Henrietta Barnett's birthdays

Samuel and Henrietta Barnett by H. von Herkomer (Toynbee Hall)

Today is the 160th birthday of Henrietta Barnett.

Henrietta Octavia Weston Rowland was born in Clapham on 4 May 1851. She married Samuel Augustus Barnett (born 1844) in 1873 who shortly afterwards became vicar of St Jude's, Whitechapel. There they founded Toynbee Hall and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. On her 56th birthday in 1907 Henrietta turned the first spade of earth for the construction of Hampstead Garden Suburb, and in October 1909 she did the same for the site of this St Jude's on Central Square.

For her 6oth birthday - a century ago today - Henrietta was presented with the tower and spire of the church "to symbolise the aspiration of the founders of the Suburb". It was dedicated on her 62nd birthday by the Bishop of London.

Henrietta died on 10 June 1936. At her funeral here on 15 June the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that what was "most remarkable in this one life was the way in which high ideals were translated into most practical action. . . . [and] the most conspicuous incident in her own life of this close union of the ideal and the practical was this Garden Suburb."

The Church of England commemorates Samuel and Henrietta together on 17 June each year - the anniversary of the former's death, and of therefore the couple's first 'birthday in heaven.

The current Bishop of London will be at St Jude's this Sunday 8 May at 1030 to celebrate the centenary of the consecration of the church on 7 May 1911 - a date almost certainly chosen because of its proximity to Henrietta's 60th birthday. All are welcome.

City of Benares

A painting by Walter Starmer in the lunette above St George's altar at St Jude’s, which represents the last few moments in the life Michael Rennie, the Vicar's son, who died of exhaustion after rescuing several evacuee children from the sinking City of Benares in 1940.

The SS City of Benares was a steam passenger ship. In 1940 it was being used as a refugee ship and was carrying 90 children from Great Britain to Canada as part of the wartime overseas evacuation. On the night of 17/18 September it was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk in the early hours of 18 September 1940, with great loss of life. 83 of the children onboard were killed. The following is an article by one of those few children (now elderly adults) who survived.

I am one of the few children who survived the ordeal of the sinking of the City of Benares and have only just been told the story about the memorial in your church to Michael Rennie. I have also read the reports of his remarkable bravery trying to rescue many of the young children who were pitched into the sea when his lifeboat was launched into the rough seas and how he swam repeatedly to bring them back to the lifeboat before they were swept away but only for many to die later from exposure. He was a real hero.

There have been some very accurate and heart-searching books and articles written about the sinking of the City of Benares. In case some of your church members may wish to learn more about the tragedy I recommend they read the latest book called 'Miracles on the Water' by Tom Nagorski. The author visited and interviewed all of the remaining survivors and has produced this remarkable book, full of drama, but told with skill and compassion. There are full accounts of Michael Rennie.

After the War, when stories of some events were being investigated and being told for the first time, many of us surviving children of the Benares were brought together to tell our stories. It was these stories that now form to details of the books and even a documentary BBC film on the event. It also made us children realise how very lucky we are to have survived and had good lives since. We have always acknowledged this and in our research we discovered that a small church in Wembley was where so many of the children who did not survive came from. As a result of this it was agreed that we should hold our various Memorial Services at the Church of the Annunciation in South Kenton and where we all met up for a reunion. We held services for the 50th, 55th and 60th anniversaries but now our numbers are depleting due to age. There are now only very few of us left and we are now mostly over 80 but we all have a very strong bond and keep in touch with each other.
City Of Benares - Sequel

On 4 July 2009, a week or so after Mr Bech had telephoned me about the City of Benares, I was in the church doing the flowers and as the door was open, three visitors came in and started to walk around the church. When I went to talk to them I found to my delight and amazement, that one of the ladies, Christine Drury, was the niece of Michael Rennie’s fiancée, Miss Pamela Bankart. After Michael’s tragic death Miss Bankart joined the Friends Ambulance Unit in Calcutta and worked as a driver for the rest of the war. The Unit was formed by the Society of Friends and was manned by Friends, who are, of course, confirmed pacifists. The three ladies had heard about the memorial painting to Michael Rennie and the 83 children of the City of Benares and had come to look for it.

They were also amazed to hear about the recent contact with Mr Bech and City of Benares survivors and were equally impressed that the tragedy is remembered annually in St Jude’s.

Elinor Delaney

Michael Delaney recommends this social history of Britain between the two wars. It is a fascinating account of the changes in society at this time. The sinking of the City of Benares is mentioned in this book as a seminal event in the reformulation of the evacuation policy.We danced all night: a social history of Britain between the wars by Martin PughI was so interested to hear that each year St. Jude's also hold prayers for Michael Rennie and for all those who perished with him as a result of the sinking of the City of Benares. It was a major event of the War and probably one of the worse single disasters concerning children. It is nice to know that memorials, like your painting, will always be a reminder to future generations of the tragedy of War.
Derek Bech (Aged 9 years old in 1940)

Published in Autumn 2009 edition of The Spire.

