The Parson Naturalist in Suffolk.

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THE PARSON-NATURALIST IN SUFFOLK PATRICK ARMSTRONG Introduction: society and theology The parson-naturalist has been an important figure in the fabric of the society of the English countryside, and in British science, for several centuries. When Charles Darwin thought of becoming a country parson, after graduating from Cambridge, but before the sojourn aboard HMS Beagle, his uncle Josiah Wedgwood ventured the opinion that natural history was a very appropriate activity for a clergyman. It was already very much a tradition by the 1820s and 30s.

Although it is difficult to make any assertion on any quantitative basis, the genre seems to have been particularly thick on the ground in Suffolk. The listing of the ‘Names of Suffolk Naturalists, 1400-1900’ published by the Hon Secretary of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society in 1948, included about 102 individuals with clerical titles (eg Canon and Prebend, as well as Reverend) out of about 680 – around 15 percent.

These included those who had collected or observed in the county, or written about Suffolk natural history, although resident elsewhere. By far the greater proportion is constituted by those with dates after 1800 – the Victorian era was the hey-day of the English parson-naturalist. More recently, Simpson’s Flora of Suffolk (1982) in a chapter ‘The history of botanical studies in Suffolk’ lists some 14 clergy out of about 50 authors considered of importance (28 percent). There is of course overlap with the earlier list, but Simpson’s catalogue continues into the twentieth century.

There are a number of reasons for the success of clergymen as naturalists. Some cynics have said that long before the modern period of united benefices, many of them had little to do. With a relatively small flock to whom they had to minister, some became archaeologists or local historians; some were interested in meteorology or astronomy; a number were poets; some entered the political fray – either on behalf of the established order or on side of the common people. But there is more to it than beautiful butterflies becoming a substitute for boredom.

One of the reasons for the success of the parson-naturalist genre include the doctrine of ‘parson’s freehold’: once a clergyman was inducted into a living he could only be dismissed after the most exhaustive enquiries and gruelling legal procedures.

Some incumbencies were therefore very long. To take a typical example, in the parish of St Mary the Virgin, Woolpit, Suffolk, there were only 11 rectors between 1646 and 1897, a mean of about 23 years, and this included a couple of shorter incumbencies: some were well over 30 years. Tenures in some parts of East Anglia of between 50 and 60 years were not unknown.

Amongst the best-known Suffolk naturalists, we may mention botanist the Revd Professor John Henslow (1796-1861) who was Rector of Hitcham for 28 years, and entomologist the Revd William Kirby (1759-1850) who was 68 years in the parish of Barham: the first 15 years as curate, and thereafter as Rector (Armstrong, 2015; Freeman, 1852; Russell-Gebbett, 1977; Walters & Stow, 2001).

Sometimes a clerical tenure could extend through more than one generation, as a family that owned the advowson or patronage of a parish had the right at law to Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 56 (2020)

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present a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or living. Thus members of the same family might be nominated as vicar or rector for generations. A son thus occasionally followed father into a living. As a consequence of this extended link with a small area of countryside, a man might therefore get to know the plants, animals, and people of the limited confines of his parish extremely well (see also Armstrong, 2000).

Another part of the explanation for the parson-naturalist phenomenon may be the fact that an important theme in the theology of many Anglican clergy in the nineteenth century was the doctrine of natural theology, the idea that the complexity, beauty and harmony of the living world could provide an insight into the mind of the Creator. The notion was first expounded by the Revd John Ray (1627-1705), who apparently collected plants at Orford, Suffolk, although he was born and he died in neighbouring Essex, in his work The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691). The concept however was greatly developed by William Paley (1743-1805, Archdeacon of Carlisle) in Natural Theology, subtitled Evidences for the John Ray, Naturalist - with whom the Existence and Attributes of the Creator adventure of modern science began.

Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802). It was this book that profoundly influenced many Anglican clergy in the nineteenth century, and therefore the direction of much natural history: from nature, up to nature’s God. William Kirby’s Introduction to Entomology (1815, 7th edition 1857) is entirely typical: With respect to religious instruction insects are far from unprofitable; indeed in this view Entomology seems to possess peculiar advantages above every other branch of Natural History … That creatures which in the scale of being are next to nonentities, should be elaborated with so much art and contrivance, have such a number of parts … all so highly finished and each so nicely calculated to answer its end; that they should include in this evanescent form such a variety of organs of perception and instruments of motion, exceeding in number and peculiarity of structure those of other animals … truly these wonders and miracles declare to everyone who attends to the subject, “the hand that made us is divine.” We are the work of a being infinite in power in wisdom, and in goodness.

This work by Kirby, went through many editions - Darwin had one of them aboard the Beagle.

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(Kirby [1835] also wrote a theological work strongly in support of Paley.) And on the title-page of ‘Hind’s Flora of Suffolk’ (see below) appears the quotation from Psalm 145 (v. 10): All thy works shall praise thee, Oh Lord.

This type of thinking would be that of many Suffolk Anglican clergy in the nineteenth century and provided the motivation for many of the county’s parson-naturalists, and the reason for both their fecundity in terms of ideas, and abundance in number of the genre.

Possibly also influential, particularly amongst Cambridge-educated clergy, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the work of Bishop Joseph Butler of Durham (1692-1752): The Analogy of William Kirby, 68 years in the parish of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Barham, Suffolk.

Constitution and Course of Nature (originally published in 1736). He argued that nature itself was full of mysteries and cruelties – there were ‘analogies’ between nature and human affairs - and thus the natural world shared some of the same alleged difficulties of interpretation as the Bible.

The network The idea that the Victorian country parson was isolated in his parish is incorrect: they were linked by a tight network. It has already been hinted that the priesthood was often a family tradition. In some families, for generations, all, or nearly all, the sons became clergy, the daughters marrying into parsonages. John Henslow married Harriet, sister of the Revd George Leonard Jenyns (1763-1848), distinguished allround naturalist and Vicar of Swaffam Bulbeck, just across the Suffolk border in Cambridgeshire (he collected within Suffolk). Jenyns was also the son of a parson, the nephew of another, and married the daughter of yet another. Moreover, John Henslow had two sons who became clergy, George (1835-1925) who was a noted botanist, and prolific natural history writer, having spent his formative years botanizing with his father at Hitcham, and Leonard Ramsey (1831-1915) who followed his father as a curate in the same parish (Wallace, 2005; Walters & Stow, 2001).

In the nineteenth century, almost all clergy would have gone to one of two universities (four after the foundation of King’s College, London in 1829 and Durham in 1832). Because of propinquity, clergy in Suffolk were often from Cambridge: thus Leonard Jenyns and John Henslow were both St John’s, John’s son George was Christ’s, William Kirby was at Caius.

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Neighbouring clergy would meet at Diocese or Deanery level, and no doubt exchanged natural history observations and specimens as well as clerical gossip at such meetings (Henslow and Jenyns certainly exchanged plant specimens).

Thus it was, that a man’s clerical colleagues might also be his scientific colleagues, related to him by blood or by marriage, and have been to the same university.

The connections with the centres of London and Cambridge, by the early years of the nineteenth century would have been quite good. The system of stage-coaches was well developed by the 1800s, and the first railway through central Suffolk - the Ipswich and Bury Railway - opened from Ipswich to John Stevens Henslow, 28 years as Rector Haughley and Bury St Edmunds in 1846. of Hitcham, a post he combined with the The company was absorbed by Professorship of Botany at Cambridge. the Eastern Union Railway in 1847, and in 1848 and 1849 the line was extended from Haughley. Other lines followed apace.

The ‘uniform penny-post’ introduced in January 1840 further improved communications. For decades Henslow managed to hold the position of Professor of Botany at Cambridge together with his living in Suffolk, compressing his lectures into a few weeks. William Kirby rejoiced in being able to use the natural history collections and library of Sir Joseph Banks in London.

