Last week I visited Lambeth Palace Library, checking for correspondence relating to missions to seamen in the national library and archive of the Church of England. I found plenty to catch the interest of the historian of missions to seafarers, especially as this was my first visit to the spectacular building, which was completed in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic.
Lambeth Conference 1968
What was evident from the papers of the Lambeth Conference of 1968 is how the central idea of the mission has changed since its Victorian foundation. According to John Chelmsford, Chairman of the Council of the Mission to Seamen, and Rev. Cyril Brown (1904-1997), General Secretary of the Society, the ‘main reasons for the existence of the Society’ inluded the need to provide for transients outside settled dioceses. But the ‘first duty of chaplains’ was to ‘meet seamen where they can be found – i.e. on board ship, whether alongside wharves, in roadsteads or harbours or at the isolated oil, bulk carriers and container terminals which are a feature of the modern shipping industry’. (LPL, LC 203/4, f. 285.)
This commitment to an essentially welfare orientation is a signficant change from the bombastic nationalism which was a notable feature of the Society’s literature until at least the 1950s. For example, a speech annotated and possibly delivered by Geoffrey Fisher, archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961, is unreconstructed in its evocation of Britain’s maritime greatness, going back to the glory days of the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
It was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first that the seamen of England first captured the interest and the imagination of all Englishmen, and took their pre-eminent place in the affectionate regard of our people. Their achievements expressed on a great scale and with a new found confidence the varied genius of our race. They pushed out fearlessly to explore the unknown and bring it under man’s control: under God they were champions of our liberty and preserved freedom for England and the English Church against the assaults of alien tyrannies: they created and protected our commerce over all the world by which this county grew and prospered, lived and lives. (LPL, Fisher 177, f. 183)
The speech ended by giving thanks that the Duke of Edinburgh was leading the Society in the years ahead. Prince Philip took an active interest as President and this enabled a burst of new fund raising and support for the British merchant marine, but he also looked ahead to a much more diverse Society. A turning point from the old to the new was marked by the Centenary of the Society, which was celebrated in July 1956.
Mission to Seafarers Centenary, 1956
From the top of the new Lambeth Palace Library, there is a wonderful view of the city of London, overlooking the Thames, the Houses of Parliament and the Archbishop’s Garden below. The latter site was the location for the Centenary Garden Party of the Missions to Seamen, celebrated on July 18th, 1956. This was a grand occasion, with about 800 people in attendance. In his briefing letter to Fisher, Cyril Brown noted how important the work of the Honorary Secretaries was to the running of the Society, and that the Society could ‘scarsely continue’ without their help. He also noted that many of them were women, and ‘by no means young.’ (Brown to Fisher, 9 July 1956, LPL, Fisher 177, f. 192)
Women’s work for mariners
This alerts us to an important theme, which we hope to develop as the Mariners project develops. Although in the time period of this project, seafarers were nearly always men, the work of the missions to seafarers, based on land and in and around ports, was significantly enabled by women. I like to think that the women who attended the centenary party in the Archbishop’s Garden in 1956 enjoyed their day, and the recognition of their work. Hopefully, this project will continue to uncover more of their contribution as we work through the archives.
Hilary Carey
29.6.2023