The Story of The Rev. John Dickinson, Assistant Minister.

[Bayleaf]

This is taken from a lecture given to the Hunter Archaeological Society on the 18th April 1917 and published in the Transactions of the Society. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the Society.

( Part one here )

THE STORY OF THE REV. JOHN DICKINSON, ASSISTANT MINISTER.

And now we are able to revert to John Dickinson, whom we left at the Grammar School, where, as his letters and other MSS. testify, there must certainly have been a very capable writing master. I suppose one reason why so many boys from Sheffield and the neighbourhood went to St. John's, Cambridge, is that it was the academic home of Christopher Robinson and John Balguy, Grammar School masters.

Dickinson, then 17 years of age, was admitted to that College as a sizar in 1725, Dr. Newcombe being appointed his tutor.

He took his Degree, was ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln in 1731, and priest, by the Bishop of Ely, in the following year.

There is reason to think that he became curate to the Rev: Samuel Rand, Rector of Leverington, close to Wisbech, and Leverington is of interest to Sheffield because here was the land with which Thomas Smith, of Crowland, in the same fen country, endowed our Grammar School, of which he, and not the cuckoo-like appropriator, King James I, was the real founder.

In 1749 Dickinson was presented to the incumbency of Parson Drove, a chapelry of Leverington, and in the same year was licensed as preacher, or afternoon lecturer in the Church of Wisbech St. Peters. He kept in touch with Sheffield, where he had many warm friends, by occasional visits and correspondence.

He was here in 1739, and again in 1740, when he was present at the consecration of St. Paul's Church.

In 1748 Leonard Webster chose him as preacher of the Cutlers' Feast sermon, when he discoursed on what he called

"a very curious subject – the rise, progress, and advantages of the arts and sciences,"

his text being,

"She also bare Tubal Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron " (Gen. iv, 22). In this he discoursed on a then burning question respecting cutlers' apprentices with such acceptance that besides his usual guinea fee and bottle of wine, the Company presented him with “a very fine” set of knives and forks, their arms being etched on the blades. He was "much importuned " to print the sermon, and afterwards greatly regretted that he did not comply.

There is much in his letters to and from Sheffield of considerable local interest, but I must confine myself to one series, relating to Mr. Dickinson's experiences as Assistant Minister of the Parish Church. This curious episode has been curtly referred to in various publications, but, so far as I am aware, the full story has never been told. Nor has its real inwardness been properly understood.

The anomalous position of the Assistant Ministers, as set up by the Charter of Queen Mary, was well calculated to provoke trouble. Appointed by twelve lay-trustees to a life tenure, and irremovable for anything short of misconduct or incapacity, they were free from any legal control by the Vicar, and, as to the discharge of their duties in the Church, exempt from the Ordinary's jurisdiction.

As was very much the case also in the happy-go-lucky secular government of the town, so here smooth working was entirely dependent upon the friendliness and good feeling of the co-operating parties. And it is very remarkable how, through the centuries, these, combined with commonsense got good results from ill-shaped tools.

Twice only have clerical disagreements led to invocation of the law, and on both occasions its attempts to untie complicated knots were a complete failure, compromise alone restoring peace.

In the first of these struggles the Rev. John Dickinson was the central figure; in the second, a hundred years later, the Rev. Canon Trevor. It is with the first that we are alone concerned here.

It is evident that Dickinson's visit, and his Cutlers' Feast sermon, aroused a feeling that his native town had a better claim on his services than the fens of the Isle of Ely, and that this was represented to him by his many friends.

An opportunity for achieving this seemed to present itself some six months afterwards, when the Rev. Wm. Humpton, Assistant Minister and Curate of Ecclesall, lay at his residence, Fulwood Hall (the heiress to which he had married) afflicted with an incurable dropsy, presaging speedy death. Whereupon Mr. Hussey, the surgeon in attendance, with Gilbert Dixon, attorney and Clerk to the Cutlers' Company, took action, advising Dickinson to offer himself as candidate for the appointment, either personally or by letter.

Dixon was once described as a man whom it was impossible not to like, despise his indiscretion - and indiscretion would seem a mild word to use in urging a bid for the shoes of a cleric not yet dead, by one whom he knew could not fill them properly from a place distant three days journey.

As to the latter, he casuistically suggested that as probable absence from personal discharge of duty had been mentioned to one Burgess, who would

"quiet the inhabitants,"

nothing need be said to the others, and as to applying for an unvacated post, that was a common practice. Indeed in this case, Mr. Stacye [of Ballifield] had been asking for it for some time, and the Rev. Robt. Waterhouse might come forward.

Without waiting for Mr. Dickinson's answer, a canvass was forthwith begun on his behalf. His maternal uncle, Jeremiah Hancock, was landlord of the Cock Inn, and Gilbert Dixon wrote:

"Jerry Hancock has set his wheels awork for you. Mr. Nodder has given him a list of the Burgesses and he has buzz'd about a day or two, which has made some sport. He applies for his nephew, which makes the gentlemen stare, for who the nephew is does not immediately occur. I find this application from him is as well received as from any man in England, and is not unlikely to do you service... If you will condescend to ask for this little thing (and, without asking, the Burgesses will not think themselves properly complimented), you ought to set about it immediately, and your friends here will be doing everything in their power for your service... P.S.- Mrs. Dixon will get some new china against your coming, and she hopes to have many a dish of tea and chat with you."

