the south aisle of the church. 

Lady Joan looks very graceful and the carving of her traditional dress has painstaking detail of fold and shape. 

The last effigy is shown below in the foreground.  It is that of John, the son of Lady Isabella. He is badly mutilated.  He died in 1340 at the age of twenty.   The family became extinct in the male line soon afterwards. 

There are many interesting walks around here in pretty countryside, we do a fraction of one but the pub beckons.  The Bell at Aldworth has been regularly featured in the pub guide and offers excellent real ales and simple fare.  Every lunch time it is packed so it is not surprising that on Good Friday it is bursting at the seams with nowhere inside or out to sit.  Me thinks the simple folk, villeins, serfs and swinherd have multiplied and come forth!  

Acknowledgements 

2016 Aldworth Parish Website

Joseph Priestley: vicitm of discrimination

In a recent service, Oxford Unitarians focused on Joseph Priestley (1733 –1804), an English theologian, dissenting clergyman, philosopher, scientist, educator, and liberal political thinker who published over one hundred and fifty works. He is usually credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in it's gaseous state, although Scheele and Lavoisier also have a claim to the discovery.

 

Joseph also invented soda water and wrote about electricity.  But it is his life, theology and politics that grab my attention.  He strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas, advocated tolerance and equal rights for religious Dissenters.  In the eighteenth century this term was used for anyone who dared not to be an Anglican. 

Joseph Priestley was instrumental in founding our wonderful Unitarian creed. ' Whoever you are, wherever you come from and whatever you believe, you are welcome here.'  Because of his views he suffered discrimination and intolerance.  It is depressing to consider that these things still happen.

Joseph was born to an established dissenting family who lived near Batley in Yorkshire. It became apparent that he was intelligent and he was given a good, broad based education. He was tutored by the Reverend George Haggerstone, who first introduced him to higher mathematics, philosophy, logic and physics.

Around 1749, Joseph became seriously ill and believed he was dying. His illness left him with a permanent stutter and he gave up any thoughts of entering the ministry at that stage. In preparation for joining a relative in trade in Lisbon, he studied French, Italian, German and Arabic.

Joseph eventually decided to return to his theological studies and, in 1752, matriculated at Daventry, a Dissenting academy.  The liberal atmosphere of the school, shifted his theology further leftward and he became a Rational Dissenter, thus abhoring dogma and religious mysticism, while emphasising the rational analysis of the natural world and the Bible.

Joseph's first "call" in 1755 was to the Dissenting parish in Needham Market, Suffolk.  This was a bad move for both himself and the congregation.  He yearned for urban life and theological debate, but Needham Market was a small, rural town with a conservative congregation. Attendance and donations dropped sharply when they discovered the extent of his heterodoxy.  Joseph's Daventry friends helped him obtain another position and in 1758 he moved to Nantwich. His time there was happier. The congregation was less concerned about his heterodoxy and he successfully established a school. Unlike many schoolmasters of the time, he taught his students philosophy and science . Appalled at the quality of the available English grammar books, Joseph wrote his own: 'The Rudiments of English Grammar' (1761).  This received much acclaim.  He was forward thinking and understood the need to move away from Latin.  These successes led Warrington Academy to offer him a teaching position in 1761. 

Warrington in those days was an intellectual powerhouse known as the 'Athens of the North', believe it or not!  Joseph remained there until 1767, teaching modern languages. He fitted in well at Warrington, and made friends quickly. On 23 June 1762, he married Mary Wilkinson. The marriage proved to be very happy.  

Joseph argued that the education of the young should anticipate their future practical needs. This principle of utility guided his unconventional curricular choices for Warrington's aspiring middle-class students. He recommended modern languages instead of classical languages and modern rather than ancient history.  He also promoted the education of middle-class women, which was unusual at the time.  Some scholars of education have described Joseph Priestley as the most important English writer on education between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries.  

In 1773, Joseph became a political adviser to Lord Shelburne, gathering information on parliamentary issues and serving as a liaison between Shelburne and the Dissenting and American interests.dit

When Joseph's friend Theophilus Lindsey decided to found a new Christian denomination that would not restrict its members' beliefs, Joseph and others hurried to his aid. On 17 April 1774, Lindsey held the first Unitarian service in Britain, at the newly formed Essex Street Chapel in London. Joseph attended Lindsey's church regularly in the 1770s and occasionally preached there.  He continued to support Unitarianism for the rest of his life, writing several Defenses of Unitarianism and encouraging the foundation of new Unitarian chapels throughout Britain and the United States.

Around 1779 Joseph and Shelburne had a fall out.  The most likely reason was Shelburne's recent marriage to Louisa Fitzpatrick who did not like the Priestleys, who thus moved on to Birmingham.  The Priestley and Shelburne families upheld their Unitarian faith for generations, into the twentieth century.  Joseph and his family spent a happy decade in the Midlands until they were forced to flee in 1791 by religiously motivated mob violence in what became known as the Priestley or Birmingham Riots. More later. Joseph had accepted the ministerial position on the condition that he be required to preach and teach only on Sundays, so that he would have time for his writing and scientific experiments. As in Leeds, he established classes for the youth of his parish and by 1781, he was teaching one hundred and fifty students. 

