Shorter Notices
THE attractive Essex living of Thaxted fell to Conrad Noel in 191o. by favour of the quasi-Socialist Countess of Warwick, and as " the Red Vicar " of the headlines he held it for thirty years. A son of Roden Noel, poet and Court official, he had been curate to A. L. Lilley in Paddington and to Percy Dearmer at Primrose Hill, and was well known to I.L.P. audiences in the North, being the most ener- getic of Anglo-Catholic Socialists. The principles of Socialism, he believed, were clearly laid down by the Fathers of the Church, and he combined Maurician theology with a complete devotion to Catholic ritual. Bickersteth of Exeter (here oddly confounded with Ryle) re- fused him priest's orders on the somewhat absurd ground that he was both pantheist and Romanist. Conrad could not have escaped notoriety, for he delighted in giving shocks. • Year after year he flew the Red and Sinn Fein flags from Thaxted church, in cheery defiance alike of the parish and of the conflict between the emblems themselves. He wrote a revolutionist's Life of Jesus. He dictated his memories after losing his sight. They were left in the rough, _and some glaring mistakes stand uncorrected by Mr. Dark. Conrad Noel was a typical eccentric of his time—confident, vital and widely popular. A better book and a much better portrait might have been made if his remi- niscences had been woven into a compact biography.
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