Patrick Comerford
For many years, I maintained a website and Facebook page for a project I had called the Dead Anglican Theologians Society. The project has been moribund for the past five years, but should I ever have thoughts about breathing new life into it, some of the 20th century theologians I ought to include are Alfred Hope Patten (1885-1958), Bishop Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953) and Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), three key Anglican theologians in the first half of the 20th century.
I was reminded of their innovative contributions to Anglican theology when I was in Walsingham earlier this month as one of the speakers at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage (10-13 March 2026).
Among the other speakers that week was the Methodist minister and theologian, Canon Norman Wallwork of Exeter, who is an ecumenical canon of Wells Cathedral as Prebendary of Holcombe, and who spoke in the Catholic Church of the Anunciation in Walsingham on ‘The Marian Prayers of Eric Milner-Scott’.
The Very Revd Eric Milner Milner-White (1884-1963) was a priest, liturgist, academic and decorated military chaplain. He was a founder of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, an Anglican dispersed community, and was its superior from 1923 to 1938, and he was the Dean of York from 1941 to 1963.
He is best-known for developing the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at the end of World War I when he was the Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.
Eric Milner-White was born in Southampton on 23 April 1884, the son of Sir Henry Milner-White, a barrister and company chairman, and Kathleen Lucy (née Meeres). He was educated at Harrow and King’s College, Cambridge, where he had a scholarship to read history. He graduated in 1906 with a double-first and received the Lightfoot Scholarship.
After theological training at Cuddesdon College, Milner-White was ordained deacon in 1908 and priest in 1909 in Southwark Cathedral). His curacies were at Saint Paul’s, Newington (1908-1909), and Saint Mary Magdalen, Woolwich (1909-1912), before he returned to King’s College as chaplain in 1912, when he was also appointed a lecturer in history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
He volunteered as an army chaplain at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and was on the Western Front and in Italy. He was Mentioned in Despatches on 24 December 1917 and decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1918.
He resigned his commission on 5 January 1918 and returned to Cambridge as the Dean and a Fellow of King’s College. He was re-appointed as an honorary chaplain to the armed forces in 1921. He was a founder of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd and also the order’s superior from 1923 to 1938.
During his time at King’s College, Milner-White introduced the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. It was first broadcast in 1928 and has now become a major part of the BBC’s Christmas schedule.
His experience as an army chaplain led him to believe that more imaginative worship was needed by the Church of England, and the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s was held on Christmas Eve 1918. The order of service was adapted from the order created by Edward Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for Truro Cathedral on Christmas Eve 1880.
That first service at King’s largely followed Benson’s original plan, including the Benedictions before each reading, several of which were later amalgamated by Milner-White into his Bidding Prayer.
The service was first broadcast from King’s by the BBC in 1928 and, except for 1930, has been broadcast every year since. Even throughout World War II, despite the stained glass having been removed from the Chapel at King’s and the lack of heating, the broadcasts continued. Since World War II, it has been estimated that each year millions of listeners worldwide listen to the service live on the BBC.
The bidding prayer, adapted by Eric Milner-White and now in use in King’s Chapel, prays:
‘Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmas Eve our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels; in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.
‘Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child; and let us make this Chapel, dedicated to Mary, his most blessèd Mother, glad with our carols of praise:
‘But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for unity and brotherhood within the Church he came to build, and especially in the dominions of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, within this University and City of Cambridge, and in the two royal and religious Foundations of King Henry VI here and at Eton:
‘And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; all who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.
‘Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.
‘These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven, in the words which Christ himself hath taught us:
‘Our Father …’
Milner-White was instrumental in inspiring the composer Herbert Howells to write his Collegium Regale service settings when he challenged Howells to write music for King’s College in 1941. Howells remarked that his composition was ‘the only Te Deum to be born of a decanal bet’. The settings have since become a well-known part of Anglican repertoire.
Collegium Regale: https://www.patrickcomerford.com/2014/12/hymns-for-advent-6-spotless-rose-by.html
Milner-White remained at King’s until 1941, when he was appointed Dean of York by Archbishop William Temple. During his time as dean, he directed the replacement of many of York Minster’s windows and undertook a great deal of writing on liturgy and he was a member of the literary panel that produced the New English Bible in 1948-1962.
Milner-White’s honours included CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1952), the Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity (1952), and an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of Leeds (1962).
Milner-White died of cancer in the deanery of York Minster on 15 June 1963.
Milner-White realised during World War I that the ministry of the Church of England, particularly the services for the burial of the dead, did not meet the needs of the troops in the trenches. He made those views clear in an essay ‘Worship and services’ in The Church in the Furnace in 1918.
He continued to press for prayers additional to those in the Book of Common Prayer to meet the needs of modern congregations. Of his own prayer publications, probably the best known is Daily Prayer (1941), which he compiled with Canon George Wallace Briggs (1875-1959), and which includes a selection of prayers for public, private and school worship.
His other works include Occasional Prayer (1928), Memorials upon Several Occasions (1933), revised as After the Third Collect (1953), A Cambridge Bede Book (1936), and A Procession of Passion Prayers (1950), which became an important resource for Holy Week.
Towards the end of his life, he published two further books of prayers: My God, My Glory (1954) and Let Grace Reign (1960), dedicated to the Vicars Choral of York Minster ‘with my deep love and gratitude’.
During that week in Walsingham earlier this month, the US war against Iran was gathering pace, and the overpowering, intrusive and invasive noise of the overflights were a constant, persistent and pernicious reminder throughout each and every day of the presence of the US air force at the RAF bases nearby in Feltwell, Lakenheath and Mildenhall.
With that constant reminder of war and the threat of a conflagration that could yet engulf the world, it was good that morning to hear Norman Wallwork remind us of prayers for peace and in times of war written by Eric Milner-White, a much decorated and valiant army chaplain who knew the horrors of war at first-hand:
For the Peace of the World:
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, and no strength known but the strength of love: we pray you so mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under one banner, of the Prince of Peace; as children of one God and Father of all; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
(Occasional Prayers, 1928)
For the Peace of the World:
O God, as you would fold both heaven and earth in a single peace: Let the design of your great love descend upon the waste of our anger and sorrow; and give peace to your Church, peace among the nations, peace in our dwellings, and peace in our hearts; through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
(< i>Memorials upon Several Occasions, 1933)
And there was a prayer, based on Psalm 141: 3, that reminded me of the way Donald Trump is, to say the least, economical with the truth:
Set a guard, Lord, upon our tongues:
that we never speak the cruel word which is not true;
or being true, is not the whole truth;
or being wholly true, is merciless;
for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Daily Prayer, 1941)
A year before his death, he wrote a prayer based on words by the poet John Donne (1572-1631) in a sermon preached at Whitehall on 29 February 1627. These words have also been provided with choral settings by many composers, including Peter R Hallock and William Harris:
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends or beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of your glory and dominion,
world without end.
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