Transcribed and checked in May/June 2022 by Rosemary E. Jewers and Michael C.W. Sandford' from a typescript in the Brereton Family Papers which is now archived as:
ACC2001/276, Box 8 Item 88 in the Norfolk Record Office
(1) Ecclesiastical He supported throughout a long life Thomas Arnold's ideas of the unity of
Church and State in a Christian land. He was as devoted a pupil of the great Headmaster, as
Stanley, though in a different way. From his father too, Charles David Brereton, a country
clergyman who took a courageous line on Poor-Law Reform and other kindred matters, he
inherited a breadth and independence of judgment, a dislike of party labels and theological
seminaries. Both were adverse to tractarianism, sacerdotalism, and the dichotomy of
'secular' and 'religious'. Both highly valued their Christian faith, their orders, and the
fundamentally religious aspect of all their undertakings. In contrast with the founder of the
Woodard Schools, whose foundation of Lancing College preceded his own at West
Buckland by ten years, Brereton sought a national basis rather than a Church basis for his
schools. The unit of organisation was the County, not the Diocese. They were of a religious
but 'undenominational' type. They had a Church of England basis, which did not exclude
Nonconformists from attendance or even from masterships. One of Arnold's ideas, that he
especially wished should be realised, was the extension of the Diaconate on a permanent
basis, admitting teachers, statesmen and other educated professional and business men to
Holy Orders, without their being expected to move on to the work of the priesthood. Indeed
his whole educational work was a step in this direction, to raise from the Middle Classes a
due supply of men fitted to serve God in Church and State.
(2) Social The three strata of Victorian England, upper, middle and lower, were mainly
represented in rural districts by (a) the larger landowners (the nobility, gentry and their
offshoots), (b) the farmers (yeomen and tenants), and (c) the agricultural labourers. Birth
and higher education brought the clergy, generally speaking, into the upper class. Squire and
parson were often closely related, sometimes school or College friends. The average squire,
as wealthy patron, looked for help and support from the parson, who in his turn shewed and
inculcated respect for the squire's station, views and politics, at the same time urging the
latter loyalty to the Church and charity to the poor. Toryism and Whiggism were both
fashionable in the upper wealthy classes, reform was a matter of anxious and cautious
consideration, but radical reform and real freedom of thought were suspect, and usually
abhorrent. Brereton's father in the pre-Victorian age angered many of the squires by his open
criticism of the magistrate's powers in administrating the Poor Law. Brereton himself
angered those who were doggedly adverse to higher education for the Middle Classes.
Neither father nor son adopted a truculent or intransigent attitude. With their firmness and
independence they could yet be persuasive and both (the latter especially) succeeded in
gaining hearty support from men of social influence, as well as from those for whose
welfare they worked. But while the father's objects were on the whole successfully reached
in the Reform Acts, and in the effective progress of Elementary Education, many of the
son's foundations were blighted by the cold winds of agricultural depression, and in certain
quarters of persistent misunderstanding or ill-will. Nevertheless, the impetus he gave the to
Middle Class Education and its County emphasis, have borne fruit in the national
development of the end of the nineteenth, and twentieth century, legislation.
(3) Financial I have already referred to the factor of agricultural depression in the latter years
of the nineteenth century. But financial strain was a constant experience in Brereton’s life, and a
hindrance to his undertakings. His first living at West Buckland, where he went in his thirtieth
year, and which he held for fifteen years, was worth only £200 a year. Generous and hospitable
in disposition, and impatient of whatever stood in the way of the progression of his public work,
he had a large family to educate. For many years he devoted much time and energy to private
pupils, but while these paid high fees, the establishment and stables he provided for them did
not allow much margin of profit. In 1863 he gave up his pupils to devote more time to his public
work, but found himself in serious difficulties from the reduced income and the loss of capital
expenditure in the enlarging of his Rectory. His more cautious friends warned him against bricks
and mortar becoming a hobby or passion both in his private and public work, and deprecated
what they regarded as an over-sanguine disposition. To prove his belief in his public
undertakings and to encourage others to support them, he set an example in gift or investment
beyond what seemed provident, and ultimately, when financial disasters overtook so many of
his projects, he impoverished himself to the verge of bankruptcy to help many supporters who
had invested their savings in their reliance upon his recommendations. The stringency of these
financial crises, which were seldom absent during his long life, and increasingly affected
himself in his old age, and his family then, and for many years afterwards, contributed to the
discipline of his character and theirs, and to the fostering of that family unity which he so highly
prized.
II
Brereton’s childhood and youth was spent amid that curious mixture of semi-affluent and stringent
conditions which so often prevailed in country Rectories in the earlier half of the nineteenth century.
In 1820, two years before his birth, his father had been presented to the living of little Massingham
in Norfolk, by Joseph Wilson of Highbury Hill, Middlesex, his wealthy father-in-law. The new
Rector filled in the role of ‘Squarson’ of the parish, deputising on behalf of, and at the same time in
touch with, the absent owner of the property. Joseph Wilson had demolished Little Massingham
Hall which had fallen into decay, and soon after bought Stowlangtoft Hall in Suffolk, where he
installed his only son, Joseph Brereton’s ‘Uncle Henry’.
The new Rector inherited on his side a smaller competence from his own father, John Brereton of
Brinton Hall in Norfolk. This included the living of Framlingham Earl with Bixley, near Norwich.
He had earlier been a Curate of Earlham, and was intimate with the well-known Gurney family of
that place. He and his wife Frances came newly married to Massingham, where they lived for 47
years and raised a family of six sons and five daughters. Joseph, named after his grandfather Wilson
was the third son, the first to be born at the Rectory. His second name Lloyd, which he handed on to
all his sons, came from the much-beloved Anna Margaretta, the Brinton grandmother whom he
never saw.
