Chairman's Newsletter - April 2025

April 2025
 

 

 

1967 display.   With the original Charred Cross restored to its position at the altar in the Cathedral Ruins, the replica charred cross went into store.   But that was not for long.   Canon Joseph Poole (Precentor) soon found a meaningful use for it in the Cathedral’s worship.  
     During Passiontide the cross was lifted high above the chancel step and draped with a red cloth. (PHOTO ABOVE)   At the Easter celebration of the Resurrection, a brilliant white cloth replaced the red drapes.
     This dramatic and highly visible presentation of the cross highlighted the significance of the season for worshippers and visitors alike.   A single spotlight lit the cross and made it visible to passers-by throughout the night.   Over the following years it became a visible and remarkably effective witness to the season of Easter.   No one could walk past the Cathedral without realising that the Easter season has a meaning that goes far beyond pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and bunnies for sale in the city shops.
 

1974 disaster.    One morning in early August 1974 the duty verger, John Watts, was opening the Cathedral Ruins and was shocked to discover that the charred cross had been torn down and broken by vandals during the night.
     John said, “My first reaction was one of sadness and disgust.   It’s pretty obvious that someone had swung on the arms, judging by the markings on the walls and on the side of the altar.”
     Assistant Bishop John McKie was equally shocked by the news and added: “The cross has been a symbol of extraordinary power.   Instead of a symbol of destruction it has become known throughout the world as a sign of victory.”
     The Coventry machine tool firm of Alfred Herbert Limited came to the rescue and offered help free of charge to repair and restore the cross.   The team of workmen (shown in the newspaper photo above) who undertook the work were (L to R)  Dennis Thomas (pattern maker), Bill Young (pattern shop foreman) and Roy Chamberlain (carpenter).   The work took them two and a half days so very soon the charred cross was back again in its position in the sanctuary.
     The pieces of the damaged cross were carefully glued together and a steel rod forced through the beams to hold them firmly in position.   “The cross is probably stronger now than it was before it was broken”, commented Mr Young.
 
            

1978 substitution.   After the vandalism incident a much closer watch was kept on the charred cross.   At the same time the Cathedral Architect became more and more concerned at the detrimental effects of exposure to the winter weather.
     The charred cross is an important part of the Cathedral's ministry and had to be preserved, so in 1978 after much discussion the original charred cross was moved from the Cathedral Ruins into the undercroft and the replica cross was erected in its place.  
     The replica remains there to this day, and (as shown in the photo above right) the original cross is now displayed on the Swedish Stairs leading from the nave to the undercroft.  
     At Passiontide no one wanted to lose the impact made by the cross suspended above the chancel steps.   A simple plain wooden cross was made and that cross was draped and was displayed at Easter until just a few years ago when after 40 years in use its fittings broke.    In the photo (above left) the congregation knelt below the replacement cross during the Veneration Of The Cross on Good Friday.
     As we await Good Friday and look forward to the good news of Easter Day there is still a need to communicate to the world the true meaning of this season.   The suspended cross helped to do just that, so perhaps we will see it restored in the future.
 

 

     Revd. Canon Kate Massey has been appointed as Canon for Arts and Reconciliation.   She will be licensed and installed in the Cathedral by Bishop Sophie at Choral Evensong on Sunday June 15th at 4pm.
     Canon Massey was ordained in Coventry Cathedral in 2011, after qualifying and working as a doctor in the NHS, specializing in mental health and psychiatry.   She was installed as an honorary canon in 2022 and is presently vicar of Stockingford, Nuneaton where she has been in post since January 2015.
 

 

Knox Presbyterian Church, Dunedin.   (L) The hongi welcome.   (R) Martin Williams, Mr and Mrs Cameron and Jane Williams after the service.
 

I WAS TAKEN by surprise last month when I was greeted with a hongi as I welcomed Knox Presbyterian Church into the Community of the Cross of Nails on our visit to Dunedin, New Zealand last month.  
     The hongi is the Māori traditional form of greeting used on ceremonial occasions (literally “sharing of breath”) when noses touch.   My natural English reserve was quickly set aside!
      After the presentation of a Coventry Cross of Nails the minister (Very Rev Graham Redding) introduced speakers who talked about Peace and Reconciliation.   The speakers included Mr and Mrs Cameron, a Māori couple from the Bay of Hawai.   They welcomed me and my wife, Jane, with a hongi greeting and then spoke movingly of the way in which their lives were transformed after standing in Coventry Cathedral Ruins and learning about the Cathedral’s history and its Ministry of Reconciliation.   
     They subsequently revitalised their marae (meeting place) which on one of its walls today displays a large image of the Coventry Cross of Nails.   Since visiting Coventry, Mr Cameron has worn a cross of nails around his neck (SEE PHOTO ABOVE), and he gave me a copy of his booklet about their marae, which includes the words of the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation.   I was deeply moved to learn how Coventry’s Spirit of Reconciliation has reached their Māori community gathering place some 15,000 miles away from the Cathedral Ruins.
     By a show of hands in the congregation that day there were 12 members who have visited Coventry Cathedral.   At the pot luck lunch that followed Jane and I spoke with many of the congregation, one of whom told of her memorable time spent at the Cathedral’s Kennedy House residential youth centre. 

