I then had a little unpleasant business with persons who claimed a right to freehold pews in the parish church. On the appointment of a new vicar these, with other abuses, were swept away. The living, returned at £400 a year, was in the gift of the lord of the manor; but as the Crown made former vicars into bishops, the patron had not for upwards of a century been able to exercise his patronage. He was most anxious to appoint a good man — broad, generous, and charitable, and a strong temperance reformer. As churchwarden I was present at his induction by Bishop Wilberforce, and my colleague said to me, "This is the beginning of a new church history in the parish.
A few Sundays after I was standing under the portico of the church looking on the Thames, when a cab drove up with the lord of the manor. He asked, "Is the vicar here?" I replied, "No, my lord, he is preaching this morning at the little iron church on the common." He inquired the way, and how far it was. "I shall be pleased to accompany your lordship." We talked about his appointment of the vicar, which had so far given great satisfaction.
I took the opportunity of saying, "During the unpleasantness about the common I was not actuated by any ill-feeling towards your lordship, and if I said anything which in calmer moments I should not have said, I hope your lordship will accept my humble apology. I believe your agent often misrepresented me to your lordship."
He replied, "I can quite understand your action in the matter, it is now all over. I am satisfied, and I hope the parishes concerned are satisfied. The best thing for all of us is to forget the past. Here we are."
His lordship looked round on cinder heaps and coal-heaps, and inquired, "Is this the common there has been so much trouble about?" "A part of it, my lord." He shook hands, entered the little iron church, and I returned to the parish church in time to hold the plate.
[PB: This "lord of the manor" was 5th Earl, John Poyntz Spencer. The new vicar was John Erskine Clarke, who took over from the deeply reactionary ? [find and add from my notes]. The church with the portico must have been St Mary's at Battersea. The cinder and coal heaps were probably those behind "New Wandsworth Station", rather than behind today's Wandsworth Common station (opened 1869?).The Bishop was "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce, son of the more famous father. Curiously he was born "between the Commons". Ridiculed by Thomas Henry Huxley for his facetiousness about Charles Darwin at the "Oxford Debates". The new vicar was John Erskine Clarke.]
But the "iron church"? At first I thought this was St Mary Magdalene or St Michael's, but Sue Demont has persuasively argued that it was St Mark's. [FIND AND ADD HER EMAILS.] SMM was first an iron church (brought from Leigham Court Rd in Streatham) before it was built in brick 1887-88. Also St Michael's on Bolingbroke Grove — was it iron at this time? (constructed 1872?). It was built in brick in 1881. ]
"To show this reconciliation was not a mere formality, a few years after, when my eldest son left Oxford, he gave him an appointment; and so ended an agitation which originated in weakness but ended in victory.
"If, when the two gravel diggers came to complain about their potatoes, I could have foreseen what was before me, I should never have written a letter to the newspapers.