I have just read a fourteen-page Wikipedia entry for a clergyman I had never heard of; it boasts 117 footnotes and tells me that Henry Raikes (1782-1854) became a powerful figure in the Diocese of Chester involved in many evangelical organisations including the Liverpool Auxiliary Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, the Lancashire Society for Promoting the Due Observance of the Lord’s Day, and the Church Missionary Society. He was also involved in the work of Chester’s Female Penitentiary, the Female House of Refuge, the Ragged School Society, the Mendicity Society, and more besides.
From
inheritance, his marriage settlement, and the considerable emoluments of high
office in the Church of England he died a wealthy man. But it was subscribers
who paid the stonemasons to erect an elaborate chest tomb and canopy over his
grave; it’s still there though knocked about a bit. The National Gallery will
sell you a reproduction of a steel engraving of the Chancellor of Chester;
Amazon offers a print on demand copy of his Remarks on Clerical Education
(1831). Such is his continued existence. He lacks only the upright Victorian
effigy.
Henry
married Augusta Whittington in 1809 at fashionable St George’s, Hanover Square;
they had five children, the youngest Emily born in 1820. Henry disapproved of
Augusta’s parents who had broken their marriage vows and legally separated; he
would not allow them to see their grandchildren. But the Wikipedia biographer
writes “Raikes’s married life was happy”.
I
had gone to the internet after transcribing a letter from Augusta written to
her husband during a holiday at Worthing in August 1820. She is answering Henry
who has written to express dissatisfaction with her as wife and mother; she
doesn’t come up to the mark and the mark is quite a demanding one.
I
am not the sort of person to amend a Wikipedia page but I offer Augusta in her
own words, possibly dormant for two centuries since Henry added to the letter a
business-like docketing note, “2d 22 July 1820”. I can do nothing
about the imminent tragedies: before the end of 1820, baby Emily dies followed
by her mother at the age of thirty-eight. Henry’s sister Charlotte took charge
of the four surviving children and lived with her brother until her death a few
months before his.
*
Transcription
Addressed
to: The Revd Henry
Raikes Burnham Maidenhead
Berks
Datelined: Worthing
Tuesday
Docketing
note: 2d 22 July 1820
I
promised you to write today dear Henry and I will tho’ you will probably
receive it only a few hours before I see you. I rejoice to hear all is well at
home but feel too much occupied by the rest of your letter to dwell on anything
besides. Tho’ you tell me you feel kindly tenderly for me there is apparent so
much that you do not like, the whole line of my conduct seems so forcibly
different from your wish, that my heart sinks & my mind is filled with
alarm – you will start here and [say] that this is my
way of taking your suggestions and that my pride revolts at being told I am
wrong. Far from it. I wish to know how I stand tho’ mortified to find the
truth, still I must be wrong but where to begin I know not. I look back to the
last ten days and cannot believe that this alone could cause what you have
written, besides unless I am most abismally blind to my own faults I really
know not wherein I have been wrong except in not sooner seeking an explanation
from you but you perpetually foiled the question by expressions
& looks of returning confidence & kindness and I have trusted all would
again be harmonious without any scene, and ignorant & blind as I may be,
believed at least that I speak the truth when I say that I felt you alone were
in fault and from delicacy hesitated to press you at a time when I knew you
were so much harassed & occupied with other things.
Little
could I imagine it was not the events of the moment that were causing you
anxiety but a review of what I should have called our past happy life – that
while I dreamt of peace & confidence you were lamenting that your poor
Augusta was not the wife, was not the Mother, you desired.
Once
more I must refer to your own words you say “if we are not taking pains to
please we are growing indifferent, & indifference is dangerous for it is
the very opposite of love”. I deny the charge altogether. I first awakened your
displeasure by my disappointment in not having you on this journey, was this
indifference? Had I been indifferent should I have cared. But it has ever been
my misfortune to be supposed to feel less than others. Happy would it have been
for me had it been so. You tell me again that you show more love for me by
urging me to exertions that are disagreeable but which will
make me valuable to others & precious to you, than you would by allowing me
to pursue a path that must ultimately separate our feelings
from each other. Here dearest Henry I am utterly at a loss to conceive your
meaning, what path am I pursuing, how am I acting, that the return to your
wishes & the hope of becoming valuable should be disagreeable to me.
I
am little able to speak with you, much less able to write, but I would feign
exculpate myself from any intentional wrong. My time &
thoughts are devoted exclusively to my family & that alone is sufficiently
large to occupy & interest a more enlarged mind than my own.
Accomplishments I never boasted when you thought I could make you happy; but
our awakened spiritual turn of mind I heartily desire and constantly pray for.
Here do I fall infinitely below you & your helping hand is wanted. Look
with tenderness on me who was not blessed like yourself with Religious parents
anxious to lead you in the path to Heaven but who caught all serious
impressions as it were by chance and tho’ I am far from thinking that any
excuse for the want of spiritual disposition now when I am capable of knowing
How & where to seek after those things which are alone necessary yet the
early impressions & regularly formed religious habits in which you were
bred will ever be wanting and make my path more difficult, but do not think I
value them less - no on the contrary I covet them for my children beyond
measure & would not for the worlds neglect to instil into them that which I
hourly feel to be so essential & so wanting in myself.
I
have filled my paper & have in some degree relieved my own heart tho’ it is
impossible to feel happy until I am again at home & I could say restored to
your love but that cannot be yet in full confidence for your opinions cannot
change suddenly tho’ the kindness of your heart may lead you to promise me
peace.
Henry
is very well today but he suffered sadly yesterday & indeed all the night
before with the tooth-ache which ended in a very large swelling in his mouth
which broke before he went to bed & greatly relieved him.
We
were at Church on Sunday & Mr Irwin preached - but I have not seen
Monck nor indeed anyone. The coach goes from here at 10 so I shall be set down
at Burford Bridge at about 3 o’clock on Thursday. The carriage came last night.
Do not forget my shawl for I have nothing for the Tilbury [an
open carriage].
And
now God bless you my dearest Henry your dear Boy remembers you with the
tenderest affection as does your wife tho’ at the moment you will not readily
believe it yet have patience with a creature full of faults but whose heart at
least is right & earnest in desiring your friendship and believe that I am
Yr
affectionate AR
Endnotes
Wikipedia: Henry Raikes (1782–1854) was an English cleric…
Rev Chancellor Raikes reproduced under Creative Commons from his Wikipedia page
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