Joseph and his two elder brothers, Charles and Henry, were at first taught at home by their parents
and occasional governesses and tutors. Their father taught them the classical rudiments; their
mother, well-educated and accomplished, with a gift for letter-writing, also taught them much, and
imparted to them some measure of her evangelical fervour, and sincere faith. The father’s strong
character, with its mixture of sternness with genuine kindness, and the mother’s more emotional and
artistic temperament had their influence on their children. The latter were blessed with a share of
good looks, and handicapped by a delicacy of physique to which three of the sisters succumbed in
early womanhood, while some of the brothers, including Joseph, gave cause for much anxiety as to
their health.
Joseph was a special object of attention to his namesake grandfather, and spent some three or four
years at the proprietary school at Islington, living in term time at Highbury Hill with his grandfather
and aunt Sperling, his mother’s only sister. Here he showed ready intelligence and acquired a
proficiency in classics. A picture of the two Josephs, grandfather and grandson, was painted by
Wilkie in 1837. He was confirmed at Christchurch, Newgate Street.
Meanwhile his father debated the question of one of the larger public schools for each of the three
eldest boys. He was divided in choice between Shrewsbury under Dr. Samuel Butler and Rugby
under Dr. Arnold, with an increasing regard for the latter. Charles went in 1835 for a short time to
Shrewsbury, and then to a private tutor for Cambridge. Henry went to Rugby in 1836, and then after
a brief residence at Corpus, Cambridge to Haileybury for the Indian Civil Service. Joseph followed
him to Rugby in February, 1839 and entered upon a period which had a marked formative influence
on his character and life’s work.
In a public lecture on Dr. Arnold, given in his old age, he recalls some of his impressions and
experiences during his school days at Rugby. Owing to the good classical teaching of the
Headmaster of Islington (Dr. Jackson, who later went to the Bishoprics of Lincoln and London) he
was placed in the Upper Fifth as a new boy at Rugby. He won a place in the Sixth by the first half-
years examination, but remained for a time on the score of age in the “Twenty” under Bonamy
Price. He describes the two forms below the Sixth as a kind of imperium in imperio,
and self-government free from the authority of praepostors and the duties of fagging. In those forms
“there was a preponderance of that rough physical strength and consciousness of adult but
inexperienced energy, which make big boys, whether in homes or schools, in streets or villages, not
quite docile to be governed and not quite fit to govern others”. He spoke of himself as not
physically very robust, and having had a sheltered life at Massingham and Highbury Hill, though he
had seen at Islington day-school some indications of the very worst side of boy’s nature, cruel
bullying and attempts to deprave and pollute. But, he goes on, “my first experience of roughness
and badness at Rugby was without mitigation and intensely painful”. Almost on arrival there he
“was brutally struck, and might have been almost fatally injured, by one of the biggest boys in the
school, who was in a state of maddened intoxication.”
After some months in a house, where he experienced a prevalence of coarseness and tyranny, he
was placed in the Sixth form, and removed by Dr. Arnold into the school – house of over 70 boys.
Here he learnt to understand and appreciate the methods by which the great headmaster sought to
solve the problems of a public school. The real evils of that “may result from a congregation of
boys at a distance from their homes” where, apart from their lessons, their whole life as “a
community is isolated into a boys’ world”… can never be expurgated, and replaced by good and
healthy life, except by an active spirit of self-government and self-discipline animating the boys’
world itself. To rely by deliberate design and purpose on this purging and invigorating spirit, to
encourage and sanction its action, and to give it, by authorised though unwritten laws, power to
make a stand against the evil tendencies of congregated boys’ life - this was Arnold’s great work as
head-master of a great school.”
In the conflict between wickedness and righteousness, whether in youth or in mature life, Arnold
felt that religion alone could provide a reliable principle. The lecture both stresses Arnold’s
religious fervour, and describes at some length his fundamental views on Church and State, which
his closest disciples accepted and held, but which were so unpopular in many influential quarters.
“The views on the relation of Church and State which Dr. Arnold held to be erroneous, were those
upheld on the one side by Mr. Gladstone, and on the other by Archbishop Whately and Lord
Macaulay. Mr. Gladstone’s view was that the Church could act in alliance with the State, but could
not become one with it… Archbishop Whately and Lord Macaulay on the other hand, thought that
the sphere of the State was so limited that it could only meddle with outward and expedient things
such as protection of person and property, and whatever secular affairs are out of the range of
religion and faith. Dr. Arnold, taking a position between those two, advocated a view of these
questions which he claimed to have been held as a true view by our best divines and statesmen,
especially by Richard Hooker and Edmund Burke. This view is that “the State and the Church are
equally Divine institutions, and that in an ideal or perfect society they would neither of them be
subordinate or inferior to the other.”
The seeds of these mature a views were sown at Rugby in Arnold‘s house and sixth form, but while
observant and reflective, Joseph was still the school-boy with spirit and energy for work and games
and fun, though certainly not robust. An instance of his fun and ambition for authorship is still
extant in a little book, with a frontispiece that might be by John Leech, entitled “Prometheus
Britannicus; or John Bull and the Rural Police. A Tragic-Comedy in one Act. By a Rugbeean.” This
was published in London by Charles Tilt, 1840. Prometheus appears as John Bull. The Police are
represented by Strength, Force, Vulcan, and Mercury, who duly fetter John Bull, take him to
Scotland Yard, and imprison him in the Station-House. Here he is visited by Father Ocean, and his
Nymphs, who are inmates of a Rural Workhouse, and by one who is Britannia. There is an Epilogue
professing to be based on the lost play of ‘Prometheus Unbound’, which ends with a spirited Ballad
in praise of “a fine Old English Constable, one of the olden time”. The whole is a skit on Peel’s
proposed Rural Police. He had heard much of the subject at home, where his father was engaged on
pamphlets resisting the proposed innovation.
