COVENTRY PROGRESS
By J. R. GLORNEY BOLTON
The limits which Bishop Chavasse and Bishop Gorton imposed upon their Cathedral-builder are curious ; but Sir Christopher Wren would have accepted them gladly. Into his first superb design for St. Paul's Cathedral Sir Christopher Wren could have fitted either a central pulpit or a central altar. - He would have put pulpit or altar in the auditorium, where it could stand immediately beneath the cupola which knit the dome together. The clergy, when ac- quainted with Wren's first design, protested. They said that it allowed no length of choir or chancel. The future King James the Second refused to endorse the plans, for they permitted no side chapel in which an altar could be placed against the east wall. In spite of his tears, Wren was compelled to amend his plans. Half a century earlier, he might have won the day. In most parish churches the communion-table then stood in the centre of the choir. In most Cathedrals and in the Chapels Royal, however, the communion-table stood at the east end. An exception was Glou- cester Cathedral, and when William Laud became its Dean he lost little time in persuading the Chapter to move the communion-table to the east end. He did not trouble to explain his action to the Bishop, or to the citizens of Gloucester. The deep offence which he caused might have warned the "busybody "—does any Oxford man seriously quarrel with Dr. Trevelyan's appellation?—to be more tactful and sympathetic in his dealings with his fellows. But it was Laud's tragedy to be invariably right. More than three centuries had to pass before an Anglican Bishop could envisage a Cathedral with a central altar.
With the scheme for a central altar goes another for a Christian centre within the Cathedral to be shared alike by Anglicans and the Free Churches. Whatever theological issues the Christian centre may raise—and, fortunately, they do not concern its Roman Catholic architect—Coventry's debt to her Nonconformist citizens must be frankly acknowledged. Consider, for instance, their -influence in 1843, the year which, as Dr. Gilbert Murray admitted in this week's Brains Trust, fell in a notable flowering-time in English letters, Charles Bray, an independent thinker and ribbon-manufacturer, is building up a school in Coventry's poorest neighbourhood. He wants education to be freely available to all Dissenters, however poor.
He tries to wear down the straight-laced opposition to his scheme which comes from Coventry's clergy. He is a fighter to the end.
When he hears that he has only a month,in which to live, he writes a postscript to his autobiography : "the opinions I have come to, however different from those usually hed, I am not now, at the last hour, disposed to change. They have done to live by, they will do to die by." His friends are the Quaker Cashes, the Methodist Sibrees and his theological opponent, Charles Hennell. A welcomed visitor from Birmingham is Joseph Parkes. He is the hard-fighting solicitor who rode into Birmingham with the crucial news that the Reform Bill was at long last to become law.
Into this very intellectual circle comes Mary Ann Evans. She knows that she was born for distinction. Time and againn, she climbs into the organ-loft at St. Michael's in the vain hope that Simms, the organist, will make her into a true musician. ...She turns from organ- playing to translating ; for in the wonderful literary year, 1843, Joseph Parkes can find nothing more remarkable than Strauss' Leben Psu. He insists upon a translation, and eventually the task falls to Mary Ann Evans. For two years she works wearily at the undertaking. Robert Owen and Emerson visit the Brays in Coventry, but the trans- lator is "Strauss-sick." Joseph Parkes stands by her and gives encouragement. He has the steadfastness becoming to a man who was the son-in-law of Joseph Priestley and the grandfather of Hilaire Belloc. In the end the task is done. Twelve years later Mary Ann Evans is world-famous as George Eliot, author of Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede.
With fame went the fatal breach with her family and with some of her Coventry friends. .George Henry Lewes persuaded her to write of the Warwickshire life which surrounded her childhood. He also persuaded her to live with him as his wife, and a Victorian who "lived in sin" was beyond the pale. The searchlight has• played upon the ladies whom Harriet Martineau gathered together for a discussion on George Eliot's conduct. On the whole the Coventry friends emerge with honour. Some were less flexible in their judgement than others. They meant, at least, to judge aright. A critical and intelligent Nonconformist influence continued in Coventry long after the luminous association with George Eliot had come to an end. Charles Gore found it a useful ally when he became Bishop of Worcester. The Dean of Windsor acknowledged the help which he received from the Coventry Nonconformists when, as Vicar and Sub-Dean of St. Michael's before the last war, he was seeking funds to enable Warwickshire to be separated from the diocese of Worcester. Fortunately, the links between Coventry and Wyrcester are not completely broken, for the present Bishop of Worcester is Dr. Wilson Cash.
When George Eliot followed Lewes' advice and learned to portray Warwickshire life, she ensured her posthumous fame. It is not a fair criticism of Dr. Gorton's scheme that it takes no account of the Dodsons. They still inhabit many of the Warwickshire farm- houses. They have little of the love of experiment and innovation which belongs, for instance, to the citizens of Liverpool. They were glad to find that the graceful spires of St. Michael's, Holy Trinity and St. John's withstood the blitzkrieg ordeal. As they wait for their train at Coventry, they aw, like Tennyson, still hang
"with grooms and porters on the bridge To watch the three tall spires."
They think, no doubt, that schemes for a new St. Michael's should wait until the war is over, until the war-workers now crowded into Coventry have gone home and until the Dodson menfolk have put off their uniforms and Warwickshire has had a chance of returning to its ancient and well-tried ways.
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