Click on scan to enlarge:

Pages from the St Jude's Gazette October 1940 and November 1942

Stand up. Stand up for Jesus.

'Orante' figure from the Catacomb of Priscilla, Cubicle of the Velata, Rome (second half of the third century).

When should we stand? When should we kneel or sit? Anglicans seem to get far more exercised in their worship by posture than by doctrine! Maybe this reflects an English shyness, a fear of standing out from the crowd, of embarrassing oneself (no one, after all can see what you believe). As we reprint the service sheets for St Jude’s we will try to include a sentence reminding people that the stand/sit/kneel ‘instructions’ are only (generally speaking) suggestions, but it would seem inappropriate to do so without at least a little liturgical reflection on the matter.

First of all what does the bible say about say about kneeling? There are in fact very few references, but enough to show that kneeling to offer prayer, particularly supplicatory prayer (that is prayer made when the situation seems desperate), was natural for Jesus and his immediate followers. There seems to be only a single relevant Old Testament text, but one that has been rather influential with Anglicans: Psalm 95 verse 6. “O come let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord our maker.” This Psalm, known as the ‘Venite’, has for centuries been the opening psalm of the day in the church’s worship, and in the times when Mattins was the principal Sunday service in the Church of England, would probably have been known by heart by most worshippers. That single verse is almost certainly responsible for the tendency of Anglicans to treat the words “Let us pray” as if they actually meant “Let us kneel”.

In the early church there was actually a class of people (as opposed to a sort of cushion) known as the’ kneelers’. They were those who had committed some serious sin and were only permitted to attend worship if they knelt throughout at the west end of the church, that is to say next to the main door, to symbolize their ‘marginal’ status. In time, kneeling came to be adopted as the accepted position for penitence, and so in the Book of Common Prayer the priest instructs the people to make their confession “meekly kneeling upon your knees”.

In the Medieval, and into the Reformation, periods, the penitential character of worship (acknowledging and bewailing our manifold sins and wickednesses) dominated –perhaps reinforced by the feudal requirement to grovel before lords and princes – and so kneeling spread to other parts of the service, and to such an extent that it became identified as the ‘correct’ position for the lay person in church (the clergy as their social superiors were more likely to be standing or sitting).

The Prayer Book, if you look closely at the instructions (known as ‘rubrics’), actually requires the congregation to kneel from the beginning of Holy Communion through the readings until the Gospel and Creed, and then again right through from what we would today call the ‘Eucharistic Prayer’ , until the service was over. It is no surprise that the only parts of the service that today no one complains about “having to stand for” are the Gospel and the Creed. There seems to be a deeply ingrained feeling among Anglicans that they should be kneeling more than they are, although few clergy would, I think, actually dare to instruct them to do so, or challenge them with the suggestion that kneeling actually meant putting your knees on the ground, rather than just your head into your hands!

You have probably guessed that I am not a big fan of kneeling, and would agree with most liturgical commentators that it should be reserved for really solemn occasions such as Ash Wednesday or Good Friday (the only times those in the sanctuary kneel). Just as a ‘footnote’, the Council of Nicea in the year 325 (from which the ‘Nicene Creed’ takes its name) actually banned kneeling in church on Sundays, because Sunday was not a day of penance,rather, as the day of the Resurrection, it was one of rejoicing. We should stand to give thanks and praise because Christ has ‘stood up’ from the grave. He was laid low in death, but now stands victorious, and we should give thanks that we can “stand in his presence and serve him” (Common Worship Eucharistic Prayer B).

Standing was the typical ancient position for prayer both in the Jewish tradition and – as can be seen from the paintings in the catacombs – by the first Christians. The person presiding at worship has always had to stand more, and now that happily we are rediscovering (or finally waking up to the Reformers teaching on) the common priesthood of all Christians, it is more or less established now as the appropriate posture for most of our worship.

Standing in any case is the typical way of showing respect (without grovelling) in the modern West. We stand for the National Anthem and when we are introduced to someone, or when someone with symbolic authority (like a judge) enters the place where it is exercised. So it is quite natural in church to stand at the entry and departure of the choir and clergy, as well as for the procession of the Gospel Book from the altar to the ambo and for the reading which follows. Common Worship interestingly (page 330 note 1) says “The people should stand for the reading of the Gospel, for the Creed, for the Peace and for the Dismissal”. The inclusion of the Peace may be a health and safety consideration, although the actual sharing of the peace is optional. Of course ‘should’ is not the same as ‘must’, and no one is obliged to stand if they find it difficult to do so. At the same time church furnishing should be so designed and arranged so that those who need something to lean on, for example, should have it available.

What about sitting? Early churches had no (or very few) seats because standing was assumed to be the natural position for worship (as is still the case in the Eastern churches). There was always a seat for the President – the bishop or his representative presbyter (priest) – and it was usual for him to sit to deliver the sermon to the standing congregation (that’s why cathedrals are so called – ‘cathedra’ being Latin for’ chair’). Today it is more natural to sit to listen to a reading or an address, and probably for extended periods of silent prayer - after communion, for example. There is always, however, a little bit of a danger with sitting in that it makes us think we are ‘off duty’ or doing nothing. We should remember, particularly in the minutes before the service begins, that sitting might mean ‘I am praying’ rather than ‘I am ready for a chat’.

