Revd. Frederick Thomas Gardner
Rector of
Goldhanger and Lt. Totham
from 1893 to
1936
The Reverend Gardner was
rector of St. Peter's Church Goldhanger and All
Saints Church Little Totham from 1893 to 1936. He was the last rector to hold
the Perpetual Advowson of the joint Goldhanger and Little Totham Benefice, and
his family were prosperous enough to purchase the Rectory
and the surrounding Glebe land in the village. . .
He was a great traveller
despite apparently suffering from motor neuron disease for much of his life and
was one of the group of Goldhanger residents who went to Spitzbergen several times to prospect for minerals
from 1904 onwards. He was a man of strong convictions, preaching from his
wheelchair in St Peter’s and writing in the parish magazine with great passion.
He lost one of his sons in the Great war and was largely responsible for the
building what the East Anglian Daily Times referred to in 1939 as the
impressive and noble war memorial at the front of St Peter’s Church.
This memorial may perhaps be his most lasting legacy.
The Revd. Gardner was Rector
during the Great War and his wide-ranging involvement in the village activities
during the period of the war is well recorded in the Parish Magazine articles of the time. He
chaired meetings in the school to raise
funds for both the war effort and to support the local volunteers, he organised
local British Red Cross Society collections, he organised concerts to raise
funds in both the school room and on the lawns of the Rectory,
and he was a Special Constable for the duration of the war.
Here is a summary of the
Rectorʼs life with details and photographs further down this page. . .
year
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summary |
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1864 |
Born at Woodcote Wanor, Bromsgrove, youngest son of
Thomas Gardner |
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. . .he had two brothers, both GPs: Dr William
Gardner & Dr F. G. Gardner |
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1882 |
Went to Peterhouse College, Cambridge and was an acclaimed
sportsman |
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1888 |
Attended Ely Theological College |
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1889 |
was curate at St. Augustineʼs, Wisbech |
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1893 |
Appointed Rector of Goldhanger & Lt. Totham |
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1894 |
Married Ethel Mary Pocock, from Wisbech |
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1895 |
He started a Parish Magazine, which included many
article written by him |
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1898 |
Went to the Earl of Mortonʼs home in Ardgour
in Scotland |
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1890s |
The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, is said to
have stayed at the Rectory. |
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1900 |
Went to Garmisch in Bavaria for health reasons |
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1900 |
Returned to Scotland for a ʼprolonged visitʼ |
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1900 |
The Rector presented teacher Lily with a copy of the
Goldhanger Woods book |
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1902 |
He started a ʼCoal Clubʼ to support the
poor of both villages |
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1902 |
He sponsored a "Goldhanger Ploughing
Cup" in his own name |
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1904 |
His fist visit to Spitzbergen as a holiday |
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1905 |
2nd Expedition to Spitzbergen |
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1905 |
Date of map showing areas of Spitsbergen claimed
by Rector and his friends |
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1906 |
A small cutters used at Spitzbergen was named
Cynthia after his daughter |
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1906 |
3rd Expedition to Spitzbergen travelling with the
Earl of Morton on his yacht |
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1906 |
Dr Salter wrote: Dined at Rectory and heard
Gardnerʼs story of Spitzbergen |
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1906 |
The Rector bought The Limes in Head St from the
Revd. Leighʼs estate |
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1907 |
4th Expedition to Spitzbergen with Mrs Gardner |
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1906 |
The Rector bought his first car |
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1908 |
Visited Biarritz, but returned early due to his
sonʼs illness |
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1910 |
Ernest Mansfield wrote about ʼThe Parsonʼ
in his 1st Novel |
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1910 |
toured the Nile in Egypt |
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1911 |
wrote a long letter describing the many minerals
found on Spitzbergen |
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1911 |
many newspaper articles refer to the Rectorʼs
Spitzbergen exploits |
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1912 |
His son Eustace died of an illness at the age of
18 |
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1912 |
He renamed The Limes as The Parsonage |
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1912 |
built the Parish Room on land adjacent to The
Parsonage |
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1913 |
his brother from Oxford Dr FG Gardner went to
Spitzbergen as company doctor |
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1914-8 |
wrote many articles in the parish magazine about
the war effort |
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1914-8 |
During the war joined Earl of Mortonʼs yacht
mine sweeping off Scotland |
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1916 |
His son Cyril was killed in action in the Somme |
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1918-9 |
He led the fund raising activity to built the War
Memorial |
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1919 |
The Rector made the largest donation of ₤200 |
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1920 |
He installed a new east window in Lt. Totham
Church dedicated to his son |
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1926 |
He travelled to South Africa ʼto escape the
worst of the winter weatherʼ |
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1927 |
His daughter Angela was married at Goldhanger |
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1929 |
His wife Poppy lost an arm in a accident with a
generator at the Rectory |
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1930s |
His daughter Cynthia would fly in and land her
light plane in a field nearby |
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1930s |
On special occasions children would queue for buns
at the Rectory |
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1930s |
He refused to allow overhead electricity cables in
the village |
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1936 |
The Revd. Gardner died at the Rectory - there was
an obituary in The Times |
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1936 |
There was ʼAn Appreciationʼ by the
Curate in the Parish Magazine |
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1937 |
Two large oil painting from the Rectory were given
to St Peter’s by his family |
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1951 |
A new tenor bell was cast in his memory and still
hangs in the tower |
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2018 |
Act of Remembrance for The Revd. Gardner’s
grandsons Richard & Nigel |
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2023 |
Second Act of Remembrance and blessing of
Grandsons inscriptions |
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The Revd Gardner standing
in the doorway of the Rectory. In the donkey cart are Mrs
Gardner and two of their children with the nanny, Mrs Easter. The boy is probably a gardener/groom
and could be John Buckingham. |
The
Revd. Gardnerʼs car outside the Rectory with a chauffeur
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DETAILS
Extracts from ʼLittle
Totham - the story of a small villageʼ
The Revd. Gardner was also
rector of Little Totham for 43 years. In 2005 local historian Lorna Key
published ʼLittle Totham - the story of a small villageʼ and
her book has a full chapter dedicated to Frederick Gardner. He was clearly as
equally popular in Little Totham as he was in Goldhanger. The author has kindly
give permission for extracts from the chapter to be used here. . .
