Holy Trinity

As we have seen, in 1864 a group of clergy and laity bought the Holy Trinity advowson in order to create a Catholic minded parish in the centre of Bath. Not until 1890, however was it possible to present an appropriate candidate as Rector. This was Fr. Thomas L. Sissmore, who introduced Anglo-Catholic liturgy. Holy Trinity has since been seen as a centre of this form of worship for over 100 years. In 1903 the advowson was taken over by the Society for the Maintenance of the Faith, our present day patrons.

In 1908 a Confirmation service was held at which 38 candidates were presented to the Bishop of Bath and Wells. In his address he commented that the population of the parish had decreased due to people moving beyond its boundaries. A collection was taken and given to Glastonbury Abbey, even though as a free church, and with less parishioners than before, it was difficult for Holy Trinity to meet the costs of its own upkeep.

Such was the modesty of Fr. Sissmore that while he gave a full account of the church's history up to 1890, we have little information as to his own period as Rector; there must have been many changes following Holy Trinity's new orientation. On 19th January 1923 Fr. Sissmore left, having been appointed to the benefice of Witham Friary, Somerset.

On 24th May 1923 the Revd. Charles S. Cockbill was instituted at Taunton in the private chapel of the Bishop. During his ministry great progress was made. Sunday Masses and Evensong were well attended, while the relationship between Holy Trinity and the schools it ran improved.

The first of Fr. Cockbill's innovations came on Advent Sunday 1923. It was the replacement of Hymns Ancient and Modern by the English Hymnal. Not everyone was impressed!

In May 1925 the Lady Chapel was re-carpeted and prie-dieu chairs introduced - a gift from the congregation (the carpeting had to be replaced again shortly afterwards due to the perennial problem of flood damage). In August of the same year an aumbry was placed in the Lady Chapel, and on 1st September Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament commenced, a hanging lamp recognising the Real Presence.

On Christmas Eve 1925 Midnight Mass was celebrated for the first time, and in May of the following year there was another innovation: incense was used. In June 1927 the Stations of the Cross were presented to the church by Miss Janet Turner, as a thank-offering. In the same year the Rood-screen was completed, and the Revd. Prebendary Sissmore came to dedicate it on 9th December; the church was filled to capacity.

In 1928, in December, 9 Marlborough Lane was bought for £1750 as a permanent residence for the Rector of the Parish. The mortgage repayments continued to be a strain on church finances for some time.

We are fortunate in having most copies of the parish magazine from November 1927 onwards, and we are grateful to the unknown member of our church who took the initiative in keeping them. They not only record events, but also shed light on the inner, spiritual life of Holy Trinity. In November 1929 extracts were given from a letter written by the Bishop of Salisbury entitled "To Every Churchman". "We live in an age", he says, "conspicuous for two strangely incompatible qualities - self-confidence and bewilderment. The triumphs of science have made us self-confident. Men have lost their need, their consciousness of God. They expect scientific discovery to go on until all knowledge is achieved. Yet when things go wrong there comes a sense of bewilderment, a hunger for something which the material world does not give." Is this not as true now as it was seventy-four years ago?

In December 1929 Fr. Cockbill accepted the benefice of Digswell, Hertfordshire. In his farewell in the February 1930 magazine he writes: "The years spent at Holy Trinity will always stand out in my memory as the happiest I have ever had in my life." We are not only a congregation but also a family. The happiness which Fr. Cockbill experienced is here still: the years between us are bridged.

Fr. James McIntyre was instituted on 11th April 1930, so that the start of his ministry led straight into Holy Week, something of a challenge. He oversaw during his comparatively brief tenure the introduction of the Western Use; and before he left, a statue of Our Lady was placed within the church.

In his first Rector's Notes in the May 1930 magazine he brings out clearly the idea of Holy Trinity as a family, one which he is eager to serve. He is also eager to teach, and his teaching is both original and in simple words accessible to all.

In the same magazine there is an item regarding our church's links with the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, which Fr. McIntyre describes as including "scholars and thinkers of the very first rank". Among them was Fr. Biggart, C.R., who gave a series of lectures at the Guildhall in Bath in February 1931. Fr. Seyzinger, C.R. was quite a frequent visitor; for instance, he came in December 1930 to preach for the Dedication Festival. The Mirfield link is still strong; we have an area branch of the Fraternity of the Resurrection of which Fr. Graham Oakes is Chaplain and Secretary; he has been associated with the Community since the 1960s. Fr. Geoffrey Northcott, to whom this booklet is dedicated, was trained for the priesthood at Mirfield, and later became an Oblate of the Community.

Fr. McIntyre was concerned to move outwards from immediate parochial concerns to grapple with wider issues of vital importance to humanity. In September 1931 he devotes almost the whole magazine to threats to world peace - and this shortly before Hitler came to power. He identifies the un-Christian folly of the revenge taken on Germany after the First World War in the "wicked Treaty of Versailles, containing the seeds of many future wars." He attacks the "insane vengeance of reparation" - making Germany pay. He sets against this "our Lord's teaching about mercy and forgiveness", and calls for "a revolution in human thought and action led by Christ the revolutionary". How relevant the following is to our time: he speaks of "the vast burden of armaments" and "a search for security which is never attained". Possibly Fr. McIntyre's strong views gave offence to some, who may have felt that a parish magazine is for parochial matters; but is a priest not to proclaim Christ's words "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5.44; Luke 6.27)? The importance of this command, and the failure of all combatants to keep it, are brought home in the destruction of the building of Holy Trinity in 1942.

In 1932 Fr. McIntyre became Rector of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Lympstone, Devon, and friendly contact was kept with him for many years. Something of the personal reticence of this Doctor of Divinity is there in his message to the Holy Trinity congregation: "Please, some of you, remember me that day" - 6th April, the date of his Institution.

