Journal of a Somerset Rector, 1803-1834

by John Skinner, Peter Coombs

540 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1984

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Journal of the Rev John Skinner, Rector of Camerton near Bath (in Somerset), 1803-1834; with a very perceptive introduction by Virginia Woolf. I have read a few clerical journals in my time, including Kilvert, Woodeforde and Gilbert White. This is unlike them in many ways; it’s grim in places and Skinner is difficult to warm to. He is very much aware of his position in society and feels his position should be respected, he can be irascible and short-tempered. He is conservative, worrying about Methodism and the possibility of Catholic emancipation and fears they that are all out to do him out of his tithe (remember at this time some clerical income still came from tithes from local farmers and this was very much resented). He grows to heartily dislike his parishioners feeling they are a godless bunch who don’t pay him enough respect and way too many of them are Methodists. There is a coal mine in the parish and the colliers are worse than most. In turn his parishioners dislike him as well and are frequently surly and disrespectful and often downright rebellious. He had long running complaints about the Red Post public house, which Skinner feels is a den of immorality. I’m not really painting a good picture here!
Many parsons at this time did very little work and spent their time hunting and generally wasting time. Skinner was an antiquary and journal keeper. He had a passion for Roman and pre-Roman history in Britain and did a good deal of excavation and recording. His journals included his studies and also his daily trials and tribulations. They run to some one hundred and fifty volumes, many of which were transcribed and bound by his brother. He was also competent at drawing and sketching. Skinner’s life was marked by tragedy. One of his brothers died in 1809, followed by a three month old daughter and his wife in 1812. He also lost a fourteen year old daughter and then one of his two sons in 1832, most of them from consumption. It seems clear to me, reading Skinner’s descriptions of his state of mind and mental health, that he was prone to depression. He also managed to fall out with his children as they grew up, banishing them from his house when they displeased him and they, in turn learnt to treat him with contempt. Skinner had a strong sense of duty; visiting the sick and dying are a constant and this is very important to him. He gives quite vivid descriptions of some of the industrial accidents that the colliers were prone to. He also describes the conditions of those living in severe poverty, especially the elderly. He assists those who he feels are deserving and others are referred to the parish as these are the days of the Poor Law. Skinner also expends a good deal of energy complaining about petty and corrupt officialdom.
Woolf captures well the tensions Skinner and others felt;
“Behind him lay order and discipline and all the virtues of the heroic past, but directly he left his study he was faced with drunkenness and immorality; with indiscipline and irreligion; with Methodism and Roman Catholicism; with the Reform Bill and the Catholic Emancipation Act, with a mob clamouring for freedom, with the overthrow of all that was decent and established and right”
Skinner also had a number of run-ins with the Jarrett family who were the local family of importance; their wealth having come from plantations in Jamaica. He felt that their privileged position meant they had certain responsibilities, which he often felt they neglected. One interesting point was Skinner noting that there was a black worker at the colliery. He doesn’t seem overly surprised and indicates that around ports like Bristol there have been black communities going back centuries.
This account ends in 1834 and Skinner took his own life with a pistol in 1839. The coroner’s verdict;
"The Rev. gentleman's health had been declining for sometime and his mind had latterly been very much affected. On Friday morning, in a state of derangement, he shot himself through the head with a pistol, and was dead in an instant."
I must admit that I didn’t really like Skinner, but I did feel sorry for him as all his certainties were eroded. There are lots of interesting snippets of social history and the people of Camerton come across very much as people everywhere at all times; they also appeared rather bemused by their often angry Rector.

[Gille Liath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this you could be forgiven for thinking that it was really a novel, and only disguised as a C19th country Rector’s Journal: the writer is so lacking in self-awareness, so oblivious to the way he makes himself look in recounting, at length, his endless conflicts with parishioners and even his own family.

For these make up most of the book; it is no cosy inventory of genteel visits and huge meals, like some earlier parsons’ diaries. By Skinner’s time, to judge by this book, the situation was that many people resented both the authority and the impositions of the Anglican Church, but were not openly able to repudiate them. And Skinner was not the man to deal with such a situation. This is not because he was especially self-serving; I think he was a just man by his lights who tried to do what he saw as his duty. It’s not always appreciated by those with no sense of justice that the anger of angry people is often stimulated by precisely this sense: they do not necessarily believe something to be right just because they want it, rather they want it because they believe it to be right. Anyone of that stamp – who has taken to heart the rules and standards they were taught as a child, rather than disregarding them as soon as it seemed safe to do so – is in for a hard time in life. And if they feel they are specifically charged with maintaining those standards in others it will be doubly difficult.

Unfortunately, Skinner was not only oblivious to the temper of the times, he was far from being a people person (in the good old days, when people deferred properly to the clergy, I suppose he wouldn’t have needed to be). His life is an object lesson in how not to deal with others. Again and again he ‘can’t help’ telling people where they are going wrong, policing their behaviour in such a nannyish and peremptory way that – to his mortification – it often provokes anger and insults in return. He exemplifies the Christianity of disapproval, which is much more against things and people than it is for them.

So much for his side of the equation. On the other, there is a pretty desolating picture of what people are like when they see no particular reason for staying on someone’s good side: they lie reflexively and shamelessly, cheat, steal, threaten and even actually commit violence. Skinner often complains of his bad luck at having fallen in among such people – but I’m afraid they’re just the usual sort. Where his luck was bad was in being a clergyman at the wrong time.

It’s like a car crash: you feel a little mortification yourself, on his behalf, especially when even his feckless kids turn against him; but at the same time it is fascinating, in a horrible way. The tragedy I suppose is that neither Skinner nor his parishioners could get away from a situation which was not really true to the wishes of either. In the end he committed suicide.

[Pip Karlsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating not only for the incidentals of life in a rural mining parish, but also for the character of the diarist himself, able to spot the failings of all around him but ignorant (except for rare moments) of his own. Don't read the introductory material as it contains major spoilers. Just start reading and get swallowed up in early-nineteenth-century Somerset and the rigid character of John Skinner.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account of early nineteenth century life in the mining village of Camerton, Somerset by its vicar John Skinner who loathes his parishioners. My x4 Great-Grandfather Jacob Richardson gets a mention (not drunk) alongside his brother Peter (definitely drunk).