Knox Presbyterian Church, Dunedin.   The service of admission to
membership of the Community of the Cross of Nails.
 

     A second Dunedin church was admitted to the Community of the
Cross of Nails at a service later the same day.  
     Rev Michael Holdaway led the presentation service in the Otago Peninsula Anglican Church.   Both churches had heard about the Community of the Cross of Nails from Rev Canon Paul Oestreicher, former International Director of Coventry Cathedral.   On our way to Dunedin we met with Paul in Wellington and he explained that a service at the Otago Peninsula Church was his first experience of Anglican liturgy.   It had excited him, and he now looks back on it as his first step towards priesthood.  
     Both before and after the second presentation service we met with members of the congregation who were keen to ask questions.   I spoke with one member who was wearing a Coventry Cross Of Nails around her neck, and she explained how her visit to Coventry Cathedral in the 1980s had changed her life.   In Coventry she took part in a panel discussion about Reconciliation and afterwards was given the Cross of Nails that she wore.   She was visibly excited to meet us, and to renew her life-changing memories of Coventry.   0ther members of the congregation also spoke about their visits to Coventry.
    I was honoured to represent Coventry Cathedral in welcoming two new members to the Community of the Cross of Nails, and it was wonderful for us both to experience the impact of the Ministry of Reconciliation so far away from home.  
     It is easy for those of us who are regular members of the Cathedral Community to be so caught up in mundane organisational issues that we can sometimes forget that the destruction of the Cathedral in 1940 not only gave birth to our Ministry of Reconciliation but it also thrust the Cathedral on to the world stage.  
     The visit to Dunedin was an encouraging reminder of the power of our ministry, and of the importance of the work of Reconciliation for which we pray each day.

Otago Peninsula Anglican Church, Dunedin.   Members of the congregation gathered around the Cross of Nails for a group photo following the service.
 

         

 

COVENTRY CATHEDRAL is one of the Midlands filming locations that is being showcased as part of a global campaign mounted by the national tourism agency, VisitBritain.
     “Set Jetting” is the name of a growing travel trend in which tourists visit the locations that they have seen in films and on television.   The campaign aims to encourage those visitors to explore further, to stay longer and to take their spending into local areas.
     Our Cathedral features in a new 24-page tourist guide that highlights all the West Midlands’ known locations that have been used as backdrops on both the big and small screen.  
     My Christmas would not be the same without seeing the film “Nativity” on television with its fantastic finale filmed in the Cathedral Ruins!
     To read the brochure ‘A Guide to Filming Locations in the West Midlands’, log on to visitbirmingham.com/inspire-me/recommended-for/film-tv-buffs/.

         
 

 
THE STIPENDS OF the Dean and of two Residentiary Canons of Coventry Cathedral are paid today by the Church Commissioners - but payments to the clergy were not always made from central funds.   History tells us that financial challenges are nothing new to St Michaels!
     To help tackle the financial challenges, even as late as the 19^th century a church rate could be levied within the parish by St Michael’s Churchwardens and parishioners.   The rate was a personal charge imposed on the occupiers of all houses and the money raised was to pay for the upkeep of the parish church and the living expenses of the Vicar and other church employees.  
     Collection of the parish church rate was enforceable by bailiffs.   In 1892 after a news report in The Times, the story of rioting anti-Vicar's rate protesters in Coventry was syndicated across the world, including the tale of a Coventry farmer and his greased pigs!
     In Coventry the church rate caused angry disputes at St Michael's throughout the 19^th century, particularly as within the Parish of St Michael’s Church nonconformity was deep-rooted and widespread.   A public meeting held in St Mary’s Hall on 31^st May 1836 was addressed by the Rev J Sibree, (BELOW) a fiery Congregational preacher and friend of George Eliot, who declared,

