THE Rev. Harry Wilson Boustead, the Vicar of St Michael’s Basingstoke, was an active member of the English Church Union, the pressure group for the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England.
He was described as “a decided and consistent High Churchman”.
For many years there had been a tradition in Basingstoke that, shortly after a new mayor was appointed, the mayor and Corporation would attend a Civic Service in St Michael’s Church and on another Sunday they would attend the London Street Congregational Church.
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Cllr William Cannon was a churchwarden at St Michael’s and in November 1907, he was elected Mayor of Basingstoke. In accordance with tradition, the town clerk issued invitations for the Civic Service, only to receive the following letter from Rev. Boustead dated 14 November 1907: “Dear Sir, I have your letter of the 12th telling me of the intention of the Mayor and Corporation to attend the Parish Church next Sunday, accompanied by the Police, Fire Brigade, Volunteers and Yeomanry.
"I regret you decided to come uninvited. I have no wish to see the Mayor at God’s House at a mere formal service, for I understand that he intends, if asked, to go to one of the any Nonconformist places of worship on a subsequent Sunday. To thus degrade God’s Church to the level of one of the 350 man-made sects is to my mind a mockery of religion and God’s Truth.”
Mayor Cannon decided not to proceed with the Civic Service, but as many people and organisations had received invitations to attend the service, only to have those invitations cancelled with no explanation, it was decided to send a copy of Boustead’s letter to the local papers.
This was seized upon by the national and provincial press where it was reprinted in dozens of newspapers from the Cornishman to the Aberdeen Press and Journal under various headlines, including “Strange Situation at Basingstoke”, “Mockery of Religion”, “Not wanted at Church” and “Another Clerical Bigot”.
The Hants and Berks Gazette printed several letters from its readers commenting on the affair. One suggested that the vicar seemed to be treating the parish church as his private parlour to which ordinary citizens, from the mayor downwards, were not welcome unless personally invited by the vicar.
Another reminded the vicar that the Church of England was also a man-made sect, created for his own convenience by Henry the Eighth, “who, as your readers will know, was not a moral man”.
In November 1908 William Cannon was re-elected as Mayor. Despite what had happened in 1907, he decided that the custom of the Civic Service should continue.
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Accordingly, on the morning of Sunday, 29 November 1908, the mayor and Corporation, wearing their civic robes, accompanied by the Town Clerk and the other borough officials, the Sergeants-at-mace, the Volunteer Fire Brigade, and the local police, marched in procession from the Town Hall to St Michael’s Church.
The civic procession had always entered the church by the west door, but when they arrived, they found it shut, and the iron gate across it fastened by a new padlock. The procession wheeled round and entered the church by the south door and scrambled to find any vacant seats among the congregation.
At the council meeting on 10 December 1908, Herbert Kingdon, the Deputy Mayor, said he thought that the treatment they received from the vicar was a great slight on the town at large and a man who would so treat the mayor, and indeed one of his own churchwardens, is not worthy to be called a leader of a great Christian Church. The Council agreed to hold the service at the Congregational Church.
The following year, it appears that Rev Boustead had a change of heart. The Civic Service took place at St Michael’s Church on the morning of Sunday, 28 November 1909. A new feature was introduced by the participation of a nonconformist minister, rather than holding a separate service at a nonconformist Church.
This article was written by Bob Clarke
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