Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

A HISTORY OF ST MARY’S, THE PARISH CHURCH 124 There have been no material changes to the church in the last one hundred years. The view one gets today, on entering the church, is identical to that of 1909. The ‘Suffragist Excesses’ and the First World War Whatever might be said about the Rev. John Courtenay (vicar 1911-1921), it certainly could not be that he was boring, or politically correct by today’s standards. In November 1913, he was embroiled in local and national outrage when he locked the doors of the church both between and during services. His reasons for so doing, were ‘the Suffragist excesses’. He also ‘rudely treated’ some female members of the congregation. He claimed that he was exercising his ‘right to freehold to close the church as he thinks fit’! What exactly he thought the Suffragettes might do is unknown. He did not relent, but it seems that many of the congregation stuck by him, as will be seen later. His character and deeds lived on after him. In the 1930s, when the church wall and bell ropes needed repair, the wardens looked for the rental income due to the parish from the church lands known as Church Wall Piece and Bell Rope Piece. Imagine their shock when they learned that this church land had been sold off during Rev. Courtenay’s incumbency. The deeds of sale were never found, and the wardens were unable to recover the church properties so long after their loss. After his death, Rev. Courtenay’s widow, Bertha, petitioned the PCC to place a memorial tablet to her late husband in the chancel. She explained that, ‘during his vicarage, he restored the sanctuary & chancel, removing the altar rails to their original position behind the sedilia, had reading desks moved from the nave to the chancel, and had carved beautiful oak fronts to the choir stalls in keeping with other restoration work in the nave’. But she did not have friends in high places. The Earl of Sandwich wrote from Hinchingbrooke House, objecting to the monument in the sanctuary as it was ‘not a suitable place for the erection of any tablet’. He also remarked upon the proposed memorial’s wording: ‘there may be some local comment re the Latin inscription having a humorous significance as the incumbent had a reputation of preaching at certain members of the congregation’. The memorial’s Latin translates as ‘The Preacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true’. Regardless of the good earl’s objections, the Parochial Church Council voted 7 to 3 in favour of the bronze plaque, which was placed in the chancel at Mrs Courtenay’s expense. A more touching memorial is that in the south aisle to Henry Usher, a private soldier in the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment. Like many of the local men, he originally enlisted in the Huntingdonshire Cyclists Battalion, a modern and popular unit, thought likely to be a favourite of the ladies! After a short while training locally, they were sent to guard the Yorkshire coast against possible invasion. Henry, along with many of his pals, found that this lacked excitement and, anxious ‘not to miss the war’, he transferred to the Canadian Expeditionary Force and then to the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry. He was killed in the hell of Passchendaele in August 1917 and his body was never recovered. He was 32. It is unusual that his is the only memorial in the church to a First World War casualty, when there were thirty-three Buckden men who had paid the ultimate price for freedom. Possibly it was because his father was the church clerk or it may have been that his mother, Elizabeth, was the first to petition for a memorial. A faculty was granted and the Vestry and the vicar agreed to the marble monument that was put up in 1919. Perhaps other petitions followed as, within a few months, the Vestry voted to have all thirty-three men commemorated on a war memorial in the churchyard; and this was unveiled in 1920. In the north aisle hangs a framed roll of honour of Buckden men who served in the Great War. Judging by the names listed and the regiments, it would seem that this list was compiled in late 1916, and parts of it updated later. The Vestry, the body consisting of church worthies responsible for the running of the church and its related duties, was replaced on 27 December 1922 by the Parochial Church Council [PCC], which was elected by the congregation. Within living memory The font was removed once more in 1929, this time back to its traditional position in the south aisle by the door, in accordance with the belief that entry into Christ’s church is by baptism. In the same year, electricity came to the church and electric lighting was installed. In 1937, death-watch beetle was found to have infested the nave, south aisle and porch roofs and many boards were replaced. Fortunately, only the angels’ wings were affected and they were replaced that year. The carver’s daughter still recalls seeing the wings on their kitchen table, but she wasn’t allowed to touch! During the Second World War, the weekday evening services and the 8 a.m. mid-winter celebrations on Sunday morning were held on the ground floor of the church tower, which was converted into a temporary chapel by the addition of an interim ceiling and curtains. The PCC had recognised that the cost