Camborne Parish Church

St Martin’s at War, Camborne Parish Church, 1939-1945

As 2009 marks the 70^th Anniversary of the start of World War 2 we conclude this essay by David Thomas. We also take this opportunity to pay respect to the late Harry Patch (formerly of the D.C.L.I.) and Henry Allingham – “Britain’s last “Tommies”- who completed their mortal tours of duty recently. Veterans of the Great War, this closes a chapter.

“We will remember them.”

The Rector was unable to send out his usual blotters and cards at Christmas 1942, owing to War restrictions and difficulties. The coal merchants had also been unable to supply the coal for the Rector’s “Christmas Cheer Fund” and money payments had to be made to deserving individuals instead. Funds were also collected for pocket Testaments and Bibles for the men of the Armed Forces. In February 1943 the Church ceased to be heated for weekday services on Patriotic grounds, as each time this was done a very large amount of coal had to be used. The Church’s boiler in the stokehole was fed by a coal chute at ground level in the churchyard on the south side of the Vestry. Wednesday evening Lenten services were given up in 1943, as the Church was not able to be heated. The Church was however left open all day, every day, for private devotion, and many took advantage of this. Other Church organizations soldiered valiantly on in spite of the blackout. In April 1943 it was announced that the Church bells could once again be rung for all Sunday services.

Owing to War conditions the usual Summer Treats for the Church choir and bell ringers could not be held in the summer of 1943 but on August 18th the choir boys had an outing to Carbis Bay, under the supervision of the Revd E A Beattie, Curate. Over the winter of 1943-1944 it was fortunately again possible to have the Church properly heated.

In the August 1944 edition of the Parish Magazine Canon Morton made a statement to the Parishioners that he had resigned the Benefice of Camborne from September of that year. This was as the result of his 1942 heart attack, declining physical strength, the advance of rheumatism and a recurrence of his old throat trouble. In fact in 1943 the Bishop of Truro had offered him the lest onerous country parish of Lezant in East Cornwall, but he had refused this offer as his heart lay in Camborne, a Parish and Church he had come to love so much in his ten years Ministry here. However he had also become conscious of his own growing physical disabilities and had been advised by Bishop Hunkin that “it was my positive duty to retire before I broke down absolutely”. In his last Magazine letter, written on 22 September 1944, Canon Morton stated that “I know that when I have left you, my heart will often go back with longing to the Sundays I have spent with you in St Martin’s, Camborne, and I trust that you will sometimes think of me as one who sought to be a loving and true friend to all, as well as a faithful minister of Jesus Christ”. The Rectory was vacated at the end of September 1944 and during the Interregnum the services were taken by the Revd J H Howlett, a former Vicar of Davidstow in North Cornwall.

The preserved minutes of the Camborne Parochial Church Council during the War years also shed light on the affairs of the Parish Church during this period. On 21 September 1939 a Sub-Committee consisting of the Rector, the Churchwardens and Mrs Pellew and Mrs Lawrence was formed to darken the Church Hall windows. Also the Rector had given permission for evacuated Jews to hold their Saturday Sabbath services in the Church Hall. The Air Raid Wardens were also asked to notify the congregation in the event of an Air Raid warning received during service time.

In January 1940 it was noted that over 400 local men and women were already serving in the Armed Forces and it was suggested that the names be entered in a book to be kept in the Parish Church, though this does not appear to have ever been done. On April 11th 1940 the Church Council resolved that “the strictest economy should be observed and only really necessary expenses should be incurred”. The Church’s blackout blinds were also removed and stored during the summer months as they were not required for Evensong on the lighter evenings. During the war years the only slight change to the regular pattern of Sunday services was that Evensong was held half an hour earlier at 6.00pm rather than 6.30pm, in the winter months.

On 29 August 1940 the Church Council decided that if an Air Raid Warning was given before a Church service then that service should take place as arranged, but if one occurred during a service then a pause would be made in the worship to allow any worshippers who might so desire to withdraw. Mr Rodda of the Regal Hotel in Church Lane had also applied for use of part of the store under the Parish Vestry in the churchyard as an Air Raid shelter for hotel visitors and staff. At the end of 1940 new Church blackout curtains were stitched together by the Church’s Ladies Working Party, an organization originally formed to raise funds for Church restoration in Victorian times, and still going strong in the 1940s.