On 14th May 1932 Fr. Lionel Richards Lewis was instituted to the benefice of Holy Trinity by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, at the palace.

Even before his Institution, Fr. Lewis showed how keen he was to start a Holy Trinity Scout Troop, in addition to the existing Girl Guides, Brownies, and Wolf Cubs. He aimed at a camp in August 1932, commenting "to me, a campless summer is a poor and insipid affair!" Perhaps there has been an even greater change in the lives of the young over the past seventy years than is the case with adults. Money was scarce, and children had to make their own amusements. In 1932 most homes were without even a wireless. So organised activities, and a chance of a holiday away were of great benefit. Scout uniforms (14/- each = 70p) were provided for the poorer boys, and the camp charge of £1 (perhaps half a week's wage) was given to those who could not afford it. The first camp was held at Bratton, Wiltshire. Fr. Lewis encouraged the Scouts themselves to write accounts of the camps. In 1932 John Sims mentions "Mass or Exercises at 7 a.m." - muscular Christianity indeed. Ghost stories were told round camp fires, and our Church Parades so impressed the Bratton Scouts that they sent ours a "large bowl of stewed plums."

In 1933 the Scouts and Cubs were at Lympstone, where they enjoyed Fr. McIntyre's hospitality. There was quite a strong military element in camp activities, for example 2nd. L. Griffin refers to Fr. Lewis training the boys in Morse and Semaphore signalling. The last camp before the outbreak of war in 1939 was again held at Lympstone, and E. W. Pullin's account has the feel of our Imperial past. The camp was shared with Scouts from Tredegar - "33 strong to our 6". There comes a hint of censure: "The night of the (Welsh Scouts') arrival rather excited them, and the result: they were singing at 3 a.m." Pullin goes on condescendingly "however, they soon settled down". For the Holy Trinity Scouts victory at the camp sports, if hard fought, was inevitable: outnumbered by 27, Bath won.

Holy Trinity has from its earliest days always cared, spiritually and practically, for the poor, and this concern is to the fore following the Wall Street crash of 1929. In November 1930 the magazine refers to "the full force of the blast of economic storm". Things did not get better. By 1937 Fr. Lewis had to give up running his car. In July 1938 he wrote with some anger of the rapidly increasing number of unemployed in Britian - 1,777,805 (the figure reached 2,039,026 early in 1939). He singled out directors of companies and shareholders for their complacency, saying that "sooner or later they must plead their cause before the Judgment Seat of God". Holy Trinity's practical aid took many forms. There was a church Relief Committee to which all those living in the parish could apply. At 7 Norfolk Crescent the Diocesan Boys' Home housed twenty lads and trained them for work; the church gave help, appealed to others for support, and held a flag day. Aid was given to what were called "slum parishes", for example St. Saviour's, Hoxton, London, where conditions were described as grossly overcrowded and "dire", also the parishes of St. Peter's, London Docks; St. Michael's, Shoreditch; and St. John's, Isle of Dogs.

In the October 1939 magazine there is a solemn Rector's Letter following the outbreak of war on 3rd September. Fr. Lewis emphasises how much greater at such a time is the need for the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. He writes "The more evil and violence bestride the material world, the more vitally necessary it is for Christians to have their attention directed towards the unchanging principles of the spiritual world." Fr. Lewis urges the congregation to pray for "those of all nations" and the reunion of Christendom, and he writes of the "eternal truths in which we can find true hope and consolation amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life."

In the August 1940 magazine Fr. Lewis announced that he had accepted the benefice of St. Paul, Silloth, Cumberland. His final Rector's Letter appeared in September, in which he quotes Sir Thomas White, writing in 1566: "From the bottom of my heart, desiring the Holy Ghost may be among you and desiring Almighty God that every one of you may love one another as brethren."

There was an interregnum of six months between the departure of Fr. Lewis and the Institution of Fr. Hammond in 1941. The Revd. Arthur Thomas Hammond had only about a year's ministry before the destruction of the church. In his Rector's Letters there emerges a concern for his flock at a difficult time, which must have been a great support to them, together with earnest encouragement to concentrate mind and spirit on the things that are God's. In June 1941 Fr. Hammond refers to Bath in the bleakness of war: "Grey, drab streets, many of our people herded together like rabbits, no privacy, no silence, no beauty." This leads him to write of the place of the mother in society and as a religious teacher of her children. Too often the role of mother is disregarded at difficult times like those; there was rationing (and many mothers drew on their own meagre rations to supplement the diet of the rest of the family), the husband might be away in the forces (meaning a reduction in income), lodgers might be compulsorily billeted, and there was the constant fear of air raids. Fr. Hammond speaks of "heroic mothers who fulfil the living vocation of religious instructors despite these circumstances."

In August 1941 Fr. Hammond gives advice which is both spiritual and practical; "Give yourselves to prayer; offer the Mass; live at peace with God and Man. Do the small things well. Offer all through the Mass to God."

There were frequent calls for members of the congregation to serve as fire watchers, that is to spend part of the night in the church and during air raid warnings on its roof in order to deal with incendiary bombs. Quite apart from the danger, how hard that must have been to people who were cold and hungry, and with the extra duties of war time to fulfil.

The Rector's Letter in April 1942 is strikingly prophetic. He writes: "Let us commit today and tomorrow into the Hands of God, the Lover of Men, and seek to serve Him with a quiet mind. At the same time, we must be ready to surrender anything if He wills it." He even writes: "When everything which has sheltered us in the past seems to be toppling about our heads, and our hearts are tempted to fear, let us turn our eyes forward and upward towards God." How extraordinarily prophetic the Rector's words were on the very eve of the beloved building's destruction; but however great that loss, the Church of God is not of stone and mortar, and Holy Trinity would go on.

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