Among contemporaries at Rugby, whom he met again in later life were Tom Hughes, author of
‘Tom Brown’s School Days’, a boy of exactly his own age and birthday, but who had been much
longer at the School; Augustus Orlebar, the reputed hero of the fight with “Slogger Williams”;
Matthew Arnold, born in the same year, and the younger brothers Thomas, Edward and William;
George Bradley, one year his senior, the future Dean of Westminster; William Evelyn of Wotton, his
friend at Oxford and afterwards. Joseph was asked by a Norfolk Rector to be kind to a little boy, six
years his junior, who was entering the School. Wenham Coke, the little boy, was the youngest son
of Lord Leicester, and was uncle to the middle-aged Rector! Another Norfolk friend and school
fellow was Henry ffolkes of Hillington. There were also two Sperling connections.
Joseph’s short time at Rugby was interrupted by ill-health. His headmaster wrote in the summer of
1841: “Your son’s health, as you know, has hindered him sadly in the course of the last half year,
yet I think that he has improved in his work, and more than once I was much pleased with the
manner in which he did his Aristotle. His Latin verses are often good, but his Prose Compositions
are much inferior and seem to me to be done carelessly. His general conduct is very satisfactory,
and in the most essential points I feel disposed to rely on him entirely. I am very glad to find that he
will return to us after the holidays.” That autumn proved to be his last term. He kept his 19th
birthday in style, receiving a hamper by coach, containing two hares, six partridges, a ham, two pots
of jam, and a letter from his Aunt Sperling.
After Christmas he read with his father at home for a scholarship at Oxford. Although he had left
Rugby, the news of Arnold’s sudden death on June 12, 1842 came as a painful blow. “I have still”
he writes in old age, “a vivid recollection of the sense of an irreparable loss with which the news of
his death overwhelmed me. I had by his invitation been looking forward to spending the following
month with him at Fox How his Westmoreland home. I was approaching my 20th birthday, and
delicate health had thrown some shadows of painful uncertainty over my future career. I knew that
in him I should find the best of advisers, the surest of guides, truest of friends. You may imagine
that few sorrows in my life, outside those affecting the nearest and dearest, have affected me more
than when the post which I was expecting to bring me directions for my journey to Westmoreland
bought me the tidings of his death… I can declare that the experience of life during more than half a
century since Arnold’s death have brought out nothing to weaken in any way my first conviction
that by that death a light was extinguished which I did not expect (and have not found) to be
replaced by any other teacher.”
III
Joseph was successful in gaining a scholarship at University College, Oxford, where Arthur Stanley,
who had come from Balliol a few years before, was his friend and tutor. His residence began in
January, 1843, but continued delicacy of health interrupted his Oxford course, and disappointed
what might have been high hopes of academic honours. Yet though he was obliged to have leave of
absence for more than one term, and to be content with an aegrotat degree, his time at the
University was in many ways fruitful and not undistinguished. The Newdigate Prize for an English
poem, won by Stanley in 1837 and by Matthew Arnold in 1843, was won by him in the following
year, the subject being “The Battle of the Nile”.
This was duly recited in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 20th, and is reprinted in his “Musings in
Faith and other Poems “, Published by Macmillan and Bowes in 1885. Inspired by Southey’s ‘Life
of Nelson’, and by a fellow-feeling for the hero nurtured in a Norfolk Rectory, he gives rein to his
enthusiasm in such lines as:
“Nelson! thou richest gem from glory’s mine!
A priceless need - a nation’s thanks are thine;
For thee the grateful chaplet Albion wreathed,
Thy bright example to her sons bequeathed:
And still, ‘midst waning years, the hallowed flame
Of patriot ardour kindles at thy name;
The youthful sailor reads with beaming eye
Thy noble signal - and is bold to die!”
Joseph kept in touch with several friends from Rugby, and made new acquaintances. Of these
should be mentioned one which helped to shape his future course in life. A term junior to him in
College was Alphonse de Morel, whose father was a French Count, and his mother was a Pole-
Carew of Antony, Cornwall. Miss Jemima Pole-Carew, Alphonse’s aunt, and in a position of
responsibility towards him and his brother Charles, as their parents lived much in France, asked
Stanley about a tutor while the boy was at Oxford, and Joseph was recommended. Part of the Long
Vacation of 1844 was spent in Cornwall at Sconnor House, where Miss Carew resided a few miles
from Plymouth. There Joseph tutored the brothers and his own brother Willie, and there a life-long
friendship began between Joseph and “Aunt Mi” as she was called by them all, and indeed by a
great number of friends and relations. These latter were for the most part well-known and influential
in the West of England and in London, and she used her influence to forward Joseph's career and
work, and when later he married one of her cousins, her old age was passed residing in his Rectory,
the friend of the family.
Joseph returned to Oxford in October, but spent the first term of 1845 tutoring at Sconnor, and
rehabilitating his health. He embarked on a religious poem, entitled “The Messiah”, of which some
cantos were printed with Aunt Mi’s encouragement and aid in disposing of copies. He wrote several
other pieces at this time. He went back to Oxford in April with the leave of Dr. Yonge, first cousin
of Charlotte, the novelist, who had been attending him.
This year 1845 was marked with much suffering and sorrow for the family. His sister, Anna
Margaretta, who had married her first cousin, Henry Grace Sperling the previous year, showed signs
of the decline, which proved fatal in 1847. His next sister, Fanny, much beloved, and only 19,
became ill with bronchial consumption in the summer, and died in October at Massingham. Miss
Carew had gone there to help in nursing, and was a great comfort to her afflicted mother, who wrote
in August: “I find Miss Carew very agreeable and kind friend. She reminds me of Mrs. C. Gurney
(Elizabeth Fry’s elder sister) in her benevolence and large-heartedness, and in having lived in a very
large family circle; but she has had much higher connections, and seen much more of the world”.