What about the Eucharistic prayer? Without specifying a position Common Worship says “Any changes in posture in the Eucharistic Prayer should not detract from the essential unity of that prayer”. These words conceal centuries of theological controversy. Essentially the issue here is whether it is the ‘words of institution’ (“This is my body”) or the whole prayer which is ‘consecratory’. If the former, then it seems appropriate to mark the reciting of the words with a change of posture (as they are marked by the ringing of a bell); if the latter then it would seem better to maintain the same posture throughout. Actually most scholars are agreed that the whole prayer option is the correct one (for the simple reason that some ancient liturgies did not actually include the words of institution).

The very first Eucharistic Prayer known includes the words “all of us standing around [this altar]”, and we have already mentioned Eucharistic Prayer B – itself a translation of an ancient text – which says “We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you”. Nevertheless the celebration of the Eucharist as a joyful act of praise and remembrance by the whole assembly turned in the Middle Ages into a dramatic re-enactment of the Last Supper by a principal player taking the role of Jesus. The community withdrew from the action and became passive spectators, kneeling (in the catholic tradition), or sitting around a table (in the Reformed one). Despite the note there are still elements of the ‘ magic words’ approach in Common Worship, and standing older Anglicans brought up to understand that the ‘prayer of consecration’ began after the Sanctus sometimes wobble at that point. The essential thing is to maintain the same position, be it kneeling, standing, or sitting - although the last would seem to be little appropriate for the most solemn part of the liturgy.

I am fond of saying the Church of England is a ‘liturgical church’. One of the things that means is that we understand ourselves in our parish churches and in our worship to be only a part of the church, and that we have a loyalty to the wider church both in place and time. Elsewhere in The Spire I reflect on how we might explore that tradition in new ways.

Published in the Autumn 2009 edition of The Spire

The Ambo

I am sure I was not alone is wondering why the lectern, which for as long as any of us can remember has stood in a sideways - across the church – position, suddenly moved to face the congregation. Thinking others would be interested to know the answer I asked the Vicar to explain the thinking behind the move and how it may represent the beginning of a 'liturgical revival' at St Jude's.

"It has long puzzled me why the lectern should point at the pulpit rather than the congregation, and I have always thought it unsatisfactory that the Gospel procession appears to arrive from 'off-stage' with the thurifer being positioned as it were to cense the car park door. I became particularly concerned about this when training Marie-Elsa [Bragg Hammond] in her liturgical role as the deacon (the minister whose special privilege it is to proclaim the Gospel). It was around that time that Jean Hill gave me some old pictures that David, our late Reader, had collected. These showed me something I should long ago have realized, namely that the lectern, unlike the clergy and choir stalls and pulpit, is a moveable piece of furniture. All we needed to do was turn it round and the Gospel procession at the Eucharist could take a direct, and appropriately dignified, route from the altar to its place of proclamation.

The Proclamation (rather than the mere reading) of the Gospel is a central part of the Liturgy and the repositioned lectern draws our attention to this. Actually we should really get used to another word here. The 'lectern' is really just the stand for the book. The wooden structure it stands on (which resembles a small pulpit) would be better called an ambo. These were a feature of the earliest churches, and may have been derived from the platform or bima used for readings in the synagogue (both words mean 'high place').

In the Middle Ages the focus of the liturgy came to be the altar. The Reformation shifted this to the pulpit. Only in recent years have liturgical scholars rediscovered the importance of the ambo. And it turns out we have had one at St Jude's all along!

Actually we have two! A slightly odd piece of furniture (shown in old pictures as a kind of bishop's throne), and which has stood for years at the back of the Lady Chapel, made a perfect 'lesser ambo' at the Ash Wednesday liturgy held in the body of the church. The distinctive feature of this service was that the congregation sat on either side of the nave with the altar, ambo and stand for the ash in the centre. This arrangement (which seems to have been very popular) will be repeated for the special liturgies of Holy Week. In the next edition of the Spire I hope to reflect on the experience and discuss some of the theological thinking behind it. How lucky we are not to have fixed pews at St Jude's!"

I hope readers will have found this answer as illuminating as I did. I was particularly interested that this could be the start of a 'liturgical revival' at St Jude’s. I had never stopped to think much about why parts of the church were where they were and I was particularly surprised by the impact a change in the layout could have on me. Although I was unable to attend the Ash Wednesday service itself, I did experience the special layout used at this service at a short mass before the PCC meeting that same week. The arrangement that Father Alan had introduced made for an extremely moving service – the familiar liturgy in an unfamiliar setting was very powerful. I am looking forward to the special services during Holy Week, which I am certain will make this most important period even more meaningful.

Sara Gibbins

Published in the Spring 2009 edition of The Spire