Alfred Earle

Extract from ‘The Diary of Alfred Earle’ by Andrew Amos

In October 1871 the Earles were home, the great experience come to an end. But, at the age of thirty-two, Alfred’s career in the Church was still at an early stage.  Now back in England he secured a curacy at the village of Assington, about ten miles to the north-west of Colchester in Essex. But he didn’t hold this position for more than a few months and by the following year the family had moved to the Isle of Wight. Curiously, at this point, there is no evidence that Alfred had any sort of connection with the church. But it was a happy interlude as, on 11″ August 1872 at 29 The Strand, Ryde, Alice gave birth to another son, and they named him Alfred Charles Harvey.

If there had been a break from his clerical duties it didn’t last long. In 1873 Alfred took on another curacy, this time at the village of Thornby in Northamptonshire. It was another short-term position. He had time to officiate at just one marriage, probably his first in England, tying the knot between an agricultural labourer, William Cox, and one Sarah Halford.

It is probable that since his return from the Americas Alfred had taken on temporary curacies while hoping for a permanent position. If so, it would appear that later in 1873, he found what he was looking for. He was appointed curate to the Church of St George at Fovant, which lies just a few miles to the west of Salisbury in Wiltshire, and would work under the rector, Reverend Wellesley Pole Pigott.

Fovant is a peaceful little village attractively set in the broad green valley of the River Nadder. It was here that the Earles remained for the rest of their married lives.

To our knowledge, Alfred kept no diary since returning to England. But we are left with a large number of posters, notices and other pieces of paper, all meticulously pasted into the spare pages of the same log-book he used to record his voyages. These give a colourful indication of the many events and entertainments, both Church-based and secular, which were available to the parishioners of Fovant. The Church Hall must have been one of the busiest buildings in the village with frequent concerts, lectures and meetings, and through the Church itself came a variety of religious and philanthropic activities. From Alfred’s scrapbook record of Fovant we are also able to glean a little of the man himself and a few details of his later life.

For example, we learn that on Thursday 14th October 1875 Fovant Church hosted a major choral festival which was organised by the Salisbury Diocesan Choral Association. A large number of clergy attended and there were choirs from six local churches totalling 114 choristers. It was a great success and thanks were given to Alfred and Alice Earle for their part in organising the event.

Raising money for the Church was, of course, a duty of every good clergyman. By 1866 a new organ had been purchased and subscriptions were now being invited for new church bells. Alfred had extended his appeals deep into his own family. A list of subscribers reveals that Alfred’s mother, Ann, had donated £15, his sisters had donated £5 each, a cousin, Joseph Earle and his wife had given £12, while Alfred himself had donated £5. A new bell was eventually purchased and rung for the first time on Christmas Day 1876.

Alfred’s mother died in 1884 (her estate was valued at over £57,000) and in 1885 Alfred provided Fovant with its village hall at a cost of around £200. It was described as a ‘corrugated iron building’, capable of seating around 200 people. During the winter evenings it was used as a reading room and at other times it was used for entertainments and parish meetings.

The parishioners of Fovant clearly felt a great deal for Alfred. During the Easter of 1885 they presented him with two gifts, one, a ‘handsomely bound volume of ancient and modern hymns for use in the church’, the other, an ornamental treble burner lamp to light the church porch on dark evenings. Although the lamp was intended for the church, it was presented as a memento of the great respect in which Alfred was held by his parishioners. It was donated, according to a newspaper, ‘as an expression of appreciation of the kindly interest he had always taken in their welfare irrespective of creed or party’.

On Easter Sunday the lamp was lit for the first time and at the close of the evening service Alfred thanked the people of Fovant. He said he would never forget their kindness and added that although he had once thought of leaving Fovant he had now decided to stay with his parishioners as long as he lived. He was true to his word.

One very active society was the Fovant Mothers Meeting, and fund-raising was one of its objectives. Alice Earle was one of the three managers of the society. During the year 1886-87 it boasted forty-one members and Alice, as one of its subscribers, donated £2.

There was also the Fovant Union Friendly Society, its function to raise money for the benefit of its members in times of sickness. These were the days before state welfare when illness could threaten financial ruin to all but the most wealthy or privileged. Friendly societies provided a sort of insurance and had become commonplace by this time. Fovant Union Friendly Society had eighty-eight members in 1887.

