Sybil Brand recalls some of the colourful characters who came to Mersea Island as vicar, curate or minister.

On the flyleaf of my Great Grandfather Thomas Brand`s Bible are the names of his nine children, seven boys and two girls, and underneath is this note:

" All the above were Baptized at the Parish Church of West Mersea by Rev Nathl Foster".

Complaints are made now about the uniformity of this machine age, but Nathaniel Forster ( Forster is the correct spelling - read it above the entrance door just inside the Church) was one of the colourful characters of last century. This is what Willoughby Bean said of him in an Essex County Standard article of August 1928:

"During the latter part of Thos May's ( died 1843) life, and for some eight years after, the vicarial tithes were in the hands of the Rev N. Forster who was the Rector of East Mersea and curate of Little Wigborough, who preached at one service at each of the three churches, lived at what is now called the Old Rectory, East Mersea, was a 'sporting parson' ... used to drive a bull harnessed to his chaise which was tethered to the Churchyard palings while service was held at West Mersea Church.

"Tradition says he had at Little Wigborough a church clerk who could not read, so Forster used to nudge him with his elbow when it was time to say Amen. Also he had a box full of sermons and some of his congregation got to know them by heart.

"He lived to be about 80, was thought highly of by many, and was buried in a vault just against the vestry at West Mersea".

According to Whites 1863 Directory of Essex the Rev E.F. Ventris, MA, was the West Mersea incumbent then. I know nothing of him, but the only church music would be provided by a barrel organ which ground out a certain number of tunes and then, like Mr Forster`s sermons, started its repertoire again. My father knew of this instrument, if it can be dignified by such a name.

Soon after Mr Ventris came the Rev Thos R. Musselwhite. In 1879 he was elected first Court Trustee to Court Sailors Home, the local branch of a Friendly Society.

Mr Musselwhite was always honoured with a short concert on the lawn of Kingsland House when the members, resplendent in their regalia paraded the village with a band on their annual feast day.

A later vicar, the Rev Yorick Smithies, is commemorated in one of our roads. He and the local squire, Thos Gilbert of Orleans, disputed the right of way past West Hall, then the only road leading to the beach. Gilbert won the day but was magnanimous enough not only to open up to the public two roads leading to the beach but to name one after his opponent. The second road was Beach Road.

Mr Smithies was a fine tall man with a tiny wife. The pair drove in a low pony chaise followed by school children lured by the apples showered on them. This Pied Piper shook the boughs of a sweet chestnut tree standing on the site of the present primary school for their benefit, too.

The Rev. C. Pierrepont Edwards
- the fighting parson

I expect the parson of my childhood came next, the Rev C. Pierrepont Edwards. Over The Years he earned the title of The Fighting Parson, serving with the Essex Yeomanry in the Boer War and as a curate in the London`s East End, ready to settle a dispute between costers with his fists, if necessary.

Finally an episode at Mersea fixed his title. A barrel organ was playing outside his house while Mrs Edwards was having a bout of neuralgia. The organ grinder was asked to move on. To Mr Edwards` astonishment his black straw hat was bashed in with a blow from a man`s cudgel. The police intervened and took the culprit away.

In his early days at Mersea Mr Edwards wasn`t over fond of Nonconformists. Two personable young Church Army officers held a mission and fraternised with all denominations.

I can hear now the faint tinkling of a musical box at one house where they were invited to tea. A sailor son from the crew of the Duchess of Bedford`s yacht AMETHYST brought it home. This was the chorus of the tune. All I can remember:

"She`s not so very pretty nor born of high degree.
But there`s only one girl in this world for me."

No, this fraternisation did not please the vicar but later the climate changed. He was the guest speaker at the Union Church while the Rev W. J. Juniper was minister, his subject being the reserve and crustiness of Essex country people. He observed they took some knowing. Perhaps he did, too!

Pastor Charles Cock - the farmer pastor

A tablet to the left of the pulpit in the Union Church commemorates Charles Cock, the farmer pastor there for 31 years, who died in 1896. During those 31 years he took no salary for his services as a pastor.

The 1863 Essex Directory says the Union Church was rebuilt in 1841 under his ministry. The date of rebuilding is correct but I don't think Mr Cock`s ministry could have started so early - this early date does not tally with the tablet.

After moving to Mersea, Mr. Cock became such a prosperous farmer that his neighbours said: "If Charles Cock sowed wheat on the top of his barn it would grow".