All these links contributed to the success of the parson-naturalists’ social and scientific network, and the facility with which they co-operated. An example of the use of a clerical network is provided by the acknowledgements of Henslow in his 1860 Flora of Suffolk: a Catalogue of the Plants found … in the County of Suffolk This Catalogue has been compiled from lists and notes furnished by the following persons, from various parts of the County of Suffolk: … the Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, (Great Glemham and Sweffling, etc., etc.): Sir Charles F. Bunbury, Bart., (neighbourhood of Mildenhall): Mrs. Carss, (Little Welnetham, etc.): Mr. Joseph Gedge, (neighbourhood of Bury): the Rev. J. S. Henslow, (Hitcham): the Rev. S. Rickards, (neighbourhood of Stowlangtoft): the Rev. Henry Roberts, (Naughton, etc.): … the Rev. K. Trimmer, (neighbourhood of Yarmouth)….

Including himself he acknowledges five clergy out of a total of thirteen: the names of a number of landed gentry are also included.

Nearly thirty years later Hind’s Flora of the County (written by ‘W. H. Hind, Rector of Honington, assisted by the late Churchill Babington, Rector of Cockfield’) pays Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 56 (2020)

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tribute to ‘my special friend the Rev. J. D. Grey, my frequent companion in field work, and to my friend the Rev. E. F. Linton I tender my grateful thanks for their frequent communication of new plants, new localities, new facts.’ Over a dozen other clergy also assisted.

County and Parish It is sometimes stated that Britain impressed her mark on her empire by surveying and mapping her colonies. By compiling detailed catalogues of the productions of their countryside (indeed occasionally illustrated by maps) nineteenth century naturalists asserted their authority over their landscape. Many country parsons in the nineteenth century contributed to, or edited their county floras or handbooks to the birds or insects of their counties. We have noticed that the Suffolk Floras of 1860 and 1889 were both edited by clergymen (Henslow was assisted by a Mr Edmund Skepper). They are amazingly complete and detailed. The localities in which flowering plants could be found are often given. And although less detail is provided than for the flowering plants, extensive lists of ferns, water-plants, seaweeds and fungi found in the county are given.

Churchill Babington’s Birds of Suffolk is comparable. Exhaustive detail on every species recorded in the county is given – for rarer species every instance the species is recorded, usually when and where it was shot and by whom. Records are divided into those from East and West Suffolk, and there is a regional description giving some information of the habitats in different parts of the county.

The Lepidoptera of Suffolk (1890), by the Revd Edwin Newson Bloomfield (18271914), of Glenham, covered the butterflies and moths of the county, but possibly more interesting was a publication entitled Final Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Suffolk (The Moths and Butterflies of the County), published nearly half a century later (1937) as a Memoir of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society, fills a similar niche: it has an appreciation of Bloomfield as an introduction, and so in a way represents a continuance of the Victorian tradition. In 214 pages the details of every butterfly and moth then noted in the county is mentioned, with the localities where they were to be found. Although the butterflies were treated by a Dr C. Herbert Winter, the macromoths were described by the Revd Arthur P. Waller, MA, RD (rural dean), and the micro-moths by Rt Revd Dr Whittingham DD, FES (Fellow of the Entomological Society). Walter Godfrey Whittingham (1861-1941) was Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich (1923-1940). He was thus a rare, but not unique, example of a parsonnaturalist holding an episcopal position: he continued the Cambridge link with Suffolk; he was at Peterhouse.

Just as some naturalists demonstrated a kind of proprietorship over their county by editing a county flora, or a bird or insect book defining part of the biota of their territory, so clergy quite often attempted a similar task for their parishes. One of the last things that Henslow published, in 1851, was ‘A list of native plants growing wild in the parish of Hitcham, Suffolk’: it went into several editions. William Kirby’s first major publication was Monographia Apium Angliae – Monograph of the Bees of England; this, although it essayed to be country-wide in scope, had a strong focus on

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his own parish and those adjoining: 153 species were collected from his own parish and nearby.

