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| Revd John Duncan |
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| Revd Canon John Guthrie |
During this period, St Mary the Virgin at Calne, the parish
church, did not have a rector. The vicar 1835-
1865, whose tenure ended with his
death, was Revd Canon John Guthrie. In his youth a keen and able cricketer, he
married well second time round. Both he and his wife founded schools, his aimed
at remedying the deficiencies of working class education. He was seen as
representing the low church, evangelical tradition within the Church of
England. He would have been hard for any successor to follow. But when his
successful ministry ended, the bishop of Salisbury replaced him with the
perpetual curate at Lyneham, Revd John Duncan, who was more high church,
emphasising vestments, ritual and liturgy. I have not been able to establish
whether as seems likely this represented the influence of the Oxford Movement.
He too was interested in education, instigating the founding of St Mary’s
School, Calne in 1873. Tensions within the church seem to have come to a head
over the high-church emphasis on spiritual regeneration through baptism. This
was a particular concern of the St Mary’s curate, new in 1866, Revd G. Purches,
but in solidarity with his
curate also backed by John Duncan. There were
discussions with low church parishioners, but on 7
th October 1866
several members of the congregation left the church before the conclusion of
the sermon.
 |
C&T Harris Factory (built c.1920)
next to Calne Heritage Centre. |
An aspect of the schism
was also the struggle between “old money”, the landed aristocracy, and “new money” arising from the first craft-based
industrial revolution and the exploitation of empire particularly in south and
east asia. This resulted in a struggle over the corn laws introduced after the
Napoleonic wars 1803-1815. These laws prevented cheap wheat (“grain”) from
North America entering the United Kingdom, which then included Ireland. It
could have greatly mitigated the horrendous Irish famine of 1845-1852. The
factory owners also wanted cheap bread for their workers and following a
campaign by two industrialists Richard Cobden and John Bright it was a Tory
government led by Sir Robert Peel repealed these laws in 1846, somewhat late.
In Calne, new money was principally represented by the Harrises or
“Harristocracy”, a family of very successful butchers, who employed, even then,
many workers, all of whom had to be fed, with their families. The factory,
which stood where Carnegie Mews now is, manufactured pork products. The pigs
came from Ireland, and this is a less-told aspect of Anglo-Irish tensions. The
main old money in Calne is that of the family of the Marquis of Lansdowne,
owners of Bowood Estate. With estates in County Kerry, too, they would have
been aware of the suffering in Ireland, and indeed their politics seem to have
been Whig (precursors of the Liberals) rather than Tory (Conservative). But
there would have been other landowning families. It was the industrialist
Harrises who led the breakaway of about 90 parishioners to form Calne Free
Church. John Duncan left Calne in 1876.
Stephen Williams, DPhil