Dickinson, although he called it "beggary," acted on Dixon's counsel. Writing on the 17th May, 1749, that energetic adviser expressed the opinion that the letters of application to the Burgesses were

"proper and seasonable,"

and had

"taken away all shifty evasions which some of the slippery ones might have been ready to use after having prostituted their votes against their judgments; but you have by this step tied them down. Your own hand has," he added, "done the business for you: none of them dares to open his mouth against you in favour of another. All companies (for you have been the talk of all companies) declare for you ... In short, sir, you are as sure of the succession to Ecclesall as ye Prince of Wales to the Crown of England, maugre all pretenders whatsoever."

All this was in 1749. But poor Mr. Humpton was an unconscionable time in shuffling off his burdensome mortal coil. Not until the 4th of August, 1752, was Dixon able to report that "the die was thrown," and that Dickinson's “gloriously determined and resolute friends" had carried his election by the votes of seven out of eleven Capital Burgesses present, notwithstanding the knowledge that he could not come to reside in Sheffield for twelve months.

The climax of unseemly wire-pulling in the choice of a successor to a sacred office is reached when we read that

"many ladies are proud to say that they were in your interest. Many potts of coffee and bottles of wine have been pleasingly lost and joyfully won upon this election amongst the fair sex. The losers have paid their potable wagers with all the pleasure of winners, and I am credibly told that amongst other respectful healths that were toasted by a gallant set of them, one was ' a good Sheffield wife' to you."

As to this, Mr. Hussey had been even more officious. Not content with finding a parson for Sheffield, he had nominated a consort for that parson: "He has," writes Dixon, "found out a scheme which may probably establish a good understanding betwixt you and ye family of Waterhouse. I need say no more: a word is sufficient for the wise."

Then it would seem as if, rather late in the day, Mr. Gilbert Dixon bethought himself that the business he had been so eagerly piloting was not a mere piece of secular bargaining - was even something more than a lively episode for the entertainment of the Assembly gossips , so, paying a momentary tribute to the cloth, he wrote :

"

Let not the design of this election be defeated. Nothing less than the cause of Christianity and the bettering of mankind has thrown this choice upon you, against caprice, worldly interest, stupidity and ignorance. This is the first time the people of Sheffield have had an opportunity of testifying their approbation of you, and though the gift be infinitely beneath your deservings, 'tis their mite, and I hope will be fully accepted by you. If any malcontent be yet remaining, I doubt not but a little time will silence all such."

Mr. Dickinson was begged to come at once to show himself. Let him send word at what hour he would reach Mansfield, or Bolsover, or Eckington, where his friends designed to await him and to bring the conquering hero in triumph.

So the Assistant Minister elect mounted his nag and came - as once before, no doubt, avoiding a ride through Sherwood Forest near nightfall. He again preached the Cutlers' Feast sermon at the end of the month (August, 1752), and then hurried back to his parishioners at Parson Drove.

In the absence of letters from Dickinson in reply to Dixon's, it is impossible to discover whether he ever really intended to leave Wisbech for residence in Sheffield, or whether in those days of pluralities - for he was something of a pluralist - he thought to delegate his duties here to a curate. It may be that he had not yet got the living of Parson Drove (to which he was appointed in this year, 1749), or having got it that his relations with his people were strained, and when his election as Assistant Minister did come he was still engaged in a controversy with his parishioners, to which were added duties imposed upon him by the illness of his old friend, the Rector of Leverington. So that his hands were pretty full.

Dixon suggested that he might appoint "Jack Smith"-a Pea Croft cutler's son who had just left Cambridge "with laurels" - dividing their time between Sheffield and Wisbech. But nothing came of this, and when more than a year had elapsed without any sign by the Assistant Minister of inclination to discharge his duties in person, the Capital Burgesses grew impatient, and insisted that he must either reside in Sheffield or resign.

He did neither. There was one fleeting visit to Sheffield, in December, 1754, when he preached two sermons in the Parish Church (which were published), in denunciation of the iniquity of false weights and measures.

Then followed a long silence. -- It was not until eighteen months afterwards (June, 1756) that things began to move; for a new Vicar, the Rev. James Wilkinson, had succeeded the venerable Mr. Dossie.

At a Visitation, presentations were made against Mr. Dickinson, by the Churchwardens of Sheffield

"for neglect of duty in general when living in the town of Sheffield, and for being absent for above six months in the year, and for officiating as minister without a licence;"

by the Churchwardens of Ecclesall,

"for neglect of duty for some time past, particularly on Sunday, the 27th inst., and for serving the said cure without a licence."

Dickinson, by attorney, denied these allegations, and neither the Archdeacon nor the Archbishop was able to intervene.