That autumn and winter Joseph spent recuperating at Hastings with the Sperlings, and with pupils
who now occupied more and more of his time and interest. Besides the Morels, he had the Watsons,
also nephews of Aunt Mi, and some Norfolk friends (then or a little later) Philip Hamond and John
Chaworth-Musters. Though he never held a mastership or lectureship himself, he gained much
experience with many years of tutoring, which helped him considerably in his life – long
educational work.
Another delicate member of the family was Charles, the eldest brother, who married in 1844, and
was impecunious and without a settled career till 1846, when he was ordained at Norwich, where he
acted for a time as Curate-in-charge for his father’s parish of St. Edmund’s, of which he was still
Rector in addition to Little Massingham. Before long, however, he had to seek a warmer climate,
and was for some years Chaplain at Malaga.
In September 1846, three other brothers left England for the East: Henry returning to his civil
service appointment in India; John to a post in the Indian army: and William throwing in his lot
with the Rajah in Borneo. With reference to the last, his father writes to Joseph, who had gone with
his friend Evelyn on a driving tour, tandem, to Wales and the Lakes: “We are not in very high spirits
about Borneo, but changes and doubts sometimes produce results and decisions. I know the ground
you are travelling well, and could nearly after 40 years thread my way to Coniston, Wast Water, etc.
without difficulty, and with much pleasure. I took my time with a friend and one horse in a gig”.
This, I believe, was one of the occasions on which Joseph visited Mrs. Arnold at Fox How.
There had been a curious incident at Clifton a month or so earlier, of which most of the particulars
are lost in the dim past. General Roberts, father of the future Field-Marshal, apparently of an
irascible temperament, had applied the term ‘disgraceful’ to Joseph‘s conduct and had struck him.
The general was over 60, and Joseph was 23, and was indignant at what he considered an entirely
unjustifiable and cruel attack. He wrote and demanded an apology. A friend, a certain Colonel,
acted as intermediary, and was instrumental in securing the apology, in which the general
acknowledged that his conduct was most unjustifiable in striking Mr. Brereton, and he offered his
apologies, and expressed his deep regret. The document is dated ‘Clifton, 28th of June, 1846’.
In the following January, Joseph was ordained deacon and Charles priest by Bishop Stanley of
Norwich. Joseph was licensed to the curacy of Little Massingham. He wished however to stand for
a fellowship at Merton College, and Archdeacon Ormerod, who had examined him at Norwich,
offered him a testimonial for the purpose. In April, however, the Master of University College wrote
to say that he had learnt from the Warden of Merton that there were unavoidable impediments in the
way, as candidates should take their B. A. Degree before election, and he was two terms short of the
requisite number to be kept, and they should not be in Holy Orders.
In July his sister Anna Sperling died at the age of 22. Joseph was advised to avoid a Norfolk winter.
Arrangements were almost completed for him to take charge of a Cornish parish of Duloe, whose
Vicar, Robert Scott (the collaborator of Dean Liddell) had been ordered to rest. The plan was
supported by Stanley, Jowett, and Frederick Temple. There were difficulties about the date of his
ordination to the priesthood, which was essential if he were to be in charge of the parish, but these
could have been got over, had not ill-health forced him to give up the plan. He became instead
Curate of St. Edmunds, Norwich, and found full scope for his energies there. The following
paragraph entitled ‘Baptising the Parish’ appeared in the Eastern Daily Press in December, and
throws light on his characteristic interest in the educational side of parochial work. “A proposition
for establishing a school in connection with the parish church of St Edmunds, Norwich, has led to
the discovery, that far the greater number of children had either not been baptised, or had not
enjoyed the benefit of being admitted into the church. A special service, therefore, took place in the
afternoon of Sunday last, at which between thirty and forty children were baptised, by the Rev.
Henry Tuson and the Rev. Joseph Lloyd Brereton, curates of the parish; and in the evening, as large
a number, who had been previously named, were received into the congregation of Christ’s flock,
during divine services; whilst as many more yet remain to be admitted to the same privileges,
amounting to upwards of 150 children. The church was filled by a numerous and respectable
congregation, the Lord Bishop of the Diocese and the Dean of Norwich being present. A large
number of the poor took their places for the first time in the parish church…. A sermon was
preached by the Rev. J. L. Brereton, in behalf of a daily and Sunday school, for children and also for
adults about to be established in the parish”.
During his short stay in Norwich, he lived at Thorpe hamlet. One interesting occasion is referred to
in letters, when with his sister May Anne he went to hear Jenny Lind. They went with the Dean’s
party, and were much delighted in meeting the singer afterwards at the Palace.
But Norfolk was too keen and cold for his health, and after his ordination to the priesthood at
Norwich on February 6, 1848 he left with much regret the work at St. Edmund’s, which was full of
interest and hope, and occupied himself with his pupils and occasional duty. Henry Sperling, his
widowed brother-in-law and cousin, was also in poor health, and together the two made a tour in
Scotland in June, going up by Edinburgh and Perth to Inverness and Thurso. While they were away
the invalid Rector of St. Edmund’s died, and his own father as Patron was again instituted as Rector
of the Parish, and appointed his eldest son Charles as Curate-in-Charge. He offered Framlingham
Earl and Bixley, of which he was also Rector and Patron, to Joseph, who however decided to
decline the appointment. The latter settled instead in London, and became Curate of St. Martins in-
the-Fields in September, the parish of 4000 parishioners under a good Vicar, the Rev. Henry
Mackenzie. With his customary energy and optimism he embarked on a task beyond his strength,
and after an interval of convalescence moved to another curacy at St James, Paddington, in the
summer of 1849. In both places he did much visiting, and initiated various undertakings in the form
of parish clubs, libraries, and schools for the benefit of the poorer classes. Mr McKenzie wrote in
February, 1849, when his curacy terminated: “I am deeply in your debt for your valuable services,
and consider the movement you have specially originated of Local Libraries for the Poor to be
fraught with far more beneficial results than can as yet be developed. I look for forward with some
confidence to the time when, under careful guidance, it may be made to break the neck of the
Public-House System and encourage a higher tone of intellectual and Christian Domestic Life
among the Poorer classes.” About the same time W. Ewart, M. P., wrote to him acknowledging a
copy of the Rules and a list of the books of White Hart Court library, which Joseph and had founded
and drawn up. Mr. Ewart adds: “Hoping to bring the general question of Public Libraries before the
House of Commons, I should be happy to see you any morning early, or to meet you at the
University Club.”
