The Lonely Rector

The Rev. Frederick W. Densham was a vigorous six-footer of 61 when he first arrived in.the Cornish village of Wairleggon in 1931 as the new Church of England rector. A graduate of London University and the Divinity School at Oxford, Rector Densham also proved vigorous, even radical, in his views on God, people and parishes. His 168 parishioners were Cornishmen, clannish and conservative, whose ideas on religion were as fixed and unchanging as the grey rocks that anchored the surface of the moor around them. So, in a way, it might have been predicted from the start that pastor and flock would be a clashing combination.

Warleggon soon decided that the new rector was, to say the least, standoffish. He refused to shake hands with his parishioners, explaining that he was offended by the old Cornish custom of spitting in the palms before hefting a pitchfork. He banned the traditional whist party in the parish house. "A whist drive," he said, "is an amusement, and amusements come from hell." He refused to conduct a Sunday school, because Sunday schools are unmentioned in the Bible. He wanted to get rid of the venerable church organ, since he disliked organ music--"a gabbled profanity" he called it.

The Angry Council. There were no more genial Sunday teas on the lawn beneath the big trees of the rectory. Indeed, the rector put up a barbed-wire fence around his house. When he tried to sell not only the organ but the church's prized 13th century chalice--to get money for a parish sports program--the parish council refused to approve it. And Nick Bunt, the church warden, a testy-tempered farmer, shouted a plain warning: "If you touch that organ, I'll down ye."

Nick Bunt and the angry council asked the Bishop of Truro to remove Densham. Under the Church of England's constitution; however, the bishop was powerless, for the rector had committed no crime, and he was conducting the services acceptably. Stuck with their rector, the flock retaliated by refusing to go to church. Some went to other Anglican churches; others drifted off to Warleggon's Methodist chapel. After 1935, not a soul among Warleggon's parishioners entered the church for Sunday services again.

In his self-imposed isolation, the rector's convictions grew into eccentricities. The rectory grounds became a small wilderness, the rectory itself rundown and rat-ridden. The rector refused to see anyone without four days notice--in writing. His only steady contact with the parish was Burt Mefton, a handyman who brought him his groceries. The rector lived on oatmeal, apples and bread. He sent his tea and candy rations to needy parishioners.

The Black Carriages. Week in & week out, though, the rector held services. Each Sunday he unlocked the church doors, robed himself and preached two services to the bare 13th century walls. He sang the hymns himself, and composed his sermons with care. Occasionally curious visitors would drop in to hear him. To supplement their attendance, he placed cards in the first six pews bearing the names of his predecessors--Warleggon rectors since the days of the Normans. "I am not sure I do not prefer my congregation of ghosts," he would say. "They cannot object to any innovation I make."

The only times the rector saw his flock was when conducting their funerals. "They all come to me in the end," he said. "They won't come to church on their feet, but they come in their black carriages." Even old Nick Bunt, now 77 and no longer angered, not long ago asked Densham to conduct the services when he should die.

Fortnight ago, alone and crippled by arthritis, Rector Densham himself died at 83. And last week his funeral was held in the church at nearby Liskeard. All his flock in Warleggon knew about it, and some pitied his lonely end. But no one came.

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