The annual Sunday School treat was another high point in the calendar. In earlier years it had been organised by the rector but by 1888, Alfred and Alice were doing much of the work. In that year we find that the treat began with an address given by Reverend Harrison of nearby Baverstock. This was followed by sports and dancing to the Fovant Brass Band. Afterwards came tea, and various prizes were presented.

There was a pleasant surprise for Alfred and Alice towards the end of the proceedings. What was described as a ‘handsome’ silver sugar basket and tongs, a crimson table cover and a posy of flowers were presented to the couple by the teachers and pupils of the Sunday School together with the children in Alfred’s Bible class. There was a presentation speech and Alfred replied, referring ‘to the pleasure of Mrs Earle and himself at the unexpected kindness shown them.’

For Alice especially, life had certainly undergone a huge change but there are several clues in Alfred’s log book that suggest that links with North America had not been entirely severed. Alfred’s friend, James Kelly, whom he had accompanied on the mission ship Star and had become the bishop of Newfoundland, appears to have preached at Fovant Church on 19th February 1885. But the visit probably wasn’t completely unexpected. Kelly, himself an Englishman, had just returned to Britain to take up the post of Bishop of Moray, Ross, and Caithness.

Then there is a cutting from a newspaper, faithfully pasted into Alfred’s log book, reporting on Fovant’s Harvest Festival in 1886. The ladies who decorated the church are found to include the Misses Harvey, surely Alice’s North American sisters.

Alice’s father, George, paid several visits to England. He had retired from business in Halifax in 1876 at the age of sixty-two and around this time, having been a widower for twelve years, had married the widow of a Mr Turpin of Philadelphia. They lived in a country home at Bethayres in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. George enjoyed his retirement to the full and travelled widely.

It is unlikely that the Earles ever returned to America as a family although Alfred did make a transatlantic visit in 1889 when he was in his fiftieth year. He was accompanied by his sixteen-year-old son, Alfred. They left Liverpool on 28th May aboard the Allan Line’s Nova Scotian.

Alfred and Alfred junior did not spend very long in North America and we have no diary to record the occasion. They were certainly home by 1890 when, after the death of the Rector, Reverend Pigott, Alfred accepted the offer of the benefice of Fovant. There was a memorial service for the late rector on 4th March of that year which took place at Bemerton, on the outskirts of Salisbury, where Reverend Pigott also held the living.

It seems that, for several years, Alfred had been regarded as the primary minister for Fovant. This was probably because the two ministers divided their work, Alfred being largely responsible for Fovant where he lived and Pigott concentrating his attention on Bemerton where he lived. Certainly, as early as 1881, it was the Earles who, together with three servants, were living at the Fovant Rectory. It was a household that included their son, the junior Alfred, and also their daughter, Mildred, who would remain living with her parents into her adult years. Nowhere, incidentally, do we find any reference to their other son, Willie.

Alfred was afflicted by a much greater sadness just two years after the death of the Reverend Pigott. In the spring of 1892 Alice fell ill with pneumonia. She died on 11th May after an illness of just nine days. She was only forty-four years old.

Alfred, at the age of 52, was not prepared to remain a widower. A little over a year after Alice’s death there came an unexpected turn of events. On July 18th, 1893, Alfred re-married. His bride was Rhoda Wyndham, the youngest daughter of another man of the cloth, Reverend John Wyndham, Rector of Sutton Mandeville, the nearest village to Fovant.

If the parishioners of Fovant were surprised by what could only be seen as a sudden marriage they would have been even more surprised to learn that Alfred had taken a bride who was a mere twenty-five years of age. Tongues must have been wagging.

But the joys of his new marriage were not to last beyond five years. In 1898 Alfred’s own health began to fail. He was forced to resign his living at Fovant and conducted his last services in Lent of that year. He moved to a home at Elm Grove in Salisbury where he died on his sixtieth birthday, Sunday 2° July 1899. The cause of death was given as Uraemia, the result of kidney failure.

Alfred was buried in Fovant churchyard on Wednesday 5th July in the presence of a very large number of villagers.

Alfred Earle’s son, to give him his full name, Alfred Charles Harvey Earle, had followed in his father’s footsteps and entered the Church having been educated at Lancing and Salisbury Theological College. Unlike his father, however, he never married.

In 1896 the younger Alfred became a chaplain in the Dorset village of Gillingham. By the year 1901 he was living in Dorchester with his sister Mildred. In 1907 he became the Rector of Mapperton near Beaminster in Dorset where he remained until his death at the age of 72 in 1944. Most of his effects were sold by auction. Amongst them was an old log book.