Read Letters to a Sister Online
Authors: Constance Babington Smith
21
Canon G. R. Bullock-Webster (d. 1934) had led a protest against Bp Barnes' preaching in St Paul's Cathedral on 16 October.
22
Rt Rev. A. F. Winnington-Ingram.
23
A nickname for the sermons on anthropology and sacramental theology recently preached by Bp Barnes.
24
âThe Latest Heresy Hunt'
(Evening Standard, 26
October, 1927). Dean Inge advocated a progressive attitude in religious education, and disparaged a recent newspaper article by a Jesuit.
25
An editorial in the
Church Times
(28 October) criticised Dean Inge for âsneers⦠positively outrageous in their bad taste'.
26
On 26 October Bp Barnes had addressed a second open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
27
âDo we Agree?', a broadcast debate between G. B. Shaw and G. K. Chesterton.
28
Margaret Macaulay had been staying at the Diocesan Retreat House at St David's, Pembrokeshire.
29
The novels of A. S. M. Hutchinson abound in long meandering sentences, and his syntax is often unorthodox.
30
S. C. Carpenter,
The Anglican Tradition
(1928).
31
The 1928 revision of the Book of Common Prayer.
32
W. Joynson-Hicks,
The Prayer Book Crisis
(1928).
33
This was in a sermon in Westminster Abbey on 3 June.
34
Contributors so far had been Bp E. A. Knox, Arnold Bennett, and G. K. Chesterton.
35
G. K. Chesterton.
36
Robert Lynd said
(Daily News,
27 June, 1928) that he believed in Immortality, âbut not by any process of reasoning'. He took it for granted because he âhad never met an argument on the other side that undermined it'.
37
Julian Huxley wrote
(Daily News,
5 June): âI can think of our personalities being lost, blended, taken up into some general reservoir of mind and spirit'. Sir Arthur Keith gave his opinion on 7 June: âFor me life is a web and is immortal'.
38
The publishers of Radclyffe Hall's book
The Well of Loneliness
had been prosecuted on the grounds that it was obscene.
39
Sir Chartres Biron.
40
This enclosure was not preserved with the letter.
41
Norman Birkett, K.C.
42
Sir Julian Huxley comments that he disapproved of the censoring of
The Well of Loneliness,
though this does not mean he approved of the book itself.
43
Sir Penrose Fry, Bt (formerly Rev. T. Penrose Fry) comments that he and his wife knew and liked Radclyffe Hall (d. 1943), but he cannot recall having expressed either approval or disapproval of
The Well of Loneliness.
44
The magistrate's judgment in this case, given on 16 November, was that the book was an obscene libel, and that it would tend to corrupt those into whose hands it should fall. He made an order for copies of the book to be destroyed.
45
Probably to the Heretics Society.
46
âWhy I dislike Cats, Clothes and Visits',
Daily Mail,
2 November, 1928.
47
Jean Macaulay was very keen on the idea of using a magic lantern in church services.
48
Probably H. D. A. Major's pamphlet,
Modern Problems of the Church
(1928).
49
âSongs of Seven' by Jean Ingelow (1820-97).
50
R.M.'s article, âA Church I should Like', was published in the first issue (May 1929) of the
St Paul's Review, The London Diocesan Quarterly,
which was edited by Rev. A. S. Duncan-Jones.
51
The
Evening Standard.
52
âWhere are the Fires of Yester Year',
Evening Standard,
25 March, 1929, R.M. maintained, somewhat wistfully, that the views of the Christian Church on Eternal Punishment had of late become less ârobust'.
53
Margaret Macaulay's house.
54
R.M.'s general practitioner.
55
Because Jean's birth (in 1882) had taken place less than twelve months after her own, R. M. liked to call her âTwin* in birthday letters.
56
Margaret Macaulay always wore her Deaconess habit, even after she retired.
57
Margaret Macaulay was not allowed to enter Mexico because at this time a violent conflict between Church and State was proceeding, and the authorities would not believe she was not a Roman Catholic nun.
58
Dorothy Brooke,
née
Lamb, wife of Sir John Brooke (d. 1937), later Lady Nicholson.
59
âFurther Adventures in Search of a Treasure Temple', a broadcast talk given by Dr Thomas Gann on 31 May, 1930.
60
Mary (âMaisie') Fletcher
(née
Cropper), wife of Sir Walter Fletcher (d. 1933).
61
Eleanor Acland
(née
Cropper, d. 1933), wife of Sir Francis Acland, Bt.
62
Later Sir Richard Acland, Bt.
63
R.M. had moved to another flat.
64
The
Evening Standard
was then running a series of âQuandaries', one each day, with comments from readers on the previous day's problem.
65
The âQuandary' for 27 May, 1932 was as follows: âA doctor has one minute ago assisted at the birth of a severely deformed baby. In addition to the deformities the child has paralysis of both arms and legs and the shape of its head shows that, mentally, it can never be better than the worst type of imbecile. It may live for a few hours, or for a few years. The father has previously been warned that the child is likely to be abnormal and has expressed the hope that it will not survive, especially as the mother has two other young children, and recently the family's circumstances have been much straitened. The mother is still under chloroform. The nurse is discreet. What should the doctor do?'
66
The Sunday Entertainments Bill had been debated in the House of Commons on 27 May.
67
See âThe Weirdest House in Britain',
Sunday Express,
29 May, 1932.
68
This refers to Rev. Hugh Johnston, Curate at St Martin-in-the-Fields from 1923 to 1931, who was allowed by the Vicar, Canon Sheppard, to open what was called the âQuest Room'. Anyone could come, without giving a name, and ask any question. âAsk Mr Johnston' became a Macaulay family joke.