Frederick married a
beautiful young woman, Ethel Mary Pocock (Poppy), who bore him five children -
Cyril, Eustace, Angela, Humphrey and William. Cyril was killed on the Somme at
the age of 19. Eustace, who was a diabetic, died early in life. Angela swore
she would never marry a parson so she married a young soldier nicknamed ʼChubbyʼ
who ironically enough eventually did become a parson. Humphrey had two children
and was a bell-ringer at Goldhanger Church and William died a bachelor.
In 1947 Poppy took over the
patronage of the two churches and she was succeeded in this by her son Humphrey
Boucher Gardner in 1965. Humphreyʼs two sons, Richard and Nigel, remember their
grandfather as being spoken of as a stern but gentle old man and always in a
wheelchair. During mealtimes in the large, often cold, dining room he was
always dominant at the table and everybody was silent.
Being wheelchair bound did
not preclude him and his wife from making numerous excursions abroad and to the
far north of Scotland. From all of these trips he always remembered his
parishioners back home and regaled them through the Parish Magazine. At the
turn of the 20th century he bought one of the early motor cars which was quite
a sight at the time as he drove through the villages.
He started the magazine in
1895 ʼas some form of useful literature, which will be a welcome companion
to your fireside when the dayʼs work is over..nothing will be found more
interesting and more useful than the accompanying magazine.ʼ In spite of
often rigorous calls to duty and reprimands, his letters always start with ^My
dear parishioners.ʼ They end in the early days with ʼyours
faithfully,ʼ but more latterly ʼYour faithful friend and pastorʼ
or ʼYours affectionately.ʼ
He harangues his
parishioners through the magazine in October 1898 when one can sense his
irritation. ʼWhere are the men on Sunday mornings? I need not ask. They
shuffle in at the fag end of an idle day and think this is fitting to the Lord.ʼ
In September 1899 he wrote of the first signs of his illness: ʼMy dear
people, I have been amongst you for nearly six years and for the first time
within that period I am about to take a prolonged holiday, partly under doctorʼs
orders after an acute attack of rheumatism, t am to go as the private chaplain
to the Earl of Morton for eight weeks at the seat of Congalen Ardgour in
N.W.Scotland.ʼ From there he wrote telling his parishioners about the
grandeur and the magnificence of the scenery, the people who attended the
services and the highland games, all of which must have seemed part of another
world to the people of Little Totham.
In August 1900 he left for
Garmisch in Bavaria where he visited Oberammergau among many other places, and
ended with a cruise down the Rhine. Afterwards he returned to Scotland for
another prolonged visit.
Under his supervision a Coal
Club was started when coal was bought in the summer at a cheap rate and
distributed in the winter In October 1902 there was a clear description of the
festivities associated with the Coronation, listing all the games, food and
entertainment during the celebrations at Little Totham Hall meadow. However
there was a slight sting in the tale: ʼThe committee would be much obliged
to the gentleman who put eight pots of jam into his pocket (by mistake of
course)as well as eight flower glasses and a steel sharpener, if he will return
them to Totham Hall barn, and he may rest assured of their thanks for his
kindly attention in rectifying this little mistake.ʼ
In August 1906 he travelled
to Spitzbergen on board the ʼNorth of the Polar Seaʼ, having ʼa
rough and somewhat dangerous time.ʼ A lantern slide show was promised on
his return. In August 1907 he returned to Spitzbergen with Mrs Gardner, but
they never reached it due to the large lumps of floating polar ice which
rendered it impossible for the steamer to pass.
