Harriet Evans
Margaret Bradnum
David Wheatley in the chapel of Holgate’s Hospital
Bishop Hope
Members of the Mothers’ Union carry banners into the football ground for the centenary celebrations, Roy Clements
Bishop McCulloch bearing the Christ our Light candle
The church in West Bretton
The Chapel provided in the Retreat House when it became St Peter’s Convent in 1989
St Peter’s, Gildersome
Ground plan of the reordered Dewsbury Minster
The Heritage Centre, Dewsbury Minster, Gillian Gaskin
The controversial extension at All Hallows, Almondbury, Brian Holding
The Treacy Hall from Cross Street, Brian Holding
George Nairn-Briggs as Dean of Wakefield conducting the wedding in Wakefield Chantry Chapel of Pat Langham and Nev Hanley, John Briggs
HM Queen Elizabeth II at Wakefield Cathedral, The Wakefield Express
St James’s, Midhope
All Souls, Haley Hill
St Mary’s Community Centre, Chequerfield
St James the Great, Castleford
Portrait
Portrait of Bishop Stephen Platten
Foreword
There has been a good tradition of both cathedrals and dioceses producing histories of their development. With those dioceses established in the past 150 years, this tradition has been less universal. Wakefield is but one good example of this. The diocese was set up in 1888 as a rather tardy response to the Industrial Revolution in this part of West and South Yorkshire, formerly part of the West Riding. Since then there have been notable developments and transformations both within the Church of England and in wider society. In these pages Kate Taylor charts this history with the twin skills of a scholarly mind and an attractive style.
The year 2013 marks the 125th anniversary of the Diocese of Wakefield, and in these potently nostalgic days even such an apparently inauspicious anniversary plays its part. It seemed appropriate, then, on this anniversary, to commission a history. This is now still more appropriate with the possibility that the three dioceses of Bradford, Ripon and Leeds, and Wakefield will all lose their individual identity if the proposals of the Dioceses Commission are implemented.
I would like to give my warmest thanks and pay tribute to Kate Taylor, who has gained some distinction as a local historian, particularly in the field of theatre history. She has completed this history as ‘a labour of love’ with enormous energy and great skill – not to mention fun. Her visits to Bishop’s Lodge to read through records have been a pleasure for us all. We offer this history both as a contribution to this coming anniversary and also to the wider knowledge of the growth and development of the Church of England in this part of West and South Yorkshire.
+Stephen Wakefield
Easter 2012
Acknowledgements
My thanks must go first to Bishop Stephen Platten for inviting me to write this history and for his unfailing encouragement and support. I am grateful too to Anne Dawtry and June Lawson for reading the draft manuscript and for their constructive comments.
I have been privileged to see the material held by Bishop Seaton’s family and to read the unpublished memoir of Bishop Hone. I am grateful to both their families for their kindness.
The greater part of this account has been distilled from primary source material, including the Bishops’ Acts Books, held at various premises in Wakefield, and my thanks must go to the staff at Bishop’s Lodge, Church House, Messrs Dixon, Coles and Gill, Huddersfield Library Local Studies Department, Wakefield Library Local Studies Department, and the West Yorkshire Archive Service, who have all been tirelessly helpful. I have also made considerable use of local newspapers. Further points have come from very many people, within the diocese and beyond, who have provided information and insights. They include John Allen, James Allison, David Andrew, Janice Barker, Jane Bower, Linda Box, Margaret Bradnum, Paul Brier, Maureen Browell, Christine Bullimore, John Bullimore, Matthew Bullimore, Gill Butterworth, Ian Byfield, Jane Chesman, Roy Clements, Helen Collings, Mary Cooper, +Stephen Cottrell, Paul Crabb, Martyn Crompton, Jane Dickinson, Patrick Duckworth, Margaret Dye, +Christopher Edmondson, Ashley Ellis, Bryan Ellis, Lesley Ennis, David Fletcher, Brenda Frank, +Robert Freeman, Brian Geeson, Richard Giles, John Goodchild, Lisa Grant, Jonathan Greener, Pamela Greener, Irene Greenman, George Guiver, John Harris, Ruth Harris, Robert Hart, Steven Haws, Anthony Howe, Freda Jackson, Brunel James, Guy Jamieson, Alison Jewell, Adrian Judd, Celia Kilner, Felicity Lawson, John Lawson, Bryan Lewis, Jenny Lowery, Tony Macpherson, +Nigel McCulloch, Robin Mackintosh, John Maiden, Deidre Morris, Diana Monahan, George Nairn-Briggs, Peter Needham, David Nicholson, Catherine Ogle, Howard Pask, Elsie Peace, Philip Pearce, Matthew Pollard, Brenda Ratcliffe, Michael Rawson, Malcolm Reed, Mother Robina CSPH, Catherine Robinson, +Tony Robinson, Martin Russell, Tim Sledge, +Brian Smith, Christine Smith, Susan Starr, Christine Stearn, Richard Steel, Michael Storey, Dick Swindell, Isabel Syed, Barbara Tom, Timothy van Carrapiett, David Ward, Philip Wells, David Wheatley, Susan Whitwam, Michael Wood, Vicki Yates, and Michael Yelton. I am immensely indebted to them all. A substantial debt is due to Bishop Platten and Jane Butterfield for devising the index.
Kate Taylor
2012
Introduction
The 125 years since the Diocese of Wakefield was formed have seen immense changes both within the Established Church and within society. They have seen two world wars, a proliferation of faiths (in particular of Islam within the diocese), a decline in people coming forward for ordination, a radical change in the status of women within the Church, and an accelerating decline in church-going. The Church has moved from being relatively inward looking to a position where community involvement of many kinds has become something of an imperative. Among the many remarkable changes it is worth noting that a suggestion in 1907 for intercessions ‘to stay the advance of Moslem activity and its false teaching by the missionary zeal of the Church’ would have been wholly unacceptable as an official recommendation a hundred years later.
There has been a substantial increase in mission focus. Before the Second World War, churches devoted considerable time and money in efforts to support the various missionary societies which undertook work overseas. In 1981 Bishop Colin James remarked, ‘Not so long ago we used to think of mission as something we in the west did to others in foreign parts. Then we awoke to the need of mission in de-Christianized England too.’
Writing at the time of the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the diocese, John Lister, Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, said that its history had seen ‘a complete
