'Home-like charm': encouragement for New Georgians from Percy Dearmer

Percy Dearmer is not, we can confidently say, a likely source of encouragement for New Georgians. One can easily imagine how good Parson Woodforde would have been surprised and confused by the content of The Parson's Handbook. In the 12th edition of that work, however, Dearmer himself engages in a significant defence of Georgian Anglicanism. He presents it as "the popular traditional religion", opposed by 19th century "sham Gothic ... mistaken antiquarianism ... and clericalism". This in itself will appeal to those of us who are New Georgians, echoing our views of the Victorian campaign to dismantle Georgian Anglicanism. 

What is particularly striking about Dearmer's account is how it captures the strengths and attractions of Georgian Anglicanism. He begins with the interior of Georgian parish churches, referring to "their beauty and their home-like charm". Such interiors, he states, make "one feel at once at home and happy". These are quite beautiful descriptions of the attraction of the Georgian parish church. The phrase "home-like charm" has a deep resonance, capturing an important aspect of Georgian piety: God does not overwhelm us, but calls and invites us, bidding us welcome. This is what the rather plain Georgian parish church embodies, with its plain windows and box pews. Its quiet, domestic charm speaks of a comfortable piety. I use the term unapologetically, not least because it is derived from Cranmer:

so cheerful and comfortable to all Christian people, that it must needs come from the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth and all consolation.

Dearmer also rejoices in the institutions of the Georgian parish church, "institutions that were rooted deep and wide in the social life of the community". He particularly highlights "the village band, the choir of men and women, and the parish clerk". Here are expressions of that "popular traditional religion", binding parish church and community. The village band and choir maintained a "folk-carol" tradition, while the clerk was an "invaluable link between parson and people". In their respective ways, they represented the worship of the parish church as embedded in the local community, as opposed to a weird mystery cult. Both emphasised the non-sacerdotal character of divine service, part of - to return to Dearmer's phrase - "the home-like charm" of the Georgian parish church. 

The village band and choir were "swept away ... in scorn of the 'rustic ear'", overturning a rich folk tradition. The office of parish clerk survived for slightly longer: "it was mainly about 1860 that the clerk was abolished". They fell before the clericalism highlighted by Dearmer as a driving force of the Victorian changes, that "new idea of correctness, which scoured, maimed, and reconstructed the churches".  

Such innovations "violently changed the character of the services, and the costume". Dearmer - who, we must recall, was an avid supporter of the Sacrament being administered every Sunday - particularly highlights the damage done by replacing Sunday Morning Prayer with Holy Communion:

The people have never been reconciled, and further attempts at change in a village (and in an average town parish as well), such as putting the Eucharist in the place of Mattins instead of after it, only result in further alienation.

Dearmer, in other words, recognises the significance of the texts and rhythms of Sunday Morning Prayer, a staple of Georgian piety. He also foresaw the consequences of what would be the Parish Communion movement, with the loss in many places of that service

Related to this, he lamented the change in ministerial attire brought by the 19th century. Admittedly, this may sound odd. Dearmer, after all, was very much an advocate of eucharistic vestments. This, however, only emphasises his concern about the loss of traditional Anglican vesture:

the long surplice which had also come down from the Middle Ages was replaced by a short one, or even by an Italian cotta and stole; and the use of the graceful gown in the pulpit was discarded for no better reason than that of the surplice and scarf.

This recognition of the distinctive place of the surplice might, of course, lead us to gently question Dearmer's views on eucharistic vestments. In Georgian Anglicanism, the surplice was the distinctive ministerial vestment at all divine service. This suggests how the minister's duties, whether at Morning Prayer, administering the Sacraments, solemnising matrimony, or burying the dead, are all ministerial, an exercise of holy order; all these duties, all these services are to the glory of God and for the benefit of the parish. The surplice worn at all such services, rites, and Sacraments is indicative of all of life enfolded by the grace and goodness of God. By contrast, the Victorian introduction of a variety of vesture for different services could (and often did) imply 'lesser' and 'greater' expressions of ministerial duties, 'lesser' and 'greater' forms of divine service. 