By October of this year his
condition had worsened and he was ordered to see a consultant in London with a
possibility of arresting the complaint. He was in hospital until December and
returned to Goldhanger after a period of convalescence in Bournemouth. In April
1908 he returned early from Biarritz in the South of France as his eldest boy
had developed a dangerous complaint after pneumonia and measles. He was away at
school at the time. Again in July 1908 he visited the baths at Oeynhausen,
Germany, for a prolonged cure.
In January 1910 he was to be
found 1,000 miles along the River Nile south of Cairo surrounded by the Great
Desert. There is a narrow strip of cultivated land on either side of the Nile,
he reported. His letter then described in detail the pyramids and the tomb of
Pharoah, ending: ʼI have just returned from taking tea with the Canon of
Jerusalem.ʼ
The Rev Gardner was one of
the first people to own a car in the area. This was his first car, a ten
horsepower Speedwell made by the New Speedwell Motor Company of London. The
vehicle was registered to him on 4th August, 1906. He kept it until 1909. The
Speedwell would, have been a rare sight when it arrived in Goldhanger and
Little Totham in that summer of 1908, in its colour of dark blue picked out
with yellow. Few other cars were in the area at that time. Registration of
vehicles started on January 1st, 1904, when 597 existing vehicles were
registered in Essex. ʼFʼ was the only index letter allocated at that
time, so when the Rev Gardnerʼs vehicle, F993, was registered it was one
of the first thousand. After that he bought a 14 horsepower ʼG Richard
Brazierʼ from Edmund Bentall of Maldon on August 1st, 1908.
Revd Gardnerʼs car with
his chauffeur probably Sammy Crowlin
In later life he owned an
Armstrong Siddley saloon,
one of the earliest automatic
cars, which also had a chauffeur.
The
full 5-page chapter of Lorna Key’s book can be accessed here...
Rev Frederick
Thomas Gardner - full chapter
The Revd. Gardnerʼs wife Ethel
Mary (Poppy)
A newspaper report from
1929. . .
Poppy as a young lady and in
later life
dates unknown
The Revd. Gardnerʼs brothers
The Rector had two brothers,
both GPs: Dr F. G. Gardner and. Dr William Gardner. Dr. F. G. Gardner
participated in the 1912 Spitzbergen expedition as the company doctor and wrote
a report which is reproduced in the NEC prospectus. Seven years later in
1920 Doctor Gardner wrote a letter to The Times extolling the virtues of the
Spitsbergen climate and its potential for further exploration. Here is an
extract from the obituary of Dr William Gardner given the British Medical
Journal which was published in 1932. . .
The Spitzbergen Expeditions
In 2009 professor John T.
Reilly of Leeds university published a book entitled: Greetings from
Spitsbergen: Tourists at the Eternal Ice, 1827-1914 (Tapir Academic Press).
The book describes the early tourist cruise ships that visited Spitzbergen and has many photos of the ships and the
passengers. It has a 5-page description of the Revd. Gardnerʼs first trip
to Spitsbergen and has several photos including a group picture of the
passengers (on page 49) that clearly shows Poppy Gardner in the group but
apparently not the Rector, he was probably prospecting in the hills nearby at
the time! The relevant parts of the book can be viewed with a Google Book
search for: spitsbergen ʼreverend frederick gardnerʼ Here is a
short extract from those pages. . .
English cruises were
curtailed in 1901 and 1902 due to the high freight charges associated with the
Boer War and the chartering of some Orient vessels to the British Government.
As a result the RMS Ophir did not to return to Spitsbergen until 1903, although
it was the 1904 cruise which was to play an unexpectedly important role in
Spitsbergenʼs early history.
On aboard, was the Rector of
Goldhangar[sic], the Reverend Frederick Gardner and his elder daughter[sic, it
was actually his young looking wife]. Gardner was one of the last ʼgentlemanʼ
rectors, in that he came from a middle class family and was sufficiently well
off be able to pursue his interest in travel. He was appointed at the age of
twenty-nine and subsequently became good friends with the local doctor, J.
Salter and a milling engineer and prospector, Ernest Mansfield. Both men were
widely travelled. Salter, for example, was an ardent big game hunter and
possessed many hunting trophies from his time in Siberia and Northern Russia,
while Mansfield had prospected for minerals worldwide. Listening to his friends
romanticised tales, Gardner became excited at the idea of finding gold and
decided to use the opportunity of his planned cruise to Spitsbergen to pursue
this idea. His mineral prospecting in Recherchefiorden encouraged further
visits and led to the establishment of the Northern Exploration Company.
The Goldhanger & Little Totham Parish magazines refer to the Revd. Gardner making four summer trips to Spitzbergen in 1904, 1905, 1906 & 1907. The first two trips just referred to ʼto the far northʼ. . .
There is a page on this website that describes in
some detail the adventures of the Goldhanger men who prospected for gold with
the rector at. . . Spitzbergen - prospecting for gold.
The biography: Ernest Mansfield - Gold or Iʼm a Dutchman written by
Susan Barr, David Newman and Greg Nesteroff includes many references to the
Revd. Gardnerʼs involvement. It is published in English by Akademika
Publishing in Norway, and is available worldwide.
photograph in an NEC
Prospectus captioned:
ʼRevd. F T Gardner,
Early Pioneerʼ
Ernest Mansfield wrote in his book entitled ASTRIA - The Ice Maiden of the Revd.