69
Since Margaret Macaulay became a Deaconess she had been known as âSister Margaret'.
70
The murder trial of Mrs Elvira Barney.
71
They Were Defeated.
72
At the opening of the 19th Conference of Modern Churchmen at Bristol on 5 September.
73
After Germany's withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference at Geneva, the British Foreign Secretary (Sir John Simon) had suggested a compromise between the continuing disarmament of Germany and her equality with the other nations.
74
Stephen Gwynn,
The Life of Mary Kingsley
(1932).
75
The Minor Pleasures of Life.
76
Bertha L. Browne (1863-1963), who taught History at Oxford High School when R.M. was there.
77
Jean Macaulay was then working as a District Nurse at Deal.
78
The Peace Ballot organized by the League of Nations Union and other societies.
79
See
The Spectator,
23 November, 1934.
80
R.M.'s godfather, R. H. Macaulay.
81
See
The Spectator,
18 January, 1935. This was one of R.M.'s articles headed âMarginal Comments' which she had been contributing to
The Spectator
since the beginning of the year.
82
Sir Thomas More (1478-153 5), Lord Chancellor of England, canonized in 1935.
83
John Fisher (d. 1535), Bp of Rochester, canonized in 1936.
84
The school at Varazze to which R.M. went as a child.
85
âLook down!'
86
R.M. means her âMarginal Comments' article of 18 January.
87
See âMarginal Comments',
The Spectator, 22
February, 1935.
88
Jeronimo Lobo (1593-1678).
89
âWrings the heart'.
90
âOur Poor Relations' Intelligence',
Evening Standard,
11 September, 1935.
91
Robert Lynd.
92
âGood Opinion',
New Statesman,
14 September, 1935.
93
âSex and Aesthetics', by Harry Roberts.
94
A statement of France's attitude towards the Italo-Abyssinian dispute had been made by M. Laval on 13 September.
95
The Roman road from Chichester to London.
96
Italy had invaded Abyssinia on 3 October.
97
St Peter's, Clerkenwell Rd.
98
See
The Listener, 2
October, 1935.
99
âBelfast Revisited', see
The Listener,
16 October.
100
In
Personal Pleasures
(1935).
101
G. K. Chesterton was replying to Dr G. G. Coulton and H. Binns in connection with his June broadcast on âThe Liberty that Matters' (in a B.B.C. series on Freedom). See
The Listener, 2
October, 1935.
102
Postcard.
103
âAn Unrehearsed Debate: That Women are bored with Emancipation', broadcast on 2 November, 1935. The proposer was E. Arnot Robertson; the opposer, R.M.
104
Capt. A. S. Cunningham-Reid.
105
A. P. Herbert was standing as Independent candidate for Oxford University.
106
After the announcement of the Hoare-Laval Pact, Sir Samuel Hoare went to Switzerland for a skating holiday, and on I December had a slight accident and broke his nose.
107
The ancient ceremony of âtrial by peers' was enacted in the House of Lords on 12 December, 1935, when Lord de Clifford was tried for manslaughter caused by reckless driving, and acquitted.
108
Lord de Clifford had stated that he went over to his offside to avoid an oncoming car. Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett submitted that there was no evidence of negligence: âLord de Clifford had taken what seemed to be the only courseâ¦'
109
The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, had just arrived in England.
110
Canon H. R. L. (âDick') Sheppard.
111
Jean Macaulay had started a society called the League of Stewards, âto encourage the spirit of stewardship', and she and R. M. hoped to win Canon Sheppard's support for it.
112
R.M. means the film
The Shape of Things to Come.
113
An enquiry into a leakage of Budget secrets (involving J. H. Thomas, Secretary of State for the Colonies) was then in progress.
114
Then Italian Ambassador in London.
115
On 3 June, 1936 King Edward VII
1
visited the Duchy of Cornwall estates in Devonshire and Cornwall.
116
The forthcoming meeting of the Council of the League of Nations.
117
A. J. Cummings, political editor of the
News Chronicle.
118
The presentation of the Femina-Vie Heureuse and Heinemann prizes by Max Beerbohm.
119
R.M. means the Brotherhood Movement, a pacifist organization which celebrated its Diamond Jubilee in May 1936. Canon Sheppard was then national President.
120
Abp Cosmo Lang.
121
Abp William Temple.
122
Lord Cecil of Chelwood, President of the League of Nations Union, had written on 27 May to the Secretaries of all branches of the Union, urging them to encourage members to write to M.P.s, the Prime Minister, and the Foreign Secretary, insisting on full support for the League.
123
A leader in
The Times
on 8 June commented that âthe branches of the League of Nations Union would render better service to their own cause if, like Mr Eden, they would frankly recognize the admitted defects of the League and Covenant'.
124
Geoffrey Dawson (1874-1944).
125
A letter from Lord Cecil of Chelwood to
The Times
on âThe League and Italy'.
126
A garden party in honour of the Emperor of Ethiopia.
127
On the day R.M. wrote this J. H. Thomas and Sir Alfred Butt resigned from Parliament, as a result of the Budget leakage enquiry.
128
The cartoon shows Sheppard, George Lansbury, and âAnti-War Youth' astride a horse which has stopped short at a signpost pointing to â100 per cent Pacifism', and, in the opposite direction to âOrganization of Law and Order'. It is captioned âSorry boys, I can't go both ways at once'. See
Evening Standard,
8 June, 1936.