Patrick Comerford
The three lower clerestory windows on the south side of the chancel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, are filled with highly coloured glazing. These windows by William Wailes (1808-1881) of Newcastle form an important collection of Victorian stained glass in Tamworth by a celebrated artist, who also designed the great East Window in the church.
One of the three chancel windows by Wailes remembers the life of Richard Rawle, a 19th century Vicar of Tamworth who became a Bishop of Trinidad in the West Indies, and who was the principal of a theological college in Barbados that has been in the news in recent weeks because of slavery reparation payments.
This easternmost window honours of the appointment of Richard Rawle while he was the Vicar of Tamworth as Bishop of Trinidad in 1872. The subject is described, ‘Melchisedec (sic), King of Salem, Priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning, & blessed him.’ The dedication reads: ‘To the Glory of God & in memory of the call of R Rawle, Vicar of this Parish, to be Anglican Bishop of Trinidad. W Wailes makes & dedicates this window with a thankful heart AD 1872.’
Richard Rawle (1812-1889), who was the Vicar of Tamworth in 1869-1872, was the Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago (1872-1888) and the Dean of Port of Spain Cathedral.
Rawle was born in Plymouth on 27 February 1812, the third child and only son of Francis Rawle, a lawyer. He was still only two when his mother, Amelia (Millett), died on 6 October 1814. He was educated at Plymouth Grammar School and Trinity College Cambridge (Scholar 1833, BA 1835, MA 1838, Fellow 1836, assistant tutor, 1836-1839).
He was ordained deacon by Joseph Allen, Bishop of Ely, in 1839, and priest by John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln,trinid soon after, becoming Rector of Cheadle, Staffordshire, in the Diocese of Lichfield, that same year.
Rawle remained at Cheadle until 1847, when he moved to Barbados in association with the Anglican mission society SPG (now USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel). In Barbados, Rawle became the second Principal of Codrington College (1847-1864), one of the oldest Anglican theological colleges in the Americas.
Codrington College was founded with the profits from the bequest of Chrostopher Codrington (1668-1710), the colonial slave trader and plantation owner. When he died in 1710, Codrington left portions of his sugar cane estates – the Codrington Plantations as well as land on Barbados and Barbuda to SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) to establish a college in Barbados.
As the sugar cane plantations were still operating, SPG and Codrington College benefited directly from the institution of slavery. In addition, Codrington left £10,000 (the equivalent of £1.2 million today) and 12,000 books to All Souls College, Oxford.
Codrington’s bequest was unusual at the time in its intention to benefit the Afro-Caribbean population of Barbados, unlike other colonial colleges that benefited white planter families. Codrington wanted a portion of his bequest be used to educate the enslaved population of Barbados. However, this provision was effectively blocked by objections from other planters and slave owners.
In the years that followed, SPG took over the Codrington Plantations and continued to use slave labour.
The word ‘Society’ was branded on the chests of slaves owned by SPG. Slavery in Barbados ended with the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. At that time, SPG received £8,823 in compensation for the loss of the labour of 411 slaves.
Rawle arrived at Codrington College 14 years later, in 1847. There he was successful in resisting attempts to have the college revert to its former function of educating the sons of the gentry and the college went on to produce many graduates who made their mark not only in ordained ministry but also in teaching, law, medicine and the civil service.
The college curriculum was improved and expanded, and the college had regained its reputation as a seat of learning. Rawle made many improvements to the buildings and grounds of Codrington College.
Rawle also put the Lodge School on a stronger footing, and SPG’s elementary schools were thoroughly reorganised, becoming models for other Anglican schools throughout the island.
He returned to Staffordshire briefly in 1851, when he married Susan Anne Blagg, daughter of John Michael Blagg, of Rosehill, Cheadle, in Cheadle parish church, on 14 January 1851.
He declined the offer to become Bishop of Antigua in 1859, and he remained at Codrington College until 1864, when he resigned due to ill-health and returned to England.
When he left Codrington in 1864, some 150 students had ‘sat at his feet,’ the number in residence had risen from eight when he arrived to 24.
Rawle’s greatest service, however, was to the island itself, and he was influential in shaping and establishing the educational system. The esteem and affection in which Rawle was held were expressed by a public donation of £400 which he used to found an exhibition at the College ‘for thoroughness in mental Culture.’