Then the new Vicar instituted a suit, but this only strengthened Dickinson's contumacy, and he set down his foot, having persuaded himself that he was a Village Hampden, standing up not only against the Vicar, but against Trustees disloyal to their trust, in that they were helping its assailant instead of defending their rights as established by Queen Mary, and of standing 'up for the privileges and independency of

their chaplains against Episcopal invasion, and a new authority.

Dickinson, not long before, had shown, in the controversy with his parishioners at Parson Drove, that he would make great sacrifices for peace, quiet, and friendliness, but if "uncivilly" used by appeals to the law, to the strict letter of the law he would hold his opponents.

So, in Sheffield, he not only refused to be driven out, but the Vicar's suit being withdrawn, and the Burgesses declining to pay his salary, he commenced an action in the law courts, grimly remarking that as the case had cut an indifferent figure at York, so also would it make a sad spectacle in Westminster Hall. The opinions of Counsel, instead of affording consolation to the Capital Burgesses, threw those worthies into a state of great perturbation.

In the midst of this turmoil Gilbert Dixon was enjoying himself vastly. Invited to the annual dinner of the Burgesses, he afterwards gave Dickinson a graphic description of the bantering fashion in which he parried nervous attempts to elicit betrayal of his friend's intentions.

Finally he left them, chagrined and "confounded" by the revelation that, had they paid the stipend when demanded, Dickinson would have at once resigned. But now there must be war to the knife, since instead of recognizing that he was standing up for the rights of their Trust, and for the privileges and independence of their chaplains chosen under it, they were aiding and abetting the Vicar and taking up cudgels for him.

His Majesty's judges proved as powerless to unravel the tangle as had the Archbishop. Thus the dispute dragged its slow length along and was not settled until 1763, when, eleven years after his appointment, Dickinson, being paid the full arrears of a salary he had only earned by deputy, relinquished the appointment.

The Burgesses had, besides, to remunerate the Vicar and a curate for officiating in his stead, and they were saddled with lawyers' bills of costs. They consoled themselves by inscribing in their Minute Book sundry futile orders fondly designed as a safeguard against the recurrence of such events.

There is a curious parallel between the case of John Dickinson and that of Canon Trevor, a hundred years later. For although in the former the struggle was to get an Assistant Minister into the pulpit, and in the latter to keep him out of it, the principles at issue were the same.

In both, the Capital Burgesses began by championing the man of their choice, only to throw him overboard afterwards.

In both, the aggrieved clergyman was able to pose as the defender of the rights of the Burgesses and of the Assistant Ministers, as established by Queen Mary's Charter.

In both, the trouble was left by a Vicar who had provoked it in his declining days as an uncomfortable legacy to his successor.

Again, both ended in a legal fiasco and in compromise. It seems, at times at least, to have been customary for the Burgesses, before making an appointment to ascertain, as a matter of courtesy, whether their nominee would be acceptable to the Vicar - and that, probably, is why a system, designed on its face to invite difficulty, had usually worked with fair smoothness. One gathers that in the two cases in question where serious friction occurred, this precaution was not taken - in the second, certainly, the appointment was made in direct defiance of Vicar Sutton's emphatic disapproval.

There is no trace of Mr. Dickinson having ever again visited Sheffield, but he continued to take a lively interest in the affairs of the town in whose prosperity, he said, he always rejoiced.

True to his liking for pluralities, he added to his cure at Parson Drove a clerical charge at Bexwell, near Downham Market, across the Norfolk border, and within half a guinea's post-chaise drive of Wisbech.

He, kept up a leisurely correspondence with Richard Yeomans, third of the name, grandson of his mother by her third husband. To him he made various handsome money presents, and left to him all his property, sworn at under £5,000 with an executorship which involved several journeys to Wisbech. He died, unmarried, on the 23rd December, 1790, aged 83, having been, as a tablet to his memory said, "forty years rector of this church." He was to the end able to maintain the firmness of his legible hand-writing, without spectacles.

In an inventory of his possessions, made in 1753, he included two hundred sermons, which he valued, at one hundred guineas. Whether his library, which came to Sheffield, comprised these and his later discourses we do not know, but from various fragments of MSS., and from his published discourses, we may deem him to have been a more than ordinarily effective preacher, and possessed of a judgment so sane as to make it all the more surprising that he was induced to embark on an enterprise at Sheffield, under impossible conditions, for the sake of £40 a year.

A striking tribute to the estimation in which his discourses were held by his clerical brethren has been preserved. The Rev. Thomas Cockshutt, of the Huthwaite family of ironmasters, and cousin to Mr. James Wheat, of Norwood, a Fellow of St. John's, with a living in Cambridgeshire, wrote to Mr. Dickinson saying that the Governors of the (? Addenbroke’s) Hospital having requested him to preach an anniversary sermon, he was

"alarmed to death at appearing before one of the first congregations in England."

Relying on

"the great friendship, comfort, encouragement, and assistance"

received on former occasions, he asked for the loan of a sermon Dickinson once preached on his intended text (Job xxix, 15, 16), and the resultant discourse was submitted to the mentor,

" not so much for entertainment as for correction:"

It may be noted that in Mr. Dickinson's carefully minute housekeeping books there is no mention of tobacco, snuff, or intoxicants.