A Country Parson.

 I remember about a dozen years ago digging around for useful literature whilst researching for everyday life in the late Eighteenth Century. For a couple of long weekends each year my wife and I become Edward and Isabella Fortescue, a married couple of the 'Middling Sort' who've done rather well for themselves. Edward has made money publishing and printing songs, hymns, political pamphlets and other ephemera with a wide market and a cheap outlay. Together with Isabella he is profiting from quite a jump in the numbers of literate folk all wanting news of the latest scandal, the best songs around, scurrilous satire etc etc...things haven't changed much have they?  Each year the pair go to visit Sir Henry Moore at his home in Suffolk, Kentwell Hall, where they chat to his many visitors, and  may even sing a song or two from Edward's back catalogue.

The big stuff was easy to find: who was King, Prime Minister. Who were the fashionable composers, authors, artists etc? What was more interesting was finding out the minutiae of everyday living, the price of potatoes, bread, typical meals, time taken for travel, how much to spend on silk and how to find a good mantua maker. Finding out more about these things definitely helped us to further develop credible personae.

James Woodforde was a chap who compulsively wrote a diary detailing all those fascinating facts, peppered with his opinions of his neighbours, of politicians, of the scariness of the French Revolution, and how to treat servants. He was unmarried and kept a well ordered household overseen by his niece Nancy who came to live with him as his housekeeper. Servants came and went: occasionally they were sacked, but they were all treated with optimism and kindness. At one point Nancy was involved in a friendship with a young woman who had a Jack-the-Lad suitor. He ran up £1,500 in debts, aged just 21, and died two years later of consumption. In the beginning James describes him as 'droll' and 'a good singer'. The diaries give a meticulously recorded insight into the minutiae of late Georgian rural life.

What was astonishing to me was that in his diary he never mentions Jesus, never refers to Christ or the Holy Spirit and talks more about his acts of charity rather than his prayer life or his own beliefs. There is no hint of any doctrinal issues and I seriously wonder about the depth of his own personal faith. James expresses distaste at the "enthusiasms" of the local Methodists and  resents their intrusion into his cosy little Parish. He comes over as a very caring but slightly fussy social worker. 

We think we know his world from films, stories, history books etc but some entries have the ability to challenge. He managed his money carefully but traveled to Somerset almost every year to see his family using public coaches over roads little more than cart tracks. These trips would have taken about a week and cost £10, (think about £2000)! More contentiously, he regularly found casks of brandy and good wine turning up on his doorstep with no questions asked. And then a week or two later he would entertain the Excise Man! He unquestioningly cared for his staff when they were ill. In a very detailed account of a local Doctor's treatment of an outbreak of fever he mentions Bark, a source of quinine, and laudanum, opium dissolved in alcohol. After Nancy has been given this, James describes her as "Brave, but seemed Light in her head", not surprising really... Death, especially infant mortality is forever present but no less grievous for its ubiquity.

Shining through his diary is his practical compassion for the little rural community. He gives alms to the hard up, he treats his older, poorer parishioners to sumptuous Christmas Feasts and gives them all a little money.  He keeps his eye on the children of the village and gives them pocket money on Valentine's Day, all strictly accounted for. I suspect he wasn't the only parish parson who saw his job as mainly gentle care in the community. His politics are Tory and at variance with the local Whigs (North Norfolk has a great history of liberal MPs!), and he doesn't much like nor trust Thomas Coke at Holkham who is doing a lot of experimental land management and scientific farming.  He keeps up with national and indeed international news through the Newspapers which he gets every Saturday from Norwich. James writes disparagingly about the French Revolution when Wordsworth et al were singing its praises as a great levelling movement and his fear of revolution and regicide in England is very real. Revd. James was definitely scared of changes in the status quo. He was living in a time of great upheaval when even rural Norfolk was quivering with unknowns and technological possibilities. His slightly bemused but worried reactions to these changes makes him an appealing character to me, but in a characteristically enthusiastic way he notes a balloon ascent in Norwich in 1785 He loves his food too and his menus are quite something! (Although in one entry he regrets his habit of drinking a pint of port a day and wonders if it contributed to his bouts of ill health.)

 So when I was planning my pilgrimage I really wanted to visit Weston Longville, the tiny but prosperous village about eight miles North West of Norwich where an unsung Parson looked after his community with real humane compassion. I wasn't disappointed and although it was a fleeting visit I found time to pose under James's portrait. 

 He doesn't write with Samuel Pepys' searing self awareness and panache, but I've read the edited diary a couple of times and I would have loved to have met him and talked to him about his life and work. I obviously can't, but I can celebrate his compassion towards his much loved community.