Gardner:
A few years ago I went to
Spitzbergen with an English clergyman. A decent sort, too, he was. My word. he
had a heart as strong as a lion. Iʼll never forget it. We had only just
landed in the country, when I said: ʼI want to fetch that mountainʼ
and I pointed to a snow-covered beggar right at the head of the Advent Dale. .
. . It was 14 hours solid walking before we got at its foot, and by that time
Mr. Parson was a trifle done up. . . .
. . . Our men were waiting,
so I sent them up to bring the parson and his load back, which they did three
hours afterwards, the gentleman all in a fume and fret. ʼ It was mean to
get away like that,ʼ he said. ʼWe ought to have got back together,
considering we were nearly home!ʼ Of course I wasnʼt going to argue.
I thought I had done him a good turn, and thatʼs the way he rounded on me!
We had been on the go 25 hours. According to my calculations we had done 40
miles there and back, but the parson said it was 60 if it was an inch! Well it
was all throʼ this trip, that the present position came about. The parson
and I discovered something else in our rambles besides coal.
Dr Salter wrote in his Diary of Reminiscences. . .
One day I asked [Ernest]
Mansfield to come to dine with me, and he came, and a parson came with him.
This parson was then under my care. I was recommending him to have a rest, and
at this dinner-table we were talking of the places he might go to. Among others
was a visit by one of Lunnʼs ships to the land of the Midnight Sun—up to
Norway. As soon as I mentioned the Midnight Sun Mansfield got excited and said,
ʼ I wish youʼd send me there, too, because all the gold that is
undiscovered lies around the polar regions, and Iʼm sure thereʼs a
lot about the Arctic Circle, just as there is at Klondyke. That is where Iʼd
go if I had the money.ʼ The divine warmed up at this, and they talked
about it. Mansfield said he would fit the parson up with a minerʼs outfit,
which meant a bag or sack containing certain tools adaptable to a man to carry
on his back certain distances in prospecting for minerals. He would also tell
our mutual friend where to go to make the best use of his time. . .
. . .18 July 1906 Dined at
the Goldhanger Rectory and heard Rev. Gardnerʼs story about Spitzbergen,
from which he had just returned. His account is wonderful and there seems to be
great results looming over all participants, myself included.
There was a long letter in the NEC Prospectus of
1911 apparently written by the Rector - the details of each mineral have been
omitted from the shortend version below for brevity. It can be read in full on
pages 58-60 in the document at... Gardner
letter - in Mansfield articles. ʼNʼ
is a pseudonym for Spitsbergen...
Statement
by Rev. F.T. GARDNER,
Rector
of Goldhanger, Essex.
The
Rectory, Goldhanger, Essex,
March
1st, 1911.
Dear Sir.
At your request I very gladly give you a brief Report of my first-hand knowledge of ʼNʼ gathered from expeditions in 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907; I say ʼbriefʼ report because, if the report were as long as the subject of it is important and interesting, it would run into several hundred pages.
I will preface my statement by
saying that I have known Mr. Mansfield continually since 1903, when he had a
house in the village. His remarkable personality, his wide reputation in
British Columbia, New Zealand, Australasia, etc., as a keen and successful
prospector and explorer were known to me.
In 1904 I went out to ʼNʼ
ostensibly for sport, but, finding the land during my travels there indicated
so much mineral wealth in certain parts previously untrodden and unmapped, I
became deeply interested in the infinite possibilities of that country.
Before I went out Mansfield had
given me certain professional knowledge: what to look for, and where to look
for it, and had provided me with a pick, gold-washing pan, etc. I picked up
several pieces of quartz, one of which proved to be exceptionally good. The
Assayer to the Bank of England said it was ʼthe best piece of water-worn
quartz weʼve seen for a long time,ʼ and wondered where it had come
from. I believe it assayed 6 dwts.
On my return to England I
acquainted Mansfield with my many rich and interesting discoveries. He planned to
accompany me in the following year. I took out the first lot of men in 1905,
and was in Norway when Mansfield chose the first big gang, though, of course, I
am not so well known there as Mansfield.
We discovered :-
I. GOLD. . .
II. COAL. . .
III. BITUMEN AND OIL. . .
IV. IRON ORE, IRONSTONE,
MAGNETITE AND PYRITES. . .
V. GYPSUM. . .
VI; PHOSPHATES. . .
FACILITIES FOR OPERATION
The waterway is very deep and the
facilities for working and loading, etc., seem to me to be extraordinary. I donʼt
think Mansfield or anyone else has painted a very highly-coloured picture,
because there is enough coal there to supply Europe.
With regard to handling work of this kind there is none better, I think, than Mansfield. I know him probably better than anyone, having lived with him under exceptional conditions and circumstances for so long in ʼNʼ and you may place every confidence in him. He is straight beyond question.