     “The law of Church Rates and Vicar's Rates is one that is founded on palpable injustice, not in the opinion of Dissenters only, but of every liberal and disinterested Churchman in the land.   Indeed, the Government itself has expressly and before the country declared, that it is unjust to tax a people to support a Church to which they do not belong.  
     The rule of justice is that laid down by the highest authority— “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law.”    Apply that test to Church Rates and Vicar's Rates, and they vanish like the clouds before the rising sun.”
     In 1779 within the parish of St Michael’s an Act of Parliament had substituted collection of a church rate for payment of tithes, and that Act provided that if the churchwardens failed to levy a rate to pay the expenses of the Vicar and the parish church, then the Vicar could take control and levy a church rate himself.   The amount that could be raised in this way was limited to a sum between £280 and £300.
     Rev Robert Simson was the Vicar of St Michael’s from 1793 to 1846.   When his churchwardens failed to levy a church rate, Simson decided to do so himself.   A number of the parishioners objected and this forced him to go before the magistrates to seek enforcement.   As many of the magistrates were nonconformist themselves, they were disinclined to enforce payment.
     His successor was Rev J B Collisson, who was appointed Vicar in 1846.   On his appointment St Michael’s Churchwardens decided to take action on the church rate themselves.   A year later they ended up in court.   They had never once exercised their rights in the 68 years since the rights were granted, so the Vicar challenged their ability to do so.   He maintained that the rights had lapsed through non-use.   The decision of the court was that the passage of time did not affect the legal position, and on the 28^th May 1850 Lord Campbell and three other judges of the Court of Queen’s Bench upheld St Michael’s Churchwardens’ rights.
      That was just one of many local disputes about the church’s right to raise money.   Resistance to the church rate system spread right across the country.   Nonconformists and Quakers had always resented payment towards a church that they did not support, and as the years passed the resentment spread to other non-churchgoers.  
     A national Anti-Vicar’s Rate Association was formed with a branch in Coventry, and its members encouraged a policy of passive resistance to payment.  
     The Rev James Robert Mills, who was appointed Vicar of St Michael’s in 1888, had quite a different approach. (PHOTO RIGHT) He did not want to receive his income from the imposition of a church rate on parishioners who worshipped in churches other than their parish church.   There was the example of the neighbouring Holy Trinity Church.   Nine years earlier in that parish the law had been changed and the Trinity Church rate abolished following meetings of parishioners supported by the mayor and the Anti-Vicar’s Rate Association.   Mills wanted his St Michael’s Church to be self-sufficient and for its community to look after their own.
     Unfortunately, his churchwardens were slow to act and their failure to take steps to raise income meant that the vicar did not have enough money on which to live.   Rev Mills was left with no alternative but to instruct his solicitor to distrain the goods of those parishioners who had outstanding rates.
        This caused a furore and massive resistance.   The local newspaper reported that “a farmer, living in the suburbs, upon whose stock it was proposed to levy, greased all his pigs, so that they slipped through the hands of the bailiffs at every attempt, much to the delight of a crowd that witnessed the spectacle. The bailiffs at length gave up the chase in disgust.”
     It was such a contentious issue, that local auctioneers refused to become involved.   Auctioneers from Birmingham were called in and on 26^th May 1892 they held an auction of distrained goods in Coventry market place.   (SEE PHOTO)   Citizens attended in their thousands and a riot ensued.   The police lost control of the situation.   The auctioneer was pelted with cabbages and rotten eggs.   He gave up, and the Vicar was chased by the angry mob, from which he escaped only by taking refuge for several hours in St Michael’s Church.   In the confusion many of the distrained householders managed to seize back their goods and return them home.  
     It was several years later when the rules were changed.   A town meeting resolved to use its best endeavours to raise the £5,000 that was required to redeem the vicar’s rate.   The St Michael’s congregation undertook to raise enough additional money to ensure that the Vicar would have sufficient income to manage.
     As part of the arrangement the Church Commissioners agreed to endow the living of St Michael’s with £300 yearly and Coventry Corporation agreed to include the repeal of the Act of 1779 in a Bill that was then being promoted by them in Parliament.
      The financial needs of St Michael's are greater than ever today with the increased cost of running and maintaining a building as large as the Cathedral , but, different from the 19th century, the church has to raise its own funds to meet them.

          
 

CATHEDRAL AWARD:  Coventry Cathedral received the Bronze Award in the International Tourism category at the West Midlands Tourism Awards at the ceremony in March. 


 

 

 

     I CANNOT READ the inscriptions on some of the tombstones that you see in St Michael’s churchyard because they are so weathered.   Some one must have written them down in the past but although I have searched high and low in local history books I have not been able to trace any evidence of them.

     In my searching, however, I was fascinated to discover a report in the local newspaper of the last burial in the Cathedral churchyard.   The newspaper report from 1940 reads:
     “A unique ceremony was performed in Coventry Cathedral Churchyard this week when the Provost of Coventry (the Very Rev R T Howard) interred the remains of a Coventry man, Mr John Robert Salmon, who died at the age of 76 at his home, 34, Paradise Street.
     The occasion was quite unparalleled because it was the last burial that will ever take place in the Cathedral churchyard, and it was the first and last time that cremated remains have been interred in the churchyard.”
     The Cathedral Churchyard was just one of many that were closed by an Act of Parliament in the mid-19^th century.   Only family vaults that had been acquired before 1846 and had remaining spaces could be opened, and in 1940 at the Cathedral there was just one space left in the Salmon family vault.  
     Before 1940 the Salmon vault had last been opened on 28^th July 1929 for the burial of Miss Minnie Salmon, who was a well-known Cathedral worker.