His impressions of London life and problems are shown in a poetical essay in three parts, entitled
“London”, to which nearly 40 years later he added a fourth part. It was a time of great social unrest.
F. D. Maurice was endeavouring by educational and other means both to improve conditions for the
workers and to arouse the conscience of the nation. Kingsley, by three years Joseph’s senior, and
Rector of Eversley, was transferring more and more of his attention to London and Maurice, and
Tom Hughes was also being drawn heart and soul into the crusade. In a later preface to Alton
Locke Hughes recalls the condition of England at the time: “Through the winter of 1847-8, amidst
wide spread distress, the cloud of discontent, of which Chartism was the most violent symptom, had
been growing darker and more menacing, while Ireland was only held down by main force. The
breaking out of the revolution upon the Continent in February increased the danger. In March there
were riots in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and other large towns... on the 10th of April
the Government had to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington in command... For
months afterwards the Chartist movement, though plainly subsiding, kept the Government in
constant anxiety... and the Houses of Parliament were not only garrisoned but provisioned as if for a
siege. Brereton’s London gave vigorous expression to his thoughts and feelings at the age of 25 or
26, as he came to the city fresh from the country. A few extracts may be given.
“Great without grandeur, parts without a whole,
A giant body but no giant soul -
All that design can fashion, art contrive
To nurture use, and keep old age alive….
Yet midst the gifts that lavish Nature yields -
Wealth from all mines and produce from all fields -
Man undervalued finds himself despised;
A dog more pitied, and a horse more prized,
Feels in his breast what man alone can feel;
Contempt breeds hate, and hunger prompts to steal.
While selfish Splendour trusts it paid police,
And Luxury enjoys its purchased peace….
While meek Theology from a courtly knee
Invokes protection on the powers that be; –
Then mark the greatness of a virtuous soul,
That, scorned by others, can itself control -...
Tempted by want, and goaded by neglect;
Rich in his one possession - self respect;
From glittering shops and treasure-teeming wharves
The honest hero turns away - and starves.”
In part 2, in the same radical vein, returns from academic dogma to Arnold’s Ideal of “the nobler
structure of a Christian State.”
“When dull Divinity shall cease to trace
The subtitle process of prevenient grace;
When Christian love shall vanquish human pride,
And humble sinners worship side by side;
When rival sects shall lay their variance by,
And try to love-nor, failing, cease to try;….
When generous thoughts and high deserts alone
Shall claim a peerage, and approach a throne, -
When the smooth prophet shall not preach to please,
Nor leave sleek-coated Mammon at his ease;...
When purer chastity shall dare proclaim
Man’s equal sin, not woman’s double shame; -
Then unreproached be England’s flag unfurled;
Then let brave London entertain the world.”
After a tribute to London’s greatness and potentialities, he turns again to “the dark archways where
the homeless sleep,” and “the garret where the artist died.”
“See the rich locket on Belinda‘s breast,-
Her lover bought it - wherefore ask the rest?....
In a dark garret of a loathsome court,
Where only thieves and starving men resort;
Where stagnant filth pollutes the vital air,
Like unforgiveness in the house of prayer;
There passed his dreary life, in patience still
By painful care maturing native skill.
There, uncomplaining, for long years he wrought
His work of industry, sublimed by thought; -
A slave by destiny, though born to rule;
A man by nature,- by events a tool!
Care, and neglect, and penury combined,
Crushed the bright instincts of a generous mind,
Save on the day a kind Creator blessed,
And half removed the curse in granting rest.
‘‘Twas then, perchance, was heard the harsh reproach
Of “Sabbath-breaker” from the church-door coach,
As the poor slave, with palpitating breath,
Through the long suburbs sought the distant Heath,
To sip the nectar of untainted air,
See God’s own earth, and learn that it was fair.”
The 4th part, written both as a retrospect and a sequel by the author in his sixties, draws attention to
London and its problems in the nineteen eighties.
“‘Tis forty years - or may be wanting three -
A London curate, young, ingenuous, free
From all world-wisdom save the boyish knowledge
Learnt in the little world of school and college,
Where the great world-streams meet in power and pride
Found himself whelm’d amidst the eddying tide.
Learning the lesson stern experience yields
Around thy porch, St. Martin-in-the -Fields,
The startled curate laid his sermon down
To write these musing essays on the Town.”
Dean Stanley had died in 1881, a year or two before this was written, and Brereton pays a tribute to
the Broad-Churchmanship of his early teacher and friend.
“Or seek the Abbey that survives to enshrine
Those treasured memories that make man divine.
There Stanley lies - brave teacher, truest friend!
Thy mortal strife but not they victories end.
Still from the sacred centre of thy choice,
Where England placed thee, best to hear thy voice,
Still dost though call.thy Master's flag unfurl'd
To Christian love the city and the world.
Ah, London! lose not, through sectarian fear,
The Christian charity to Stanley dear.
Let not mere forms of worship keep apart
Thy congregations that are one in heart…..