Sweeping up the fragments It is little surprise that parson-naturalists were particularly interested in flowering plants, birds, and butterflies. These are the most conspicuous, colourful and perhaps the most beautiful of taxa. But few organisms were off limits. Kirby’s interest in wild bees and the Bishop’s enthusiasm for tiny micro-moths are mentioned above. In 1794 Kirby also read a paper on leeches to the Linnean Society, describing Hirudo alba [the name is not now used] as ‘a species of singular beauty. Its colour is a delicate white, interrupted by elegant ramifications in the viscera. … These have the appearance of beautiful fuci.’ It takes a special type of mind to see leeches as ‘of singular beauty’,’ elegant’, or ‘delicate’, and to find the glory of Creation in such beings.

The Revd Henry Harpur Crewe (1828-1883), formerly of Trinity College, Cambridge, was based at the small village of Drinkstone, near Woolpit, Suffolk in the 1850s, and he collected extensively along the banks of the Stour and Orwell (Armstrong, 2020b) His speciality was the caterpillars of pug-moths, describing them minutely: it was his aspiration to illustrate the entire group. Henslow wrote three short notes on parasitic plants for a gardening magazine and, a paper on the parasitic larvae that inhabit the nests of wasps and bumblebees for the Zoologist.

There were parson-naturalists who studied fish (Leonard Jenyns was one), mosses, tiny mites and slimy sea-weeds, often with the aid of microscopes. Moreover, frequently their anatomy and ‘contrivances’ were described in the greatest detail. It was as though no fragment of the great bounty of Creation was to be neglected.

Providence Many believed that much of this bounty the Almighty had brought into existence for the benefit of humanity, and it was felt by some clergy that it was the duty of the naturalist to show how the richness of nature was available to be utilised.

William Kirby’s Entomology (written in the form of a series of letters), immediately after a few introductory sections, devotes much space to what would now be referred to as ‘applied entomology’. After discussion of the harm of which some insects were capable, a great deal of space is devoted to ‘The benefits derived from insects’. In this section (‘Letter IX’), close to its commencement he declaims: God, in all the evil which he permits to take place, whether spiritual, moral or natural, has the ultimate good of his creatures in view.

To take but one example, he asserted that ichneumon flies were provided by Providence, to control the caterpillars that feed upon human crops: An idea of the services rendered to us by those Ichneumons which prey upon noxious larvae may be formed from the fact, that out of thirty individuals of the common cabbage caterpillar … twenty-five were finally pierced by an Ichneumon. … And if we compare the myriads of caterpillars that often attack our cabbages and broccoli with the small number of butterflies that usually appear we may conjecture that they are commonly destroyed in some such

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proportion – a circumstance that will lead us thankfully to acknowledge the goodness of Providence, by providing such a check, has prevented the destruction of the Brassica genus, including some of our most esteemed and useful vegetables.

Much of Henslow’s botanical writing had an applied slant. He wrote papers on the diseases and pests of wheat, barley and potatoes, and on the use of fertilisers in agriculture. He worked extensively with the farmers of Suffolk with the aim of increasing the use of scientific methods to improve crops.

The polymath tradition In 1998, evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson published a book entitled Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge, hailed by some as ‘groundbreaking’. All knowledge, he asserted - from the humanities through the social sciences to the natural sciences - can be unified. But many nineteenth century naturalists would have said exactly the same thing. Henslow was Professor of Mineralogy before he professed botany and wrote important papers in geology; he wrote on many branches of natural history, besides botany. So too did Leonard Jenyns.

We have seen that that Churchill Babington wrote what were, for their day, the definitive works on both the plants and the birds of Suffolk. But Babington also combined duties in his country parish with the post of Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge. Henslow too, dabbled in archaeology, writing a piece on ‘The Roman tumulus, at Rougham, opened July 1844’, and another piece on flint weapons.

Babington wrote up the excavation more fully after Henslow’s death. And of course, most parson-naturalists also wrote on theology.