On 4 February 1866, the Barbados House of Assembly passed ‘An Act to Vest a sum of money in the Bishop of the Diocese and the Principal of Codrington College. for establishing a Scholarship at Codrington College.’ Interest and earnings from the £400 was to be used to support the student receiving the Rawle Scholarship at Codrington.
After a time of convalescence, he refused the offer to become an honorary canon in Ely Cathedral.
Rawle was the Vicar of Felmersham, Bedfordshire (1867-1869), before becoming Vicar of Tamworth in 1869.
While Rawle was Vicar of Tamworth, a new diocese was created in the West Indies in 1872 when Trinidad was separated from Barbados. Rawle was invited to become the first Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago, and he was consecrated bishop in Lichfield Cathedral on Saint Peter’s Day, 29 June 1872.
The Bishop of Lichfield, George Augustus Selwyn, had persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait, that the Vicar of Tamworth should be consecrated bishop in the cathedral of the diocese where he had been a parish priest. Nine bishops were present at what was described as ‘a striking ceremony’, and the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Peterborough, William Connor Magee, later Archbishop of York.
For the next 17 years, Rawle worked indefatigably in his diocese, and also became Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral, his diocesan cathedral in Port of Spain, from 1878. Codrington College became affiliated with Durham University in 1875, and a year later, in 1876, Rawle received an honorary doctorate (DD) from Durham.
While they were on leave in England, Rawle’s wife Susan died in Bournemouth on 1 March 1888 and she was buried in Cheadle churchyard, the church where they were married.
Meanwhile, an economic depression in Barbados, caused by the fall in the price of sugar, put Codrington in a critical economic position. After a very brief time at the college, Canon Frederick Meyrick resigned, leaving the college without a principal from 1887 because there was no stipend.
Rawle volunteered in 1888, at the age of 76, to serve as an unpaid principal. He resigned as Bishop of Trinidad and returned to Codrington College as both Principal and Professor of Divinity. It was ‘a labour of love.’ But within a year, Rawle was dead. He died on 10 May 1889 at Codrington College, the place where he had spent the most useful 17 years of his life.
Rawle’s coffin was carried to his grave the next day by a group of old men who knew him and loved him and who also remembered the days of slavery on the Codrington estate. It was arranged for them to carry his coffin part of the way, along the level road from the college, and they were to be relieved at the foot of the hill by younger men. But the old men stubbornly refused to hand over his coffin and continued on along narrow steep goat path to his final resting place. He was buried with only a simple cross to mark his grave.
The former Vicar of Tamworth has left a positive legacy in Barbados and is remembered to this day with fondness at Codrington. Meanwhile, both All Souls College in Oxford and the mission agency USPG are confronting the legacy of benefitting financially over 300 years ago from Christopher Codrington’s slave ownership and his plantations.
All Souls College has taken several steps to address the problems created by Codrington’s legacy. Although Codrington’s statue remains at the centre of the library, the library no longer uses his name, a memorial plaque has been erected at the entrance ‘in memory of those who worked in slavery on the Codrington plantations in the West Indies,’ and £100,000 has been pledged in donations to Codrington College.
USPG, the successor to SPG, the mission society that supported Rawle’s work, is confronting that slave-holding part of its history in Barbados, and has committed £7 million to tangible repentance. USPG announced its latest commitment in Barbados on 8 September.
‘USPG is deeply ashamed of our past links to slavery,’ the Revd Duncan Dormor, general secretary of USPG, said after the Codrington Reparations Project met at Codrington College. ‘We recognise that it is not simply enough to repent in thought and word, but we must take action, working in partnership with Codrington, where the descendants of enslaved persons are still deeply impacted by the generational trauma that came from the Codrington Plantations.’
USPG agrees that making amends is a long-term project. Its pledge is meant to cover work spanning 10 to 15 years. The project is expected to begin in spring 2024, and includes community engagement and infrastructure, historical research and education, burial places and memorials, and family research.
‘It is our hope that, through this reparations project, there will be serious reckoning with the history of the relationship between the Codrington Trust and USPG, but also a process of renewal and reconciliation that will be healing of the pain of the past,’ said Archbishop Howard Gregory of the West Indies.
About the author:
(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is an Anglican priest living in retirement near Milton Keynes. He is a regular visitor to Tamworth, with a special interest in his Comberford family heritage