Let Church and Chapel join with one accord
To preach the doctrine of their common Lord.”
The first three parts were printed in the Anglo-Saxon of 1849. This quarterly magazine first
appeared at the beginning of that year under the joint editorship of the brothers Charles and Joseph.
Charles was for a time Curate of St. James’s, Piccadilly. It is not clear which originated the idea, but
they enthusiastically embarked on it. It did not have a long life. It went through 1849 as a quarterly,
resulting in a handsomely bound and illustrated volume of some 650 pages, published by
Longmans. In 1850 it became a monthly periodical, equally well printed but not forming quite so
stout a volume. It proved an over-ambitious effort, and in the end a ruinous one. Neither of the
brothers had the physical strength or the expert knowledge on the commercial side (there were no
advertisements) to cope with the undertaking and make it a financial success. Their father
contributed many valuable articles. Their mother also wrote some sketches of domestic and country
life in a charming style. Other relations and friends helped to keep the pot boiling by articles or
subscriptions. But Charles had to withdraw from ill-health, and Joseph carried on to the winding-up
and the settlement with his father’s help of the outstanding bills. The object of the undertaking was
to interest and inform the readers in the past history and achievements of their country from the
days of King Alfred, and to strengthen faith in vocation and unity of English-speaking peoples all
over the world in their service to mankind founded on Christian principles. People at home were to
know more of life in the colonies, and the ties between these and the mother-country were to
become more intelligently cemented. Martin Tupper, the author of Proverbial Philosophy, who had
a great vogue in this country and the United States and Canada, was brought in as a paid Editor with
considerable but not sufficiently lasting American support. Prominence was given to the millenary
celebrations of Alfred‘s birth, and to the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was already in
preparation. The popularity of Rajah Brooke of Sarawak led to some interesting articles on his story
and projects written by the elder Mr. Brereton from his personal acquaintance with the Rajah, his
knowledge of Borneo where his son William was at work, and of the Borneo Church Mission which
he himself had helped to found. Among several article’s contributed by Joseph were those on
‘Christendom’, and some of the poems. On the whole the publication was well supported in the
press, though the feeling that it was underpriced as regarded its general get-up, and over-priced for a
large public, was apparent in some of the reviews.
By the end of 1850 it was clear that Joseph must leave his curacy, his Anglo-Saxon project, and
other activities and interests in London, and go to a sunnier climate. Charles was settling in Malaga
as chaplain. Joseph was asked to take charge of an orphan pupil of 12 or 13, who was heir to a
Nottingham estate of £17,000 a year, and was destined to go to Eton. The boy, John Chaworth-
Musters, was a nephew of Mr. Hamond of Westacre (a few miles from Massingham) whose son
Philip was also a pupil. At first the suggestion was that a year should be spent in France, but South
Devon was chosen instead, and thither Joseph and his pupils, including Wager Watson, a great-
nephew of Aunt Mi, and Aunt Mi herself, migrated in the early weeks of 1851.
IV
Devonshire was to be his home for the next seventeen years, an active and creative period of his
life. He first settled at Park House, Paignton, where he was fully occupied with a growing number
of pupils, not only teaching them their book lessons, but entering into all their activities, their games
and sport, riding, shooting and fishing. Daily prayers and Sunday evening talks, which closed with
Arnold’s Sunday evening prayer, were a regular part of their common life. He also took Sunday
duty in Paignton and the neighbourhood, where his sermons were appreciated. Aunt Mi attended to
the health of the establishment, physicking tutor and pupils alike out of her large repertoire of herbs
and medicines. Many of her near or distant cousins lived in Devonshire as well as in Cornwall. One
of these families had a house called Elmsleigh in Paignton. It consisted of a middle-age lady with
several children from 22 down to a year old. She had been Miss Jane Champernowne of Dartington
Hall, the widow of William Martin, Vicar of Staverton, who died in April 1850. There was close
intimacy between Park House and Elmsleigh, which in the autumn of 1851 led to the engagement of
Joseph, aged 29 and Frances, the second daughter, not yet 18. The news of their intended
engagement caused anxiety and distress at Massingham, where his uncertain health and financial
prospects, and their little knowledge of the young lady in question and her prospects, induced some
disapproval and opposition. Mrs. Martin too felt that Fanny was too young and that Joe, whom she
greatly liked and respected, must have either a benefice or more developed pupil-establishment
before their marriage. But their devotion to each other was beyond question, and before the end of
October both Joseph‘s parents and Fanny’s Mother consented to the announcement of their
engagement, the marriage being postponed until the bride’s 18th birthday. Aunt Mi did all in her
power to obtain more pupils, and if possible preferment to a benefice. She succeeded in obtaining
the offer of a small one, only worth £200 a year, in North Devon, in the gift of one of her cousins,
Lady Bassett of Tehidy, a baroness in her own right.
Meanwhile the Martins removed to Dartington for a time and then to the Priory, a house in Totnes.
The pupil establishment moved into Elmsleigh, and then to Dundridge, a large house in Harberton
parish, where Fanny’s uncle, Chancellor Martin, was Vicar, to whom Joseph became curate. When
the offer of the living came in March 1852, Joseph set off on a visit of inspection. He found West
Buckland to be a lonely agricultural village on the south-western slopes of Exmoor, far away from
any railway or town, and approachable only by precipitous and ill-kept roads. But the views were
fine and the air though keen was healthy. There was much that could occupy him in the parish, and
a pleasant Rectory and outbuildings, which at some expense could be enlarged and adapted for a
number of pupils and horses. There was also a Rectory farm. He returned with his mind made up to
accept, and before the end of May became Rector of his first parish. The Archdeacon of Barnstable
issued letters of introduction to three of the neighbouring Clergy, one of whom was the Rector of
Swimbridge, well-known as Jack Russell the Sporting Parson, who at a later date was the guest of
the Prince of Wales at Sandringham.