The Reverend Professor Edward Byles Cowell (1826-1903) was Suffolk born and bred, attending Ipswich Grammar School, and while still at school he encountered a ‘Persian Grammar’ in the local public library. With the assistance of a retired Indian Army officer, immersed himself in Asian languages. At the age of fourteen he taught himself Sanskrit, and started publishing translations of Persian verses in the Asiatic Journal. In 1850, rather older than the usual student age, he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, studying literae humaniores (Classics) and mathematics, as well as establishing himself as a Sanskrit scholar. He published a translation of the Sanskrit writer The Reverend Edward Byles Cowell, Kalidiasa’s Vikramorvasi while a student Professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge. and catalogued Persian and other Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 56 (2020)

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Middle Eastern manuscripts in the Bodlean Library. A teaching position at an Indian college followed, but in 1867 he was appointed Professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge.

Cowell never cut his links with Suffolk, collecting plants and birding with Churchill Babington: he amassed a massive collection of Suffolk plant specimens now held in Ipswich - a true Victorian polymath (Armstrong, 2020a).

To the world It will be clear that Suffolk parson-naturalists were outward looking. They above all wanted to share their expertise and their delight in nature. Henslow established ‘village botany’ teaching botany to the children of the village school. He also worked hard with farmers’ groups. He was also much involved with the Ipswich Museum, being a firm believer in museums as an instrument for education and social improvement, and gave public lectures there. Henslow became President, but only after his friend William Kirby had served a term.

Henslow, Kirby, Babington, Hind and Bloomfield – and many dozens of others shared the belief that the exploration of natural science reveals the wisdom and inherent goodness of the Creator, and moreover, it should be employed to the benefit all people. Indeed, the teaching of the beauty and complexity of nature was part and parcel of the teaching of the Gospel. Some used their expertise to document parish and county, some used their links to broadcast further afield: many of those mentioned above contributed to the work of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, or the Linnean Society: some became Fellows of the Royal Society. Some saw it as their mission to fulfil the enjoinder to spread their knowledge ‘to the uttermost parts of the earth’.

There were probably fewer clergyman-geologists in Suffolk than naturalists of other categories, but one that should be noticed is the Revd William Branwhite Clarke (1798-1878).

Born and brought up in East Bergholt, Suffolk, after Jesus College, Cambridge, he became curate in his native village. A noted poet and literary critic, he became fascinated by geology, writing of the Suffolk crag deposits. In 1838 he accepted a chaplaincy in New South Wales, where he had a long career as a schoolmaster and pastor. He is remembered particularly for his contributions to the geology of Australia, playing an important part in the development of New South Wales’ mineral resources, William Branwhite Clarke, from East including gold (Grainger, 1982).

Bergholt, Suffolk, who came the ‘Father of Australian Geology’.

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To include sections of theological justification in a modern scientific paper or field guide would be unthinkable. In the nineteen and early twentieth century, however, it provided, for many, the raison d’etre for the whole of scientific enquiry. It was the parson-naturalist who undertook local botanical surveys, who wrote county floras and regional handbooks for other taxa. It was he who worked to establish local societies and museums. He displayed remarkable diligence in these activities and had a remarkable eye for detail. The parson-naturalist, in a very real way laid the foundations for scientific natural history, for his parish, his country and sometimes to a very real extent for the country and the world.

Acknowledgements I thank Alan Cadwallader, and my wife Moyra, for reading, and commenting upon, an early draft of this article. As far as is known, all the illustrations are in the public domain.

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Armstrong. P.H. (2020a). A Victorian Suffolk amateur naturalist and polymath: The Reverend Professor Edward Byles Cowell (1826-1903). The White Admiral, 104: 18-20.

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Butler, J. (1736). The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. James, John and Paul Knapton, London.

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Kirby, W. & Spence, W. (1815; 7th ed 1857). An Introduction to Entomology. Longman, Brown Green & Longmans, London.

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Patrick Armstrong Villa 4, St Ives Centro 6 Tighe St Jolimont, 6014 Western Australia

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