Dearmer's praise for "the graceful gown in the pulpit" brings to mind the practice of the clergy of Barchester: 

They all preached in their black gowns, as their fathers had done before them ...

Dearmer's words are an invitation to regard the Georgian practice with respect rather than to dismiss it as eccentric. There was something more communal about the "graceful gown", worn by other figures in the community - not the least of which, of course, was the parish clerk. As such, it perhaps contributed to that "home-like charm" of the Georgian parish church, rooting the preacher in the community.

As we might expect, Dearmer regards the ceremonial of Georgian Anglicanism to be "meagre". He does, however, add an important qualification:

[it] was in direct line with the rubrics and canons: though attenuated and disfigured, it was still in the English tradition, and it had grown up naturally as the expression of the religious life of the people.

The limited ceremony of the Georgian church, therefore, was organic. It was not an imitation of - as Dearmer colourfully states elsewhere in The Parson's Handbook - "the customs of a very hostile foreign Church". It reflected the modest, restrained customs and mores of the culture which shaped Protestant Episcopal churches. We might mention at this point that the post-disestablishment Irish ritual Canons - often criticised as 'backward' and 'negative' for failing to embrace later 19th century Ritualist innovations - were rightly praised by F.R. Bolton (in his classic 1958 work The Caroline Tradition of the Church of Ireland) for upholding "the classical Anglican tradition", what had been "the normal ceremonial usage of both Churches", of Ireland and England.

While Dearmer was, of course, critical of "meagre ... attenuated" Georgian ceremonial, he nevertheless highlights some of the strengths of such native modesty and reserve in matters of ceremony and ritual. He provides, in other words, the basis of an appreciation for this Georgian modesty and reserve.

At the conclusion of his comments on Georgian Anglicanism, Dearmer states:

There were many abuses both in Church and State; but parson, squire, and humbler folk were at one in this, that they understood and loved the Church, and the Church belonged to them.

It could have been written by a New Georgian. Acknowledging the faults of Georgian Anglicanism, those "many abuses", is merely to say that this era, like any other era in Christian history, is part of fallen humanity and part of the Church which needs to consistently, century after century, hear the call to repentance. The latter part of the statement, while rather romanticised, is reflected in much historical study of Georgian Anglicanism over recent decades. In local studies, ecclesiastical history, and wider cultural histories, what has emerged is a more confident, popular, and spiritually serious Georgian Church of England. 

New Georgians can particularly invoke Dearmer's defence of Georgian Anglicanism as a rebuttal of Augustine David Crake's Deformation and Reformation (c.1870), an unfortunately still influential piece of ridiculous polemic. Despite the intent of the illustrations of 'Deformation' used by Crake, Dearmer's words encourage us to look with respect and gratitude on the piety those illustrations seek to vilify. Against Crake's cheap polemics, Dearmer points to those strengths and virtues in Georgian Anglicanism that the Victorians - and much Anglican opinion since the Victorians - haughtily dismissed.

Above all, however, it is Dearmer's phrase "home-like charm" that may be most appreciated by New Georgians. The phrase has deep roots within Anglicanism. There is, for example, a homely devotion in the 1662 Holy Communion. 'Home-like charm', that "at home and happy" ethos, can also be heard in the Exhortation at Morning and Evening Prayer:

when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul.

Georgian Anglicanism - with its sober, rational piety, its communal character, its modesty and reserve - in a quietly beautiful way embodied this "home-like charm". It is not, of course, what every contemporary Anglican, never mind every Christian, desires. Nor would it sustain every contemporary Anglican, never mind every Christian. But for those of us who are New Georgians, it is a joy and a delight. Or, as Cranmer, put it, "so comfortable and cheerful".