PELTED WITH SOOT

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 2 June 1928, Page 11

PELTED WITH SOOT

AG GRIEVED and excited parishioners ' from the Essex village of Gal leywood assembly recently in the grandstand of Chelmsford racecourse to the number of 500, and aired their views concerning the vicar, the Rev. F. A. Houghton. The vicar, who has been potted with eggs and soot,- holds decided vkffs on .tlve raising of church funds by ether than spiritual means, and is alleged to have refused parishioners the use of the schoolroom for social purposes. The meeting was an extraordinary gathering in an extraordinary setring. The whitewashed walls of a refreshment booth were adorned with newspaper placards of the soot-pelting incident and with aclvertisa-n-ets of h'duthen d races. The crowd of exe.tei parishioners included an ex- :bun hwarden, and furner bellringers and choristers, i (/ring men from tan local footba’l club and young women were ther« t-.s wall. An overflow meeting w-as a eld outside, and police constables were on duty to preserve order.

Two resolutions were carried unanimously. One recorded the dissatisfaction of the parishioners with the vicar and called on him to resign. The other asked the Bishop of Chelmsford .to receive a deputation to hear the complaints. Nearly every reference to the vicar was greeted with derisive howls, and .there were many uncomplimentary interjections from the body of the hall. The vicar had declined an invitation to attend. Mr A. D. Brazier, a greyhaired retired .police inspector, presided over the meeting and spoke with warmth and indignation, about the al-

AN UNPOPULAR VICAR

legecl short-comings and interference of the vicar. “The vicar,” exclaimed Mr Brabier, “came to Galley wood six years ago, and found a village fairly well united, but he was so impossible that he alienated the support of one after the other of his congregation. First the choir left; then the organist, resigned. After that the .bell-ringers left, and then his own churchwarden left. Trouble in the school followed, and the governes's resigned. * ‘Then there was a great bone of contention —'the Christian ■entertainment for the children, which the vicar said he would no longer allow in the schoolroom, and then the schoolmaster, a really good sportsman, also left.”

Mr Brazier recalled that another churchwarden also resigned, and that the vicar had to go outside the parish to get somebody to take his place. Mr Brazier added, ‘‘ He could do .that by the Enabling Act. He could even go to Brentwood Lunatic Asylum and appoint a man to be your warden and you could not object.”

The vicar, ,in a memorandum, complained that a social meeting wab held in the schoolroom by members of the football club without his knowledge, and states that he is opposed to whist drives and dances playing any part in the religious work of the parish. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Broughton have left Galley wood, apparently to take a holiday. Before he went away, the vicar declared, “I have no intention of resigning. My churchwardens support me absolutely, and I appeal to the sober-minded among the agitators to let the matter drop.”