Richardson Transcripts (CT35)
(The very Reverend Richard Thomas HOWARD, Provost Emeritus of Coventry, was born in 1884, and was
Provost for Coventry from 1933 to 1958. He talks about the Christian Church and personalities in the City during
that time.)
The Christian Church - by which I mean all the Christian Churches, in spite of their divisions, united in their
common loyalty to Christ and in their combined influence on the community - the Christian Church holds an
outstanding place in the history of the City of Coventry during the pre-war and post-war periods. The influence of
the Church by its very nature was largely hidden from public notice and public mention. This hiddenness is
actually the Church's natural milieu; when the Church seems publicly to be doing least it is often actually doing
most; when it is most self assertive and self advertising it's often least effective. Because the fact is that the
history of the Church does not take place primarily inside the Church buildings, or, even at the normal abnormal
act of worship, but in the practical daily Christian - repeat Christian - practical daily life of Christian men and
women who happen t o be City Mayors, Lord Mayors, Councilors, educationalists and teachers, industrialists
and workers, housewives, members of voluntary associations, who don't vocally parade their Christianity but
express it practically in their daily lives in Christian compassion and insights and service and policies. And it's all
this which makes it so difficult to assess and state and write up the history of the Church, side by side with the
public history of a great active city like Coventry. However, it can be done, and I would say, best done by
describing the activities of certain movements and certain personalities through which the Church presses out of
its hiddenness in anonymity into visible action and notice.
Well now, I have been asked to describe what I personally know of this history during my 25 years as Provost of
Coventry, 1933-1958. Let me then, describe these public Church movements and personalities over the course
of those memorable years.
In the immediate pre-war period the City of Coventry had the inestimable benefit of having resident in its midst,
as Bishop of Coventry, Dr Mervyn Haigh, a great man of extraordinary intellectual power and personal ability.
From time to time he would make public speeches about civic, national, or international matters which went
deeper than politics to the very heart of peoples' consciences. They were printed word for word in the press and
made all the citizens think hard. Though shy and reserved in manner he had a great capacity for friendship. He
made it his business and pleasure to make friends with the public men of the City at all levels and in this way he
became well loved and greatly respected. When in 1942, after an episcopate of twelve years, he left to become
Bishop of Winchester, he was given a Civic farewell by the City of Cov. Corporation in full session, and a public
farewell in the Central Hall attended and addressed by members of all the various Churches of the
denominations.
When I arrived as Provost in 1933 there was already in existence a Council of Churches called the Coventry
Christian Social Council such as had already come into being in most big towns and cities since the first World
War. In our case this Council was all the better for being a small body consisting of six Anglican Clergymen, and
six Free Church Ministers, and, if I remember rightly, an equal number of laity , representing all the Churches of
the City. Manifestos and pamphlets were carefully discussed, drawn up, and published which went as far as
possible in proclaiming what we believed to be the practical application of the principles of Christian justice and
love in the industrial and social problems of the times. In those days there were some people who thought we
had no business to interfere in matters not strictly confined to the Church. How old fashioned that sounds today!
Others thought we didn't go far enough. That perhaps is more up to date. But, by and large we did make a
definite contribution to that tide of public opinion which eventually came in like a flood bearing upon it the new
Welfare State.
One of the greatest and most public accomplishments of that original Christian Social Council was the
organisation in 1942 of a Religion and Life Week with famous speakers on various subjects relating to the
relation between religion on the one hand and the ordinary life of the people on the other. The star speaker was
undoubtedly Archbishop William Temple who has been classed with Churchill and Roosevelt as one of the three
greatest men of this century. After this Week the small Christian Social Council was enlarged to become the
Coventry Council of Christian Churches, composed of a number of lay and minister people, representatives of all
the churches of the City. This larger body naturally worked mainly through elected sub-committees and
commissions for bringing the influence of the Christian faith to bear upon various departments of City life . At this
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point to avoid confusion, it may be explained that this body is different in constitution, personnel and purpose
from the Joint Council of the Cathedral Christian Service Centre to be described later.
To me, personally, the chief value of that originally small Christian Social Council, was the opportunity which it
gave me of forming intimate personal friendships with the leading personalities among the Free Church Ministers
of that period. I could say much about that most beloved of men Ingli James, Minister of the Queens Road
Baptist Church, who spoke out with fierce and prophetic courage about war and the injustices and ungodliness
of the times. But I must single out above all others Leslie Cooke, the Minister of Warwick Road Congregational
Church who came in about 1938 and left in about 1945? We became fast mutual friends. No friend of his would
ever forget him. He was the most loving and lovable and Christian of men. He was a brilliant and moving
preacher, an orator by nature, whose powers of oratory [were] dedicated to preaching the gospel, not only the
gospel of personal salvation but the gospel of Christian social justice. He blazed his way through Coventry
life and left his mark upon the personal character and attitudes of many in the city before he was called out of it
into international service in the World Council of Churches. Before describing his part in the formation of the
Christian Service Centre I must, as it were, bring onto the stage Bishop Neville Gorton who followed Bishop
Mervyn Haigh in 1943 and served another remarkable episcopate for l2 years.
Neville Gorton was a great contrast to Mervyn Haigh - there could hardly be a greater. He was unconventional,
uninhibited, a passionate lover of people, and especially of the underdog, a hater of constitutions and of
hindrances to the free practical expression of the Christian faith. He came to be Bishop knowing that a new
Cathedral was about to be built and that he would have a leading part, along with the Provost, in the fashioning,
not only of the new building as such, but still more of its purposes. He believed that a Cathedral should exist for
the purpose not only of the worship of God in the building but of practical Christian service to the community of
the people of the city and diocese of Coventry.
Here let me say this much about myself, that, by this time in the mid forties I had been an ordained Minister of
the Anglican Church for nearly 40 years, and had served, not only overseas in India, but for the last 30 years in
England in great -urban centres of population a t Birkenhead, Luton and Coventry. There had grown up within
me during this whole period, with ever increasing urgency, an intense desire for Christian unity and for the
practical expression of the Church's faith in worship by means of service to the people. It thus came about, I
cannot but believe that it was under the divine providence, that just at this moment when a new Cathedral had to
be built for a new age to come, there were three men brought together in ardent fellowship and common
conviction who could co-operate together in a new venture of Christian unity and Christian social service. Bishop
Neville Gorton in close collaboration and willing agreement with Leslie Cooke and myself promulgated the plan
that came to be called the Scheme for a New Coventry Cathedral with a United Christian Service Centre
and a Chapel of Unity.
Notes
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