Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould: "squarson dilettante" (1834-1924).

In 2003 a contributor to the Borneo Research Bulletin "noted for the first time" that S. Baring-Gould, who wrote a history of Sarawak with C. A. Bampfyide, (1) was also the "author" of the hymn "Onward! Christian Soldiers." Indeed he was. (2) The main purpose of this Research Note is to provide some supplementary data about the eminent clergyman.

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould M.A. JP (1834-1924) was a famous example of the "squarson dilettante" (Cannadine 1990:257). (3) First and foremost an Anglican cleric (Rector of Lew Trenchard from 1881 until his death more than four decades later), he was also a theologian, hagiographer, novelist, linguist, and collector of folk songs. What is more, he became a "local archaeologist and antiquarian of note" (Cannadine 1990:257); and in his spare time he managed to restore the parish church and rebuild the manor house. A wealthy landowner, he was master of no fewer than eight thousand acres. After his death on 2 January 1924, probate was proved at 16,132 [pounds sterling] 11s 6d, which would have made him a millionaire (or thereabouts) by today's values.

Tough-minded and determined, fully capable of standing up for himself, he was born at Exeter in the West Country (well-known for its associations with the Brooke family) (4) on 28 January 1834, the elder son of Edward Baring-Gould (d. 1872) (5) and Charlotte Sophia (6) (d. 1863) (7), daughter of Admiral Francis Godolphin Bond (1765-1839). (8)

The young Sabine was educated at King's College, London (1844-1846) and Warwick Grammar School (1847), and then by tutors and travel. In 1853 he matriculated at Clare College, University of Cambridge, which awarded him a Bachelor of Arts degree three or four years later (subsequently upgraded to M.A.) and, in 1918, an honorary fellowship. Upon leaving university he hoped to become a clergyman, but in the face of parental opposition, he became a teacher instead. During this period he taught at Lancing College and Hurstpierpoint College, both in Sussex, and elsewhere.

In 1866 he met Grace Taylor, "a beautiful Yorkshire factory girl aged sixteen," whom he married two years later over family objections on both sides. She predeceased Sabine in 1916. Meanwhile, the marriage was blessed with fifteen children, comprising five sons, nine daughters, and another daughter who died in infancy. One of the sons, Julian (1877-1929), (9) was a member of the Sarawak Civil Service from 1897 to 1920, and served as Resident of the Third Division from 1911 to 1920 (Pringle 1970a:149n). (10)

Meanwhile, following a volte-face by his parents, Sabine was able to enter the church after all (1864). His clerical career may be recapitulated briefly enough. Ordained a priest in 1865, he held various posts in Yorkshire until in 1871, at the recommendation of Prime Minister Gladstone, he was appointed to the crown living of East Mersea in Essex. He appears to have remained until 1881, when he succeeded his uncle at Lew Trenchard. (11)

"Onward! Christian soldiers" (1864) was written at Hurstpierpoint College (several miles north of Brighton) and has become a staple of the repertoire. In August 1941, for example, when Churchill met Roosevelt to sign the Atlantic Charter in Newfoundland, this was one of the hymns he chose for a joint religious service held on board HMS Prince of Wales (Paxman 1999:39), the same warship that was to be sunk a few months later by the Japanese off the coast of Malaya.

Baring-Gould's other hymns include "On the Resurrection Morning" (1863); "Through the night of doubt and sorrow" and "Now the day is over." He also produced English versions of Basque carols such as "Gabriel's Message" (Birjina gaztettobat zegoen) and "Sing Lullaby" (Oi Betleem!) (London Oratory 1998:62-63; Keyte and Parrott 1992:641-45). According to Keyte and Parrott (1992:645), "Baring-Gould had a remarkable gift for providing English texts of real poetic merit for foreign carols. They are not necessarily translations, but contrive to capture the atmosphere of the originals with great accuracy. For 'Oi Betleem!' he produced an entirely new text which is ... effective for ... its mingling of a lullaby for the infant Christ with anticipation of his Passion and Resurrection."

Baring-Gould was also a noted collector of folk-songs, although he was frequently horrified at the double meanings in the lyrics he transcribed. It is his censored version of "Strawberry Fair," Keyte and Parrott (1992:645) relate, "that has preserved the innocence of generations of schoolchildren."

A list of his publications, some of which remain in print, takes up the better part of a whole column in Who Was Who 1916-1928:52-53. His first work dates from as early as 1854 (The Path of the Just) and he was still active in 1923 (Early Reminiscences 1834-1864). A further volume of memoirs appeared post-humously in 1925. The ODNB states that during his seventy-year career as a writer he produced no fewer than forty novels, sixty theological volumes, twenty-four guide and travel books, plus sundry general interest books. The eclectic mixture embraces works on Iceland (1862) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1896), Dartmoor (1900) and St Paul (1897). Other topics attracting his attention included myths, ghosts, werewolves, Old Testament characters, ecclesiastical art and literature, the mystery of suffering, the Seven Last Words, the parish church, the Resurrection, old country life, the Caesars, Wales, Devonshire characters, family names, and much else besides.

His first novel, Through Flood and Flame (1868) is held to be partly autobiographical. His Lives of the Saints (1872-1877), which was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, contains 3,600 entries in fifteen volumes, twice reprinted before the First World War. With J. Fisher he collaborated on a four-volume Lives of British Saints (1907-1913) (Attwood 1965:19-20; Farmer 1992:xxv). These works are used by hagiographers to this day, although they need to be supplemented by subsequent research.