The wedding took place at Harberton on Midsummer day in the presence of a large number of
relations and friends. It was three weeks before Fanny’s 18th birthday. Six months elapsed before
they were settled into the Rectory, where alterations were being made. During this time they
remained at Dundridge, while Joseph made regular visits to West Buckland, generally driving or
riding the 60 odd miles to Exmoor.
His own description of the parish in the West Buckland Year Book which appeared four or five
years later shows how the place and its surroundings, which to some might have seemed depressing
in its primitiveness and remoteness, aroused his interest and affection. “There is something in the
very atmosphere of the hills on which the parish of West Buckland lies, raised as it is high above the
long Leary Valley and its damp clays, which has justly won the reputation of being especially
healthy and invigorating. The Church and Village on this high ground, exposed to all the heavy
western gales and the piercing east winds that sweep over Exmoor, are situated just at the point
where two narrow valleys descend, each with the same beautiful sweep, into the larger valley
beneath, forming the natural lines of communication, one with Barnstable, the other with South
Molton. But in utter disregard of these natural outlets the main road has hitherto lain directly over
the high ground between them, giving to the Buckland hill a fame by no means enviable, and to the
parish itself the character of being an out-of-the-way inaccessible place, more fit to rank with the
wild neighbouring moorlands than with the productive valleys close beneath it.” Old inhabitants
indeed told him that they could remember that first pair of wheels that appeared in the village, pack-
horses and sleighs for farm work having hitherto been regarded as sufficient. The energy and
persistence of the new Rector were destined to produce amazing changes in this isolated spot. With
the aid of the interest and support he inspired in parishioners and influential neighbours, added to
his own vision, thought, organization, and hard work, a new road of gentle gradient displaced the
formidable Buckland Hill, and a railway in the valley below linked up district with Barnstable and
South Molton, and so to Taunton and London; the village school was enlarged and re-organized,
and the first of his County boarding-schools was established, which indeed will soon keep its
centenary as West Buckland School. A new aisle and porch added accommodation to the Church. A
cottage garden show displaced the tipsy village revel, and broadened out into an agricultural show
for the whole district. Out of this last, and out of interesting farming experiments at the Rectory, the
Barnstable Farmers’ Club came into being with Brereton as its first President. Nor did the parish
work of a pastoral kind suffer from all this activity. Aided by his wife he ministered to all alike, and
for several years had the assistance of two of his brothers-in-law as Curates and assistant tutors. The
story is told of his entertaining the parishioners on one occasion with some conjuring tricks, and
having a few days later a sick cow brought to him by a widow woman to be cured! Few small
country parishes have produced magazines of the size and quality of the two Year-Books of 1857
and 1860.
In all these activities Brereton had three men in mind for whose wisdom and strength of character
he had the highest reverence, and to whom he freely acknowledged that his own work owed so
much. The first of these was his father. There was so much that he had learnt to love at
Massingham, that he wished to reproduce at West Buckland, and his farming enthusiasm was
kindled by West Norfolk achievements. The education, occupation, and interests of farmers and
labourers, their good relationship with each other and with the landlords and clergy were ever in his
mind and near to his heart. He had inherited his father’s courage and breadth of view, and at West
Buckland he had as it were virgin soil for the cultivation of his ideas. We have already seen the debt
he owed to Dr. Arnold, and shall see later how fruitful in educational experiments and religious
outlook was that teaching and inspiration. The third man to whom he looked up was the landowner
whose mansion bordered his parish. This was Earl Fortescue, the Lord Lieutenant of the County,
formerly Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a man of high character, liberal views, and distinguished
appearance; an able and generous landlord on his large estates. Castle Hill with its extensive deer-
park was a hospitable house. His eldest son, Lord Ebrington, a keen liberal politician, first a
Member of the House of Commons, and later elevated to the House of Lords in his father’s life
time, was three years senior to Joseph Brereton. For half a century they remained friends and
constant correspondents, and in the early years especially collaborating in educational schemes and
publications. The influential support of those two noblemen encouraged and made possible
translation of Brereton’s parochial, agricultural, and educational ideas and experiments into
practical and institutional experiments.
The evolution of these ideas began, as has been shown, parochially in improvements in the Village
school, where a new class-room was added, and a Master appointed in addition to the Mistress. The
population of the village was about 300. The farmers accepted a voluntary rate to meet the expense.
The Rector had learnt from his father to emphasise voluntary effort and local support, and he met
with encouraging response. Self-help supported by, but not entirely relying on, the contribution of
the wealthy was a principle adapted to many purposes which he used in practice and advocated in
his writings. In this policy, as against increasing State-aid in centralised administration or any form
of pauperisation he had the full sympathy of the Fortescues.
Next the Village Garden and Agricultural Show, in which no less than 60 prizes were offered for
horses and other livestock, for the best ploughing, reaping, and ditching, and other forms of skilled
competition, attracted so much interest in the press and neighbourhood, that three other villages
asked to join in an annual event, over which Lord Fortescue presided, and squires and farmers from
North Devon and even further afield attended the gatherings. On his 34th birthday in 1856 a dinner
was arranged at which the Farming Society of the four villages presented to their Secretary, the
Rector, a silver inkstand ornamented with various agricultural emblems. Lord Fortescue in making
the presentation referred to previous made ones by the children, and by labourers, of West
Buckland, and said that they were now following that example in presenting a tribute to him, not as
the Secretary, but as the founder of their Society. This was a gracious and generous, but also a well-
deserved compliment; beyond the substantial help and encouragement given to this and to later
undertakings by both father, and son, the initiative and vision was Brereton’s. As the old Lord
expressed it in his inscription for the fine sculptured bust he presented to West Buckland at its
opening ceremony, “In grateful acknowledgement of the genius that planned, and of the liberality,
energy and judgement that effected the establishment of the Devon County School, this Bust was
presented to the school on the day of its opening, October 8th, 1861, by Hugh Earl Fortescue, K.G.,
Lord Lieutenant of the County”.