ʼNʼ must have a very
great future, and it is of first moment to have such an exceptionally strong,
resourceful and dependable man as Mansfield as organiser ever this vast
undertaking, one who not only knows the land and its treasures, but who knows
how to make the best out of both. His intrepidity and experience ensure
success, to say nothing of the probability of additional discoveries as the
work proceeds.
ʼ Nʼ will open up
rapidly; it is already becoming a pet region for tourists. I suggest hotels for
a summer health resort - a sort of Davos. The air is unmatched for purity and
restorative properties.
From The
Register, Adelaide, of September 1911..
GOLD IN ARTIC
WASTES
AN ESSEX RECTORʼS DISCOVERY
In an
old-fashioned garden, filled with the scent of many flowers, behind a quaint
old house, with pointed gables and high red chimneys in a remote village of
Essex, I sat this afternoon (wrote a correspondent of The London Daily
Chronicle from Tolleshunt DʼArcy last month), listening to a tale as
romantic as Stevensonʼs ʼʼTreasure Island.ʼ It was a tale
of a newly discovered gold field in the far desolation of the arctic circle,
and of a great coalfield from which Europe may draw its fuel long after its own
coal has been exhausted. It was a tale of men who are living a lonely, wild
life in the frozen north, where no other human being sets foot, and where only
the polar bears roam in the utter solitude. It was a tale of dead menʼs
bones.
Across the Essex
marshes and the cornfields ready for the harvest, the setting sun was flinging
long shadows from the trees, and the air was filled with a glamorous light and
with the scent of moist earth after rain showers. Sitting there in the peaceful
garden, it seemed to me the strangest thing to hear the story of romance and
adventure from one of the chief characters in its plot. There are three
principal characters in this new ʼTreasure Islandʼ story of real
life. One is the Rev. Mr. Gardner, rector of Goldhanger, a sleepy little
village of Essex, whose greatest excitements have been a wedding, a birth, and
a death. The second is Dr. Salter, of Tolleshunt DʼArcy, three miles from
the rectory of Goldhanger. The third is Mr. Ernest Mansfield, a musician, a man
of letters, a great traveller, and a mining engineer, who is the neighbour and
friend of the rector and the doctor. Surely Stevenson or Quiller-Couch would
have chosen just such men as these to be the characters in a story of gold and
dead menʼs bones in a far-off island?
-The
Clergymanʼs Discovery-
It was the
clergyman who was the cause of the discovery which led these three friends in
Essex to share an amazing secret. It seems strange enough that the rector of a
rural parish should travel into the arctic regions for a summer holiday, but
stranger things than that were to follow. The Rev. Mr. Gardner, acting upon the
expert, advice of his engineering friend, brought back from his voyage pieces
pf quarts and rock, and specimens of sand, and mud, and shingle from the arctic
coast. To him they were meaningless. He smiled as he thought of his strange
baggage. But one night there was a thrilling sense of mystery and excitement
when the three friends gathered round these little heaps of rubble in the
sitting room at the rectory.
Mr. Mansfield pored over these pebbles and bits of rock, held them up to the light, and examined them closely. ʼWell?ʼ said his friends, ʼGoldʼ, he said, ʼor Iʼm a Dutchman.ʼ Gold! It seemed incredible. Here in the little Essex parlour was a secret of amazing possibilities and importance. The specimens were sent to London to be tested. The report that came confirmed Mr. Mansfieldʼs opinion. The sand brought back by the clergyman was what is known as ʼpay gravelʼ, the washing down of a gold deposit. The three friends formed a private syndicate, and Mr. Mansfield went out to Spitzbergen to prospect more closely and take out a claim. He found that a party of Americans were in advance of him, but they entered into friendly relations, and the Americans went further up the desolate coast, where they have pegged out their own claim and have now established a small township engaged in coal digging with good results. The details of what Mr. Mansfield found must still be kept a secret, says Dr. Salter, although it can no longer be hidden that there are the most astonishing indications of gold and an in exhaustible coal supply in this unexplored territory of the frozen north. One great difficulty now faced the village pioneers. From whom were they to get the full right to take possession of minerals in this region? No flag of any nation flies over its barren rock. It is a ʼNo Manʼs Land.ʼ
The 1913 prospectus reveals
that the Rev. Gardnerʼs brother, Dr F. G. Gardner, also participated on an
NEC expedition in 1912 as the company doctor and wrote a report which is
reproduced in the prospectus. Seven years later in 1920 Doctor Gardner wrote a
letter to The Times (18.12.1920) extolling the virtues of the Spitsbergen
climate and its potential for further exploration.
The death of his son Eustace
A newspaper cutting from
December 1912. . .
Parish Magazine articles
What appears to be a
complete set of Parish Magazines in bound form covering all of the period when
the Revd. Gardner was Rector are held in the Local Studies section of
Colchester Library (ref: E.GOL.1). It is possible that this book belonged to
the Rector and was placed there by his family after his death. There are many
articles within it clearly written by him, and which reflect his strong
personal views. Here are some examples. . .