Although Joseph continued his scientific persuits, most of what he published in Birmingham was theological.   He thought the teachings of the early Christian church had been "corrupted" or distorted.  He addressed issues ranging from the divinity of Christ to the proper form for the Lord's Supper.  Although a few readers such as Thomas Jefferson and other Rational Dissenters approved of the work, it was harshly reviewed because of its extreme theological positions, particularly its rejection of the Trinity. 

In 1785 claiming that the Reformation had not really reformed the church, Joseph challenged his readers to enact change:

Let us not, therefore, be discouraged, though, for the present, we should see no great number of churches professedly unitarian .... We are, as it were, laying gunpowder, grain by grain, under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion; in consequence of which that edifice, the erection of which has been the work of ages, may be overturned in a moment, and so effectually as that the same foundation can never be built upon again ....

Although discouraged by friends from using such inflammatory language, Joseph Priestley refused to back down, forever branding himself as "Gunpowder Joe". After the publication of this seeming call for revolution in the midst of the French Revolution. pamphleteers stepped up their attacks on Joseph and his church.  Political cartoons, one of the most effective and popular media of the time, skewered the Dissenters. Because of their support of the French Revolution, the Dissenters came under increasing suspicion as scepticism regarding the revolution grew.  In its propaganda against "radicals", Pitt's administration used  the "gunpowder" statement to argue that Priestley and other Dissenters wanted to overthrow the government.

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The attack on the Priestley's home, Fairhill, Sparkbrook, Birmingham

The animosity that had been building against Dissenters and supporters of the American and French Revolutions exploded in July 1791. Joseph Priestley and several other Dissenters had arranged to have a celebratory dinner on the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, a provocative action in a country where many disapproved of the French Revolution and feared that it might spread to Britain. Amid fears of violence, Joseph was convinced by his friends not to attend. Rioters gathered outside the hotel during the banquet and attacked the attendees as they left. The rioters moved on to the Unitarian churches and burned them to the ground.  The mob torched the Priestleys' house, destroying the valuable laboratory and all of the family's belongings. Twenty-six other Dissenters’ homes and three more churches were burned in the three-day riot. Joseph spent several days hiding with friends until he was able to travel safely to London. The carefully executed attacks of the mob and the farcical trials of only a handful of the "leaders" convinced many at the time, and modern historians later, that the attacks were planned and condoned by local Birmingham magistrates. When George III was eventually forced to send troops to the area, he said: "I cannot but feel better pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he and his party have instilled, and that the people see them in their true light."  Disgraceful, in my view. 

Unable to return to Birmingham, the Priestley family eventually settled in Middlesex at the Dissentimg Academy.   Friends helped the couple rebuild their lives, contributing money, books, and laboratory equipment. Joseph tried to obtain restitution from the government for the destruction of his Birmingham property, but he was never fully reimbursed. 

Daily life became more difficult for the family: Joseph was burned in effigy; vicious political cartoons continued to be published about him; letters were sent to him from across the country, comparing him to the devil and Guy Fawkes; tradespeople feared the family's business; and his Royal Academy friends distanced themselves. As the penalties became harsher for those who spoke out against the government, Joseph examined options for removing himself and his family from England.  His son William was presented to the French Assembly and granted letters of naturalization on 8 June 1792.   A decree of 26 August 1792 by the French National Assembly conferred French citizenship on Joseph Priestley and others who had "served the cause of liberty" by their writings.   He accepted French citizenship, considering it "the greatest of honours".  

As relations between England and France worsened, however, a removal to France became impracticable.  Following the declaration of war of February 1793, and the Aliens Bill of March 1793, which forbade correspondence or travel between England and France, William Priestley left France for America. Joseph Priestley's sons Harry and Joseph chose to leave England for America in August 1793.  Finally Joseph himself followed with his wife, boarding the Sansom at Gravesend on 7 April 1793.  Five weeks after Priestley left, William Pitt's administration began arresting radicals for seditious libel, resulting in the famous 1794 Treason Trials.  

The Priestleys arrived in New York City in 1794 and moved on to Pennsylvania, trying to avoid political discord in this new country.  The sons bought land and prospered.   Mary Priestley died on 17 September 1796.  Joseph now moved in with his elder son, Joseph Jr., and wife Elizabeth Ryland-Priestley. Since his arrival in America he had continued to defend his Unitarian beliefs and was unable to avoid becoming embroiled in political controversy.  

By the time he died in 1804, Joseph Priestley had been made a member of every major scientific society in the Western world and he had discovered numerous substances.  He had published more than one hundred and fifty works on topics ranging from political philosophy to education to theology to natural philosophy.  He led and inspired British radicals during the 1790s, and helped found Unitarianism.  
 Joseph Priestley is described as a conservative and dogmatic scientist who was nevertheless a political and religious reformer.  It is the latter on which I have focussed. I attended the service about Joseph around the time I saw the Film 'Trumbo' about a communist mid twentieth century Hollywood script writer.  There are similarites between the way Trumbo and Priestley were treated: visitmised and ostracised. 

 May we progress. 

 

This globe in the library of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, once belonged to Joseph Priestley.

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