V
A more particular account must now be given of the establishment of the first County School, and
of the educational and social principles upon which it was founded. At the presentation dinner just
mentioned in 1856, after the gentry and the clergy for the most part had left, Brereton spoke mainly
to farmers on a subject he had long had in mind. “With regard”, he said, “to one particular question
which has excited much interest in the nation - I refer to the improvement in the condition of the
labourer by means of education - I do feel that a great mistake has been committed. The
Government of the country have undertaken to promote the education of the poor, but in doing so
they have overlooked the far more important question of the education of the people. Now we do
want it stated publicly, and publicly recognised that in this country of England there should be no
class of “poor” ,,, There are poor in all classes - poor landowners, poor farmers, and poor
labourers… Those who have taken great interest in the cause of the labourer are apt to say, when
you speak of the farmer's education, that the way to improve the farmer is to tread on his heel, and
so press him forward. Now the familiar saying, “The Devil take the hindermost”, may be a fair-cry
in a fair race; but…. it is not a fair race when the universities are monopolised by the wealthy
classes, and when charity and public opinion, as represented by the Government, so powerful in a
country like ours are using their efforts to elevate the labourer.” Here then he found a serious hiatus
in the national education, not that he wanted the Government to provide a parliamentary scheme to
fill the gap. Rather he wished them to encourage and support the farmers and the middle classes
generally to go ahead in their own endeavours for higher and for technical education. He finished
his speech by referring to plans for solving this problem, which he had thought over, and could be
set forth at another time.
His thoughts indeed had long been directed to the Middle Classes, of those educational needs Dr.
Arnold had written in the Sheffield Courant in 1832, using the term “the Middling Classes of
society”. Brereton defined the extent of the educational gap with some precision in his ‘County
Education’ (1874), dealing primarily though not exclusively with the Rural England, which in the
early part of his lifetime retained so much of its pristine importance. “If I were asked to pick out the
midmost man in England I should be disposed to point my finger at a farmer occupying between
200 acres and 300 acres. There is a man whose place is almost equidistant from the two extremes of
English society. His relations and dealings, domestic and public, connect him in a very direct
manner with every other class, implying much mutual obligation and respect. The education which
that man has received, or can procure for his son, would seem to me the true measure of general
English education.”
In 1854, two years before Brereton’s talk to the farmers, Lord Ebrington had published a pamphlet,
a reprint of a letter addressed to the Journal of the Society of Arts, entitled ‘Middle Class Education
and the Public Local Examinations’, in which he outlined a plan for improving education, especially
in agricultural districts. “Some time last winter,” he wrote, “it occurred to me, or rather to a friend
of mine with whom I have been talking over the matter [i.e. J.L.B] that it might be possible, by
providing for young men of the middle classes, and especially for farmers, prizes for competition,
and a standard of acquirements, to make a successful effort to develop the intelligence and spirit of
application, now from want of incentives and guidance lying dormant in many a farmer’s son, and
to cause either the voluntary self-improvement of many existing private schools, or else the
spontaneous establishment of many better ones in their stead.” The plan suggested yearly
examinations in the chief county town under the patronage of the Lord-Lieutenant, county
magistrate, or other persons of influence. Local youths “whose parents or near relatives were, or had
been, in respectable and independent circumstances, might apply for a ‘County Degree’, and
compete for County Honours”. The County Degree was intended to fix and maintain a standard
of education becoming an Englishman of the middle class. Thus a beginning was proposed in the
form of local examinations carried out within each county, but there was also a strong hint of the
voluntary establishment of better schools than existed at present. Lord Ebrington’s prizes were
founded and competed for in Devonshire, and the attention called to the subject stimulated Dr.
(afterwards Sir Thomas) Ackland’s efforts to establish the Oxford local examinations, and so the
fruitful extension of the influence of the Universities to all classes of the community, and indeed to
vast areas overseas.
Brereton, who had done so much to initiate and stimulate this examination movement, and was
always in sympathy with its main object, higher standards of education and contact with the
Universities, preferred the system of County degrees and honours to University Certificates or that
degree, which was conferred in the early days of the scheme, the Oxford A.A., on the ground
widely held then, and to some extent since, that the value of the of a University degree depended on
something more than a system of examinations held and the University auspices. It depended also
on teaching and residence at the University.
It was also clear to him and to Lord Ebrington that the crux of the whole matter lay in the provision
of suitable schools to prepare candidates for any kind of advanced examination, certificate, or
degree. But were not such schools already available? There was much provision for the purpose,
beyond the elementary schools, but not always suitable, nor everywhere available. For instance,
day-schools in urban districts, grammar-schools with endowments that were often restricted to
favoured districts, private schools of very unequal attainments and stability, and the vulnerable
beginnings of the Woodard Schools of a denominational type, and of a few technical colleges. Few
of these sufficiently met the needs of the farmers and country members of the middle classes, or
provided for boarding advantages for town dwellers, or were open as widely as possible on a
national basis. Some combination of a general education leading up to an arts degree, with a
technical preparation for careers of a majority of the students, was needed in principle, and on the
practical side something in the way of capital endowment for buildings, and assistance in
maintaining a reasonably low rate of board and tuition fees must be devised.
Such were the themes, long pondered by Brereton, and fully discussed, personally and by letter,
with Lord Ebrington (with the old Lord Fortescue’s sensible advice and practical assistance in the
background) that came to light first in public lectures or pamphlets, and then in the tiny acorn of the
Farm and County School at West Buckland in 1858, six years after the active Rector’s arrival.