The Revd. Gardner wrote in the parish magazine in
1895. . .
Where are the men on Sunday
mornings? I need not ask. They shuffle in at the fag end of an idle day and
think this is fitting to the Lord.
Morbus Sabbaticus, or Sunday
sickness, is a disease peculiar to non-Churchgoers. The disease comes on
suddenly every Sunday; no symptoms are felt on Saturday night, the patient
sleeps well, eats a hearty breakfast, but about church-time the attack comes
on, and continues till the services are over for the morning, then the patient
feels easy and eats a hearty dinner.
In the afternoon he feels
much better and is able to take a walk on the wall and talk politics, but about
church-time he gets another attack and stays home. He retires early, sleeps
well and wakes up on Monday morning refreshed and able to go to work, and does
not have further symptoms of the disease until the next Sunday.
Parish magazine of September 1896:
Great trouble is taken at
each choir practice to fix in the minds of the choristers the correct time for
each hymn and canticle; and if the congregation will take the lead from the
organ and choir, instead of singing faster or slower the music results will be
greatly improved; the Church being small, any conflict of opinion on this point
is often painful.
The Rector with Lt Totham
choir
Parish magazine of September 1915:
We are passing through very
difficult and searching times - we feel the strain and stress of it all, her in
our little corner, perhaps as much as anyone, with 60 to 70 troops billeted on
us for their machine gun training - Goldhanger usually so peaceful and quiet,
with its people pursuing their path of Duty to God and to their Neighbour. All
is now changed for a season. We are suddenly called upon to entertain a body of
men who are shortly going forth to face possibly death and hardships. Let us be
faithful in the discharge of our high duty towards them, we must be true to our
Manhood and Womanhood in this matter. We must be careful to set before them a
high standard of example in all matters of conduct.
Those who are lodging
soldiers have no right to let the increase of labour oust God from His place.
His claims upon us are the same as before. And then there are such places where
no good girl should be seen. Good Mothers will see that their daughters avoid
late hours at night, and above all be more than ever careful over the perilous
intimacy that arises between those who are ʼKeeping Companyʼ. And
lastly - doubtful or loose conversation - look upon it as so much ʼpoisoned
gasʼ coming from the ranks of the enemies of God.
Parish magazine of March 1916:
Our Airmen
It falls to the lot of some
of us just now to receive into our homes the Kingʼs soldiers and for the
moment the Kingʼs airmen. It comes as an opportunity of doing ʼour
bitʼ for the men on whom our Countryʼs welfare depends. It carries
with it a great responsibility. These men have left their own homes and
friends. It becomes our duty to make for each man ʼa home away from homeʼ.
We should think what kind of a home we should like our own boy to have if he is
in billets, and we must try to give the men with us just what we would wish him
to have, viz., the simple homely things - the words of welcome - a cup of tea
perhaps at odd times -the drying of clothes on wet days - the friendliness of
letting them feel that our fireside is theirs too.
But there is a greater work
to be done. Many a soldier thanks God for the woman, who, by a kindly outspoken
word, helps him to keep straight and clean in his new life. It is our best men
who go to the front. There are two things that give a man a chance of being one
of the best - the fear of God and respect for woman - and you can help in this
by being the very best kind of woman yourself.
You may be giving these men
the last bit of home life they will ever know on earth. In a home where grace
is said before and after meals - no bad words, or queer talk allowed because
you are not used to it, where the men are encouraged to wait on themselves on
Sunday morning because your church and communion calls you. You will be doing
your part to help these men, as nothing like the influence of a good woman can,
to become purer and better fitted to carry out what their country expects of
them. How glad you will be if, when they go out, they can look back on your
home (perhaps their last home) with affection and respect.
Parish magazine of July
1919:
A Warning
It has become increasingly
the fashion for some years past for a host of ungodly people to come and squat
themselves in our midst for the greater part of the summer. They get themselves
billeted in the houses of our people, who are expected to wait on them both
week day and Sunday. Now for the most part these people have no use for the
House of God, nor yet for the sacraments, and moreover they are of small
benefit to anyone here.ʼ He then goes on to castigate his parishioners for
using all this waiting on the ungodly on Sundays as an excuse for not coming to
church. One wonders who these ʼungodlyʼ people were, perhaps casual
workers for the harvest and fruit picking. One also wonders why the villagers
felt they had to wait on the lodgers all day.
Parish magazine of 1926:
Dear People, I am leaving
for South Africa on December 10th, sailing that day from Southampton, and Mrs,
Gardner will accompany me, hoping thereby to escape the worst of the winter
weather and be where the sun shines, which to me means so much. This involves
being away for Christmas and is my chief disappointment. Anyway I am taking
every care that all will go on as usual, and below you will see the
arrangements that have been made for that happy Festival. I have asked the Rev.
