LOOKING BACK
by Roger Guttridge
The tale of the runaway rector There’s nothing like a naughty vicar story to set tongues a-wagging, and the Rev W M Anderson certainly did that, says Roger Guttridge
The rector of Durweston and Bryanston was already low in diarist Julietta Forrester’s estimation, and when he eloped with a parishioner, his reputation went through the floor. “Received a letter from Mrs Oborne saying that Rev W Anderson had gone off on Wednesday with Mrs Axford, Lord Portman’s coachman’s wife,” Julietta noted on January 25, 1912. “There had been talk about them for some time. He said he had loved her for 17 years! It seemed incredible! ”‘I never thought of Mrs A behaving so but Anderson was bad enough for anything! I believed he had sold his soul to Satan over the Durweston Ghost!” This was a reference to Durweston’s headline-making poltergeist, the subject of this column in our October issue. Anderson was among those who took the spooky events of 1894-95 seriously, unlike the sceptical Mrs Forrester. Even before the poltergeist, Julietta – wife of James Forrester, agent for Lord Portman’s Bryanston Estate – was not enamoured with the rector. Lord Portman was disgusted After his first service at Bryanston in 1893, Julietta wrote: “I liked his appearance and voice. I wish I had liked his sermon.” In 1895 she complained that Anderson was neglecting the Bryanston half of his flock. And when Durweston and Bryanston played Blandford 48
Mrs Axford, who left her husband and two daughters in 1912 to elope with the Rev. Anderson, rector of Durweston and Bryanston
at cricket that same year, she for him to go abroad etc”. commented that “our rector, She added: “About two years Mr Anderson, ago, on hearing declined to play “the hostility to the of the intimacy because he was runaway couple was between afraid of the Anderson and such that a crowd Mrs Axford, Lord weather!” threatened to tar P spoke to the It appears that God was not on and feather them former about it their side either. as they waited on but A denied all After Blandford the charge.” the platform at declared their Anderson’s Blandford station” more charitable innings at 300 for 9, the Durweston parishioners and Bryanston XI were skittled might have forgiven his inability out for 70. to resist the lure of love but less Fast forward 17 years to 1912. forgivable was the theft of his On February 3, Julietta noted curate’s pay packet, and money that Lord Portman was “very from the Coal Club fund to disgusted” with Anderson ‘after finance the elopement. all he had done for him, paying He had also “left his wife,