In short, there is plenty more to the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould than his joint history of Sarawak and his hymn "Onward! Christian Soldiers." A fair amount of primary and secondary material relating to his life, as listed in the ODNB, is available. It might be worthwhile to pursue this matter further.

References and Further Reading

Anglican Hymn Book. Worthing:Willard Thompson Publishing. First published June 1965; 1980 reprint.

Attwater, Donald 1965 The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Baring-Gould, S. 1923 Early Reminiscences 1834-1864. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.

1925 Further Reminiscences 1864-1894. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.

Baring-Gould, S., and C. A. Bampfylde 1909 A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908. London: Henry Sotheran & Co.

Immensely knowledgeable and beautifully written, but not the whole story. Not listed by Baring-Gould in his Who's Who entry.

Cannadine, David 1990 The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press; no date; preface dated 3 February 1990.

Dickinson, Bickford H. C. 1970 Sabine Baring-Gould: Squarson, Writer and Folklorist, 1834-1924 David & Charles, Newton Abbot.

A biography of Baring-Gould by his grandson, who had access to source materials not available to Purcell in 1957. Curiously enough, none of the biographies mentions Bampfylde.

Farmer, David Hugh 1992 The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Third edition, 1992, re-issued in new covers, 1996; originally published in 1978.

Keyte, Hugh and Andrew Parrott (eds.) with Clifford Bartlett as Associate Editor 1992 The New Oxford Book of Carols. Oxford and New York: Music Department, Oxford University Press.

London Oratory 1998 The Catholic Hymn Book. Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing/Fowler Wright Books. Harmony Edition; compiled and edited at the London Oratory; with a Foreword by Basil, Cardinal Hume, Archbishop of Westminster; "Musical Editor's Note" by Patrick Russill.

Matthew, H. C. G. and Brian Harrison (eds.) 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB]: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the British Academy; sixty volumes).

The article about Sabine Baring-Gould, by Brenda Collins, is filed under "Gould."

Mayhew, Kevin (ed.) with Tony Barr and Robert Kelly 1989 Hymns Old & New with Supplement. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk: Kevin Mayhew Limited. Revised and enlarged edition, 1989; 1991 reprint; first published in 1977.

Naimah S. Talib 1999 Administrators and Their Service: The Sarawak Administrative Service under the Brooke Rajahs and British Colonial Rule. Shah Alam: Oxford University Press.

Pringle, Robert M. 1970 Rajahs and Rebels: The Ibans of Sarawak under Brooke Rule 1841-1941. London: Macmillan.

Purcell, William 1957 Onward Christian Soldier: A Life of Sabine Baring-Gould[,] Parson, Squire, Novelist, Antiquary 1834-1924. With an Introduction by John Betjeman. London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co.

Road Atlas of Great Britain, Three Miles to One Inch. Edinburgh and London: W & A. K. Johnston and G. W. Bacon Ltd. Fifth edition, reprinted 1965; first published in 1940.

Sarawak Gazette. Kuching (1870-). Who Was Who 1916-1928.

A. V. M. Horton

180 Hither Green Lane

Bordesley, Worcestershire

England

(1) Charles Agar Bampfylde FRGS (1856-1918): Sarawak Civil Service, 1875-1903 (except for a spell in North Borneo, 1882-1884). Rajah Charles Brooke's "Political Agent" in England, 1903-1912. Member of the Sarawak State Advisory Council, 1912-1918. Has a road named after him in Kuching (MBRAS 1999:1, No. 16).

In the "Preface" to Baring-Gould and Bampfylde (1909:viii), Rajah Charles refers to Bampfylde as "my friend" and "my old and much-esteemed officer"; Baring-Gould, for his part, is "the distinguished author."

(2) But the music was composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) of "Gilbert and Sullivan" fame (London Oratory 1998:446-47; Mayhew et al. 1989:No. 420).

(3) "Squarson" (squire-parson) is a jocular term referring to a "clergyman who is also squire of his parish" (OED).

(4) The first two rajahs had associations with Somerset. James lived at Bath, whilst Charles was born at Berrow, a mile or two north of Burnham-on-Sea, Bridgwater Bay; James retired to live on the edge of Dartmoor, whilst Charles had his base at Cirencester (Payne 1986:16, 117, 119, 135). The third Rajah, by contrast, was born in London.

Illustrations of Berrow Vicarage and Chesterton House (Cirencester) appear in Baring-Gould and Bampfylde (1909), pages 307 and 424 respectively.

(5) Captain Edward Baring-Gould, Squire of Lew Trenchard, had been invalided out of the East India Company's armed forces in 1830.

(6) According to WWW 1916-1928:52. The ODNB 78 gives "Sophia Charlotte" as does Baring-Gould himself in his memoirs (1923:3).

(7) Baring-Gould 1923:314.

(8) Born 23 January 1765; died 26 October 1839.

(9) Purcell 1957:99, 122; Sarawak Gazette, 1 December 1929:212.

Julian married Joan Ramsden and the couple was blessed with three sons and a daughter (Dickinson 1970:186).

Dickinson adds (p. 88): "Sabine's second son, Julian, was sent straight from school to work in an arsenic mine near Tavistock, and from there he went to serve under that extraordinarily picturesque Devonian, Rajah Brooke, who had made himself ruler of Sarawak. Julian married and had three sons and a daughter. The eldest son died in infancy and both the other two were killed in action during the second World War."

Another son of Sabine, Henry, died of fever on a plantation in Malaya (ibid.).

(10) He also suffered a demotion on one occasion (see Naimah Talib 1999:29).

(11) Lew Trenchard (alternatively hyphenated or contracted into a single word), is situated in Devon about six miles East of Launceston on the A30.