O. W. Clements, Deputation Secretary to the London Association for the Blind,
to help me while I am away. I have arranged for a Childrenʼs Christmas
Tree and I should like to see a Parochial Tea in each Parish the same evening,
run in connection with it. Take particular notice of the Christmas services and
try to make faithful use of them - an Advent well spent is your best
preparation. taking to heart its solemn reminder. May God bless you ail with
the joys of a Happy Christmas.
I shall be 6,000 miles away
when you make your Christmas Communion, when I know you will bear me in mind
before the Altar, as I shall you in mine. I expect to travel another 5,000
miles over land when I reach South Africa, so there will be something to tell
you when I get back. I hope to reach the old Country again on February 7th,
home in good time for Lent.
Yours ever affectionately,
F.T.
Gardner.
The Goldhanger War Memorial
The Rector lost his son Cyril in the Great war and
he was largely responsible for the building the war
memorial at the front of St Peter’s Church, which the East Anglian Daily
Times referred to in 1939 as ʼthe impressive and noble war memorialʼ.
The memorial is probably the Rectorʼs most lasting public legacy.
From the Parish magazine in September 1918. . .
War Memorial
The time has arrived when we
should be thinking about this all important matter. There is no doubt we shall all
want to do our best. All will feel that no sacrifice we can make will be a
sufficient compensation to commemorate the noble lives laid down from this
parish in the Greatest War the world has known and for the most righteous
cause. Our Memorial is to commemorate the greatest event in history. It will be
our proud privilege here to bear witness through our memorial to generations
yet unborn, to the pride as well as the gratitude our brave sons have called
forth by their wonderful sacrifices and their glorious deeds which have saved
the world. A preliminary Public Meeting will shortly be held at which it is
hoped everyone will be present.
In January 1919 seventy
residents attended the first War Memorial meeting. A target of ₤400 (=₤13,000
today) was set by the Rector and he gave the first & largest donation of ₤100.
There were about 200 subscribers in total. They were all named in the PM with
the amounts they gave. The smallest amount was one shilling (=₤1.50
today). The second largest amount was ₤20 from a Mrs Armstrong (probably
the mother of pilot Sidney Armstrong). ʼMrs Gardnerʼ (presumably the
Rectors wife or mother) paid the final ₤20 to reach the ₤400
target.
The East Window in Lt. Totham Church
dedicated to the Rectorʼs son Cyril
The window is inscribed:
To the Glory of God & sacred to the beloved memory of Cyril
Gower Gardner Lieut. Grenadier Guards
born July 30th 1897, who fell in the Great War at the battle of
the Somme on Sep 15th 1916
and was buried on the battlefield at Morval France.
Elder surviving son of the Revd Fredk Gardner Rector of this
parish.
ʼGreater love hath no man than thisʼ
R.I.P.
The Parsonage and Parish Room at
Goldhanger
In 1912 the Rector had the Parish Room built on land
adjacent to the Parsonage, which he owned. Initially it had just one room, a
second room was added later.
The Parsonage and Parish
Rooms in Head St owned by the Rector
Influential friends
Two friends of the Rector
who probably had a major influence on his Spitzbergen
gold prospecting involvement have been identified. They are the Earl of
Morton and the Revd. Honourable Byron, who was Rector of Langford in the early
1900s who a relative of the famous poet Lord Byron. From a parish magazine
article we know that in 1898 Frederick went to the Earl of Mortonʼs home
in Ardgour in Scotland for a holiday or to convalesce, and we know that his 3rd
Expedition to Spitzbergen in 1906 was with the Earl of Morton on his yacht.
There are photographs of the Rector with the earl on the yacht in... www.douglashistory.co.uk
The Revd. Hon. F.C. Byronʼs name appears on a
map of Spitsbergen signed by Ernest
Mansfield and dated 1905, alongside ʼthe ʼGardner areaʼ, the
J H Salter area, the Hon. Douglasʼs area and the Earl of Mortonʼs
area. . .
Presentation of a book to ʼTeacher
Lilyʼ
As Rector he always had a
major involvement with the village Church of England School, which was built by his predecessor
the Revd C B Leigh. In 1900 he presented popular ʼTeacher Lilyʼ (Miss
Clark) with a copy of the childrenʼs smuggling story book entitled: ʼGoldhanger
Woodsʼ the book with the inscription remains with a member of Teacher Lilyʼs
family. . .
cover the actual book and
inscription on the inside cover,
together with a school photo
of the Rector with his dog, teacher Lily on the left and the headmistress on
the right
The Rectorʼs daughter Angela
A newspaper report from
1927. . .
More memories of the Rector and his
family
In the 1930s the Revd.
Gardner daughter Cynthia had a pilots licence and used a grass airstrip
alongside The Avenue/DʼArcy Rd (now part of Maldon Rd).
On special occasions in the
early 1930s, when the Revd Gardner was incumbent at the Rectory
(now Goldhanger House), he would give out buns at the front door of the
Rectory. Schoolchildren would queue for their bun then run around the house,
through the bushed and re-join the queue for a second bun.