By this time, Great Grandfather Brand`s allegiance had been transferred from the parish church to the Union church.

Another entry in his Bible says:

" Mary Ann Brand, the mother of these children, was born Dec 13th, 1785, died Sept 3rd and was Ent at West Mersea Meeting House on Sept 6th, 1827."

Anyone who knows Mersea will associate the square building of the Union Church with a Quaker Meeting House, and that was Great Grand - father`s name for it.

My father, born in 1853, could remember driving home from service there when quite a small boy with his grandfather and a Mr Polley who had been the preacher. This Mr Polley would be connected with the family who owned a quality drapers shop in Crouch Street, Colchester, before the days of multiple stores.

A string orchestra provided the music for the hymns. I`ve heard Dad speak of the members who played bass viols, `cellos to us now, sitting in the gallery which is still there.

The Rev Thos Watson who followed Mr Cock was a Scotsman. His speech was strongly flavoured with the Doric. When making a fresh point in his sermon he always said "Nottis" (notice) again."

I went to Band of Hope meetings at the Union Church in Mr Watson`s time; 60 years ago the East End slogan "drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence" wasn`t many years behind us. We used to sing and recite and, one dark moonless night, the boys stretched a rope across the road which, of course, we tripped over to their great delight.

The lay preachers of the early days in the Methodist Church were, according to my mother, highly individualistic, not to say eccentric. One mopped his perspiring forehead on hot days with a red handkerchief and another who disapproved of college training for ministers delivered himself, in a sepulchral voice, of this dictum: " I don't want none of your poll parrot prattlin."

In contrast, at the 1961 Centenary, the minister was an Oxford graduate who had also studied at the Sorbonne.

My grandfather, Geo Pullen, and great uncles John Ward and John Woodward, were founder trustees of this church.

In 1900 the list of trustees reads like a miniature Colchester Chamber of Commerce - Thos Marriott Locke, Richard Wincup Cullingford, Nehemiah Sands and Robt Nightingale.

Some years ago I met one of T. M. Locke`s elder grandsons at the door of the store, dressed in a dark grey suit with tail coat and wearing an old fashioned winged collar. When I mentioned one of his younger brothers he said in his quaint way. "I belonged to the first litter."

He was born in the days when both boys and girls wore pinafores and remembered holding his little pinafore to catch grapes cut from a vine on a public house adjoining his father`s shop. This, I felt, was a precious glimpse of the past to be chronicled before the name of Locke is over - shadowed and forgotten.

Robert Nightingale was first an auctioneer and then a tailor followed in the latter business by his son Arthur. Many Colcestrians will remember Arthur Nightingale`s shop on North Hill. Robert brought the first Gipsy Smith, father, I suppose, of the famous Gipsy Rodney Smith, to Mersea.

Another lay preacher, Mr G., prayed in rich rolling sentences elaborately constructed. I used to be terrified he`d come to an abrupt stop. But, no, I triumphed with him as he successfully threaded a way through a labyrinth of words to his conclusion. Only once did he slip up. He prayed we should be satiated with Divine Grace, not quite the word he wanted.

Sister Emmeline came from the West London Mission now headed by Lord Soper, and was a famous raconteuse. There were gales of laughter when she told the story of one of her mission meetings.

A young man in the gallery was eating and making plenty of noise about it. She stopped dead in her discourse. "When that young man in the gallery has finished his supper, I`ll go on."

As a shy child of nine I held out the wrong hand for shaking hands but she made no comment and held out her left hand. That small incident endeared her to me.

These missions would finish with a tea with winkles given and cooked by members.

Mrs Jael Dixon, joint caretaker with her husband, always produced a paper of specially large pins, blanket pins, to coax the winkles out of their shells. If you weren`t a winkle lover there was always fruit cake made by the local baker, a special treat for we children.

As my father was a steward we were on the roster for entertaining both ministerial and lay preachers for the day. My two elder sisters were stern critics of behaviour. Tidying the bedroom after one young man`s ablutions ( we had no bathroom) the younger came downstairs, head in air.

"I don`t think much of that young man, he`s washed his hands and left the dirt on the towel."

That young man, the Rev G. Bramwell Evans, still had a touch of the school-boy then. In later life, he was Romany of the BBC`s Children`s Hour.

Would you exchange these shepherds, eccentric or lovable as they were, for dull uniformity?

This article appeared in Essex County Standard 19 February 1971. it was transcribed by Joe Vince July 2025.

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