It was decided on 9th January 1941 to allow permission for a siren to be sounded from the Church tower if that site were chosen by the Authorities, while in May of the same year it was put on record that the Church Day School premises in College Street were watched by the “College Row” Fire Watchers. Later in the same month it was decided to take out War Damage Insurance for £300 on the general Church furniture, with £200 for the organ and £100 for the Church Hall furniture. One premium of 30 shillings would cover all of these items until the end of September. These were all charged on the Church’s Williams Trust Fund, originally endowed by the late Esther Williams of Treveor, Camborne. In May 1944 it is recorded that the Church electoral roll stood at 472 names, a decrease of one on the previous year.

In the January 1945 edition of the Parish Magazine it was announced that the new Rector of Camborne was to be the Revd George Frederick Sandfield, from St Stephen’s, Wandsworth in London. He was in fact no stranger to the Camborne-Redruth area having previously served as Vicar of Lanner before moving to London. Mr Sandfield was Inducted on Thursday 22nd February 1945 and so a new Ministry commenced at the Parish Church during the dying months of the War. The Parish Magazine Rector’s letter for the month of May 1945, written from the Rectory on 22 April, opened with the words “as we draw to the end of this terrible conflict our hearts are full of praise to Almighty God for His help to us as a Nation”. By the time that Mr Sandfield wrote his next letter on 23 May 1945 V E Day had come and gone and World War 2 in Europe was over. Much of the Continent lay in utter ruin and devastation but Camborne Parish Church had survived unscathed.

Unscathed, but not entirely! Though not referred to in the Parish Magazines, Church Council minutes, or other official records, an event took place, probably early in 1943, drawing on comparisons found in other West Cornwall archival sources, which completely altered the Church Street frontage of the Church and also affected many of the churchyard graves. The Government had issued instructions for the removal and melting down of superfluous iron railings and gates etc for the war effort to make armaments and this order was executed upon religious and domestic buildings alike. The Church lost its fine set of wall railings, erected in 1887 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, while many of the graves in the churchyard also lost their Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian ironwork surrounds, including the two large Vivian family vault tombs near the Church’s south porch. Only railings of sufficient historical and architectural merit were exempt from this directive and the churchyard’s ironwork did not fall into this category. It was to be 65 years later however that this “official ” vandalism was rectified by the provision of a new set of replacement wall railings, erected late in 2008, at a cost of £80,000, and paid for by Regeneration Funding. These were crafted in cast iron, based on photographic images of the original ironwork, by John Woodward of Camborne, and have consequently restored the front of the Church to its pre-war appearance, The old railings were identical to those at Roscroggan Wesleyan Chapel and St Agnes Parish Church, which also vanished during the War.

On the evening of V E Day, 8 May 1945, a Service of Thanksgiving for Victory was held in the Church at 7.00pm. On this occasion, as with the following Sunday services on 13 May, the Church was crowded and the offertory amounted to the then unheard of and enormous sum of £13 8s 8d collected at one service. Ending where we began it is possible to tell from the choir boys’ attendance register what local youngsters processed to their places in the Chancel on 13 May to help lead the singing of the large Sunday congregations, on this historic occasion. They were John Angove, Barry Callaghan, Merrill Clymo, Michael Evans, Ronald Holt, Peter Mackie, Michael Moon, Brian Nettle, Michael Perry, Mervyn Perry, Tony Pearce, Brian Warden, John Warren, Dennis Lampshire, Albert Seeor and a J Williams. On Tuesday 8 May the Revd Sandfield took as his text for the sermon Psalms 46 and 47, which included the memorable words from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer “He shall subdue the people under us: and the nations under our feet,” A great conflict of epic proportions had been brought to a successful conclusion through the Providence of God.

Copyright, David Thomas, President and Recorder of Camborne Old Cornwall Society, Parish Clerk of Camborne Parish Church, and Archivist, Cornwall County Council. [Published here by kind permission of the Author]

Compiled from the following sources:-

Registers of services, parish magazines and Church Council minutes, Camborne Parish Church.

Burial registers, Illogan Parish Church.

Oral reminiscences of the former Evacuee, Rosie Bishop, London, made in 2008.

Choir records, Camborne Parish Church, preserved by the late Gertrude Millicent Bray, of 31 North Parade, Camborne (1904-1994), and former member of Camborne Old Cornwall Society.

Oral reminiscences made in the 1970s and 1980s of the late William Guy Hill, of 2b Manor Road, Camborne, (1902-1984) son of Edward Hill, gardener, Camborne Rectory, died 1939. Both formerly of Rectory Lodge, Rectory Road, Camborne.

ED: We sincerely thank David for the fascinating and absorbing insight of this series. In recalling such times past, we not only give thanks for the freedoms we must never take for granted – but we must also bear in mind the real part played by ordinary people “mucking in”. The whole country was one large T.E.A.M. – “Together Everyone Achieves More”, as Rev. Mike points out earlier for today’s times.