Plumptre affair might have precipitated a serious breach in the Wycliffe constituency. Fortunately for Sheraton and Wycliffe, the rift failed to develop. Things reached a climax in November 1903. Plumptre had decided he could not continue at Wycliffe, and when Bishop Carmichael offered him a post in the Diocese of Montreal, he accepted.
Cody’s role in the Plumptre affair may be deduced from the testimony of his colleagues. While he always treated Plumptre with sympathy and kindness, he must have disliked his ideas much as Sheraton had done. He remained loyal to Sheraton and did not support Plumptre in opposition to the principal. Wrong, who was more liberal than Cody, blamed Cody for not supporting Plumptre and thus for helping to bring about his resignation. Wrong told Cody that he would express his opinion of Sheraton’s conduct in the Plumptre affair when Plumptre’s resignation came before the Wycliffe Council. He added, “On the few occasions lately when I have found it necessary to speak of the situation there I have said that I lay a good deal of the blame on your shoulders.”11
But Plumptre appears not to have born a grudge against Cody. He remained his friend. Later in 1907, when he was considering whether to accept the rectorship of St. Paul’s Church, Woodstock, he consulted Cody in the matter.
Havergal was established in 1894 by much the same group of Anglicans that had established Ridley in 1889. Its first principal, Miss Ellen Mary Knox, was a redoubtable English evangelical, a sister of Bishop E.A. Knox. The success of the school during its first thirty years was largely the result of her drive and personality. The objectives of the school’s founders were indicated in an advertisement published in the Evangelical Churchman: “The promoters of the School are convinced of the importance of uniting distinct Evangelical spiritual influences with a thorough, intellectual culture ... Their aim will be to give such an education as will help to make the pupils not only accomplished gentlewomen, but also intelligent and useful members of society.”12
Havergal was located in one of Toronto’s most affluent areas. Having purchased the old Mervyn School building at 350 Jarvis Street, the school immediately began to expand its facilities by the purchase of additional land and the construction of new buildings in 1896–98 and 1902. In spite of all this expansion, however, the school needed yet another building and this was constructed in 1906—1907.
Though not a member of the original board, Cody was soon closely associated with the school. St. Paul’s and Havergal were within walking distance of each other, and Havergal students attended St. Paul’s on Sunday mornings. In effect, Cody became Havergal’s parish priest. He was conscientious in his attentions to the school. He prepared the girls for confirmation and was frequently at the school for social occasions, prize-givings, and other special events. His membership on the board of directors brought him regularly in touch with his friends S.H. Blake (president), J. Herbert Mason (vice-president), George Wrong (secretary), Stapleton Caldecott, and N.W. Hoyles, among others.
Cody soon became the friend and confidant of Miss Knox. She was frequently at his home for lunch or dinner and often came to him with problems about the financing of the school. In 1905 Cody, Wrong, and R. Millichamp (treasurer) were instrumental in carrying the school through a financial crisis, probably a result of the school’s need for a new building. Miss Knox was most grateful and wrote to Cody on January 3, thanking him “for the way you have helped to save me and the school.” She added cryptically, “It was done at so much risk to yourself – I was too tired to realize anything on Wednesday night except gratitude to those who put it through – Now I can see a way even though it may have difficulties. It literally was a fight for existence at any rate to me if not to the school. I don’t think I can forget what you and Mr. Wrong and Mr. Millichamp have done.” Precisely the nature of this crisis or the measure that saved Havergal is not revealed, but there seems no doubt of Cody’s role in saving Havergal.13
Cody’s membership on the Ridley board kept him in touch with the school and with the principal. Most of his fellow board members were men he was associated with in other capacities, at St. Paul’s, Wycliffe, or Havergal – Herbert Mason, N.W. Hoyles, Millichamp, and Sheraton. The evangelical community was a small one, a sort of family compact.
The year 1904 was an amazing one for Cody. Although still a young man (36) and not yet the titular rector of St. Paul’s, he was elected to the bishopric of Nova Scotia and rejected it. Three Winnipeg men urged him to let them nominate him for the archbishopric of Rupert’s Land, but he declined that as well, saying he would not oppose his good friend S.P. Matheson, who had been consecrated assistant bishop in 1903. The third offer to stand, probably the most attractive to Cody, came from the Diocese of Huron, where Bishop M.S. Baldwin had died. Cody was invited by Verschoyle Cronyn, the son of the first Bishop of Huron, and by other evangelicals to let his name stand. Huron was Cody’s home diocese and the most evangelical of all the Canadian dioceses. To be sure there was some jealousy of Wycliffe men on the part of Huron college graduates, but this might be overcome. T.A. Wright, the rector of St. Jude’s Church, Brantford, wrote to Cody on October 28: “We know that the feeling against Wycliffe men is quite strong. But have the Huron men a man among themselves that we can unite upon? I fear not from what I have so far gathered. The feeling against Wycliffe would largely give way if you were being considered.” But Cody had already written to Cronyn declining to accept. Blake, Cody’s mentor at St. Paul’s, had been very concerned with rumours that Cody might accept, and was thus much relieved. He wrote reassuringly, “There must be something better in store, and in due time the Allwise will make it plain.”14
Cody was fortified in his decision by a strong resolution from the St. Paul’s advisory committee, dated November 15, 1904, describing his work at St. Paul’s in glowing terms and concluding with the request “that you continue for the present in the work which God has opened for you, and which you have, by His good hand upon you, been so wonderfully successful.”15
Cody urged the Huron evangelicals to back L.N. Tucker for the bishopric. Tucker was an evangelical, an eloquent preacher, and later dean of the cathedral in London. But Tucker was not elected. David Williams, nominally an evangelical, was elected and then consecrated on January 6, 1905. Cody hastened to send his congratulations. This was the beginning of his friendly relations with Williams, who later wielded a powerful influence in the counsels of the Canadian church. Early in 1905 Williams showed his good will by inviting Cody to preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Cody was rapidly becoming a sort of ecclesiastical statesman, controlling the future prospects of many of his friends and acquaintances. Because of his Wycliffe connection and his growing reputation in the church generally, he was widely consulted by bishops and others desiring to secure suitable men for curacies or rectorships. He was also invited by many of the younger clergy to support their own candidacies for desirable posts. In April 1902 the Bishop of Niagara, J.P. DuMoulin, asked Cody to recommend a student to act as a supply in Fergus. Cody suggested W.T. Hallam. Dyson Hague, who had a church in Montreal, wanted a curate and was demanding in his requirements: “Now what is needed is a man over 30–35 perhaps – a preacher with a good voice – musical if possible – and of moderate churchmanship ... as far as possible a presentable man to a congregation like this ... and if a Wycliffe man a good all round man so as to disarm criticism.”16 Cody’s old friend F.J. Steen, who had been appointed senior assistant minister at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, was looking for a curate. He was even more demanding than Hague: “It is a sine qua non that he be a gentleman in the highest and strictest sense of the word, with all a gentleman’s manners and polish, and also that he be a good churchman of moderate views. I am not anxious to get an extremist, either High or Low. The Hague type of evangelical, however good, would never do.”17 Everybody wanted a “moderate” man, even Dyson Hague, not regarded as moderate himself.
Other correspondents enlisted Cody’s help. A Bishop’s College graduate, who had been teaching at Upper Canada College, wanted a position at Ridley, finding his duties at UCC too completely “secular.”18 A curate in