In the 1930s Revd. Gardner
refused to allow overhead electricity cables to be used around the village or
cross his land, so underground cables had to be installed at much greater
expense, and today the village still benefits from this. However, an overhead
cable does cross the front of the Churchyard, presumably to avoid disturbing
the graves.
In later life, when the
Revd. Gardner was more severely affected by motor neuron disease, he spent much
of his time in a wheelchair. People remember him being pushed in a wheelchair
down Church St. from the Rectory to the Church by his man-servant (probably
John Buckingham), and the locals would stand and doff there caps as he passed.
He frequently conducted services and gave sermons while seated in the
wheelchair.
The Revd. Gardnerʼs obituary in
The Times of 1936. . .
____________________
From the Parish magazine in 1936:
The Rev. F. T.
Gardner - An Appreciation
When I left Goldhanger for a
short holiday, leaving the Rector in better health than he enjoyed when I first
came, I little thought that I should be recalled so suddenly because of his
illness, and that I should not see him alive again. I had known hint for a very
short time, namely, six months, but in that time I had become very attached to
him, and learned to appreciate his many sterling qualities. Perhaps nearly
everybody in our two Parishes know him better than I did, and after his death
it was very touching to hear the many tributes that were paid to him by people
whose houses I visited. Most of these related to the late Rectorʼs great
kindness to those in trouble, distress or sickness. It is quite certain that
his good and charitable works were done for the most part in secrecy - in fact,
many people whom he had helped have told me that they were asked by him not to
say anything about his assistance. Even the members of his own family did not
know one half of his generosity.
He was a man of strong
character - he knew exactly what he wanted, and he had strong and definite
convictions about almost everything. In this present age, which is so
indefinite about most things, and which lacks real leaders, these were
noteworthy qualities - although they were not perhaps recognised by all as
such. It is quite certain that no man who does his duty will please everyone,
or will avoid hurting the feelings od some. The greatest saint or archangel
could not please everyone and do the work of God at the same time. For many
years the late Rector has suffered, and he had suffered the sufferings of his
family. All this he bore without complaint , nd indeed, in this he was a true
Priest and disciple of Christ, taking up his cross.
For forty-three years he was
Rector of the Parishes of Goldhanger and Little Totham. Thin is a good piece of
oneʼs life. Probably the majority of people in the two Parishes have never
know any other Rector in these places. For them it will be hard to realise that
he is no longer with them in the flesh. There is no need to record in full the
details of the funeral because this has been so ably done by the East Anglian
Press.
I to thank all those who
tank part in the all night watch, and showed their appreciation of the late
Rector in this way, and also those who attended the Requiem on the day of
burial. The Bishops of Chelmsford and Barking officiated at the burial at
Goldhanger, assisted by the Rev. J. Timmins, Canon I. L. Seymour, and the Rev.
N. Hudson. In the Church, the Bishop of Chelmsford, in a very concise address,
paid a moving tribute to the outstanding qualities of the late Rector.
It cannot be stressed too
clearly that the Rev. F. T. Gardner was not in Church matters a ʼparty
man.ʼ He believed with all his heart that the Church of England was the
true Catholic Church of Christ in England, as indeed we all profess when we
recite the Creed. Such unfortunate terms as ʼ high Churchmanʼ or ʼAnglo-Catholicʼ
were misnomers when applied to him. He claimed to be a loyal Churchman, and he
had a deep attachment to the Prayer Book and its services, and to the teaching
of the Church Catechism. He strove to be loyal to his Bishops and to the
teaching of the Church of England, as expounded in its official formularies.
N.
HUDSON.
The paintings in St Peter’s Church
These two large oil paintings
hanging in St Peter’s are dedicated to memory the Revd Gardner. They were known to
hang in the Rectory up until the Rectorʼs death and were subsequently
donated by his family to the church.
There is more about these...
Paintings in the church
These are digitally
enhanced low resolution versions.. . .
The Tenor bell in St Peter’s Church
In 1951 when the belltower was restored, a new 8cwt tenor bell was cast in
memory of the Rector and his wife Ethel Mary who had been Patron of the Church.
The bell is still in regular use. . .
Act of Remembrance and Thanksgiving
An act of Remembrance and
Thanksgiving was held on Sunday the 9th of September 2018 for the lives of
Revd. Gardner’s grandsons Richard and Nigel Gardner, both of whom sadly passed
away earlier in 2018. Richard had been a great help in our research into Goldhanger to Spitsbergen - Prospecting for Gold and
on Richard and Gay’s many visits to the UK had lent us many documents including
the two NEC prospectus's that came
from the Revd. Gardner’s Estate. This enabled us to complete the story and also
publish a Biography of Ernest Mansfield.
Revd. Gardner holding his Grandson Richard Gardner Nigel Gardner
A short service was held in
St. Peter’s churchyard beside the grave of the Rector and his immediate family.
Members of the current
family from around the world attended the ceremony...
The blessing of Richard and Nigel’s
inscriptions
On the 8th of June 2023 a
second Act of Remembrance and the blessing of Richard and Nigel’s inscriptions
on the large memorial stone in St. Peters churchyard...
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