Episode 10. Percy Dearmer: Family Recollections

SYNOPSIS

The Christian socialist Percival Dearmer was one of the most innovative Anglican clerics in the first decades of the twentieth century. He is best remembered today for his seminal work, The Parson’s Handbook (1899) which argued for the restoration of beauty and holiness to Anglican ceremonial and for The English Hymnal (1906): Dearmer employed the renowned English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams as musical editor to improve the quality of Anglican hymnody.  Dearmer’s incumbency at St Mary’s Primrose Hill (1901-15) provided a laboratory with which to formulate his ideas about pre-Reformation English Use in a modern setting. Tragedy struck in 1915 when Percy’s wife Mabel died of enteric fever while nursing in Serbia and his younger son, Christopher died on active service at Gallipoli. Percy remarried, leaving St Mary’s, and later serving as the first professor of ecclesiastical art at King’s College London and from 1931 as Canon of Westminster Abbey.

GUESTS

The genes of Percy Dearmer are very apparent in the career choices of his grand daughters, Juliet Woollcombe from his first marriage to Mabel White and Timandra Nichols from his second marriage to Nancy Knowles. Juliet, the daughter of the distinguished war poet and brother of Christopher, Geoffrey Dearmer, has pursued ordination after a career as a school teacher. Timandra Nichols has spent her career leading organisations in the arts and cultural sector.

Juliet Woollcombe and Timandra Nichols’ interview with Simon Machin was recorded at the Royal Society of Arts on 25 November 2019.