‘For Such a Time as This’: hoping to take part in USPG’s 2021 conference

‘For Such a Time as This’ … the theme of this year’s USPG conference

Patrick Comerford

With the roll-out of the vaccine in both Ireland and Britain, I am still holding out hope that I may be able to get to the annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) later this summer in the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire.

The conference last year was due to take place in Swanwick, Derbyshire, from 20 to 22 July 2020, with the theme ‘Rejoice in the Lord always: God’s People in God’s Mission’, immediately before the Lambeth Conference. I had been hoping to spend some days in Lichfield too before or after the conference. But both conferences were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have not been back in England since March last year, and I have not been in High Leigh since July 2019.

I am in Dublin this evening to visit my GP tomorrow for a check-up on my sarcoidosis and an injection for my Vitamin B12 deficiency. But I am also hoping to get a date for my first Covid vaccine.

Should my first and second jabs come through on time, and should travel between these two islands become possible, then perhaps – just perhaps – I may be able to take part in the conference, with even the possibility of a visit to Cambridge.

The USPG conference this year has the working title, ‘For Such a Time as This,’ similar to the title of USPG’s Lenten course this year, ‘For Such a Time.’

We have not witnessed ‘such a time as this’ on a global scale of pandemic, ecological crisis and racial divisions in living memory. What do these major global factors say to the mission of the Anglican Church?

How can USPG and its partners speak prophetically into these important issues alongside supporting Churches in their community responses?

For the first time this year, the USPG Annual Conference will be both a physical and a virtual event. The full conference takes place from 4 pm on Monday 19 July to 2 pm on Wednesday 21 July at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire.

Key sections of the conference will be livestreamed for a virtual audience in four two-hour sessions over those three days.

The annual meeting of USPG Council takes place on Tuesday 20 July, and my six-year term as a trustee of USPG comes to a conclusion at that meeting.

The all-inclusive fee for the full conference is £190. It is also possible to register for the day conference on Tuesday and for the online conference. In the event of the conference being cancelled due to further Corona virus restrictions, a full refund will be given to everyone who has registered for the physical conference.

Needless to say, all my travel plans are more in hope than in anticipation today, and subject to the roll-out of the vaccine and changes in government guidelines on trave.

Meanwhile, USPG supporters are being invited to join USPG later this month for a ‘Global Mission Webinar’ on USPG work in the Philippimnes.

The webinar, from 10 am on Thursday 29 April expects to hear three different speakers from the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) share their experience and knowledge of the mission of the Church among the Lumad communities of Philippines.

Speakers are introducing case studies from grass roots mission work, along with challenges and opportunities that are being encountered by the Church in their accompaniment programme.

Find out more about these events on the USPG website HERE.

The High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddeson in Hertfordshire … the venue for the USPG Conference this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying together, laughing together, and listening to one another as USPG trustees

Autumn turns to winter in the grounds of the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine … the planned venue for this week’s meeting of USPG trustees (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Meetings of trustees or boards are the same everywhere.

They include budgets and spreadsheets, evaluations and re-evaluation, forward planning, business plans, organisation and structures, vision and strategy, position papers …

There are people who like this sort of meeting, but others find them a turn-off and speak of ‘bored meetings.’

But it is never so at meetings of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

For these two days (18-19 November 2020), I have been shut away from the rest of the world at a meeting of USPG trustees in London – albeit a ‘virtual meeting’ hosted by Zoom while I have been locked away in a room in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick.

What makes USPG trustees’ meetings different, of course, is that, even in these pandemic lockdown days, our work is all about relationships within and across the Anglican Communion and about journeying with partner churches as critical but supportive friends.

We prayed together, we listened together to challenging Gospel passages, we laughed together, and we shared hopes together.

Without breaking any confidences on my part, we heard news about progress on the Communion Wide Advisory Group, bringing together work on all continents, about global relations, about work with Hope for the Future on climate change, about theological education, about next year’s Lent course, ‘For such a Time as This,’ and mission engagement. In particular, we heard from the Revd Davidson Solanki on the work of the Church in Bangladesh and the Church in the Middle East.

Davidson’s story, and his recent ordination, are among the many interesting features in the latest edition of Koinonia, the USPG magazine.

One member of the Senior Management Group shared these wise words from Rabindranath Tagore:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

We were reminded too that today in the calendar of the Church of England celebrates Saint Hilda of Whitby, who played a key role in the Synod of Whitby and in facilitating Church unity on these islands.

Looking forward to the future also means giving thanks for the past. And before our meeting closed this afternoon, we gave thanks in prayer for the lives of a number of people associated with the life of USPG and who died recently, including Janet Cousins, a former USPG missionary in Ethiopia, Ruth Capeling, a former USPG missionary in Zambia, Dr Sally Amos, who worked in a hospital in Zambia, and the Ven Frederick George, a former USPG missionary in Australia, Gambia and St Helena.

But I still miss the one-to-one, face-to-face contacts that are so important at meetings like this, although they never feature on the agenda.

It is over eight months since I was physically present at a meeting of USPG trustees in London last March. This week’s residential meeting ought to have taken place at the Royal Foundation Saint Katharine in Limehouse, but, like this year’s planned conference in Swanwick, Covid-19 put an end to those plans.

We are due to meet again as trustees on 10 March and 12 May 2021, Hopefully, the pandemic travel restrictions can be eased soon, and that I can attend meetings of trustees in London next year, and USPG’s annual conference, planned for 19 to 21 July 2021.

The Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire … the planned venue for the USPG conference earlier this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A day of missed flights, exploring East End streets, and indulging in wanderlust

A missed opportunity to explore a little of the East End today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Patrick Comerford

I ought to have been in London today at a meeting of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

I spent much of the day at that meeting, but it was a virtual meeting hosted on Zoom rather than a ‘corporeal’ meeting, because of Covid-19 restrictions on travel for all of us.

I have not been on a flight or in London since a meeting of USPG trustees on 4 March, and today I missed not only the train journey from and to Stansted Airport through the countryside of East Anglia, but also the opportunities I take before and after these meetings, as I make my way from Liverpool Street Station to the USPG offices in Trinity Street in London, to explore Wren churches or the streets of the East End.

Of course, most of all, replacing these face-to-face meetings of trustees with ‘virtual meetings’ means the opportunities are lost for building trust and relationships with other trustees and with staff members.

Zoom meetings are very efficient, but no matter what organisation is hosting them – and there have been many over the past six months – they can never replace the spontaneous, one-to-one contacts that are made, the friendships that are nurtured, and the ideas that are given time to grow and develop on the sidelines and the margins.

Instead of wandering the streets of Southwark or the East End before or after the meeting, I enjoyed the autumn sunshine in the rectory gardens throughout today’s meeting.

As the meeting began, we were invited to reflect on a New Testament passage that recalls Saint Paul’s first missionary journey to the continental Europe, when he heard the call of a man in Macedonia, and travelled with Silas and Timothy to Samothrace, Neapolis and then Philippi, and then met Lydia of Thyatira, an interesting woman’s voice in the mission of the Apostolic Church (see Acts 16: 6-16).

Of course, the passage also reminded me that I had planned to be north-east Greece at the end of last month and the beginning of this month (24 August to 4 September), and later in the day, as we heard reports from USPG’s engagement with the wider church, I thought of a planned but cancelled visit to the Anglican Church in Myanmar earlier this year (23 March to 1 April), a cancelled retreat in Lichfield, and the cancelled USPG conference in Swanwick in Derbyshire (20 to 22 July).

The conference in Swanwick gave way to another Zoom meeting of USPG trustees on 23 July, but yet another opportunity for a return visit to Lichfield was lost to what John Crace refers to in the Guardian today as ‘Boristime’ and ‘Coronatime’: ‘In Boristime, years become months, months become weeks. Meanwhile Coronatime has the last laugh of turning each of his strategies from months into weeks, and weeks into days.’

There were reminders too today of great SPG and USPG missionaries in the past, including Arthur Shearly Cripps (1869-1952) in Zimbabwe and Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940) in India, and of the priest-poet Geoffrey ‘Woodbine Willie’ Studdert-Kennedy (1883-1929). In our closing prayers, we remembered members and friends of the USPG family, including the Revd Edward Thompson, and the Very Revd Ken Robinson, a former Dean of Gibraltar.

All this reminiscing and wanderlust reminded me that no matter where we live, as Christians we are sojourners. We heard from the second century Epistle to Diognetus [Πρὸς Διόγνητον Ἐπιστολή], probably the earliest example of Christian apologetics, defending Christianity from its accusers. The unknown writer says:

‘For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of [humanity] either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life … But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and other arrangement of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvellous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign … Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and they surpass the laws in their own lives.’

The Very Revd Ken Robinson was the Dean of Gibraltar in 2000-2003 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Death and dying in a traditional icon and by the Bay of Naples

Patrick Comerford

The Church of England, in the Calendar in Common Worship, marks 15 August as a Holy Day with the simple designation ‘Blessed Virgin Mary.’ The Orthodox Church celebrates the day as the Dormition of the Theotokos, and for the Roman Catholic it is the Feast of the Assumption.

Although the Birth of the Virgin Mary is marked in the calendar of the Church of Ireland this month (8 September), many are uncomfortable about commemorations on 15 August, although we usually commemorate saints on the days they are said to have died. Perhaps this discomfort has less to do with post-Reformation debates and more to do with residual memories of how 15 August was used to counter-balance Orange celebrations on 12 July.

The icon of the Dormition was completed by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) in Crete, probably before 1567

The Dormition and the Assumption are different names for the same event, the Virgin Mary’s death or departure from earth, although the two feasts do not necessarily have an identical understanding of the event or sequence of events.

But, while the Assumption is only a recent doctrinal innovation in the Roman Catholic tradition, decreed in 1950, the tradition of the Dormition is much older in the Orthodox Church, where the day is a Great Feast and recalls the ‘falling asleep’ or death of the Virgin Mary.

The tradition of the Dormition is associated with a number of places, including Jerusalem, Ephesus and Constantinople. In his guidebook, The Holy Land, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor points out that two places in Jerusalem are traditionally associated with the end of the Virgin Mary’s earthly life: a monastery on Mount Zion is the traditional site of her death or falling asleep; and the basilica in the Garden of Gethsemane is said to be the site of her tomb.

However, the first four Christian centuries are silent about the death of the Virgin Mary, and there is no documentary evidence to support claims that the feast of the Dormition was observed in Jerusalem around the time of the Council of Ephesus in 431.

***

An icon of the Dormition by Alexandra Kaouki nears completion in her workshop in Rethymnon, Crete

Traditional Orthodox icons of the Dormition depicting the death of the Virgin Mary incorporate many apocryphal elements or details from writings known as pseudepigrapha. Many icons show the apostles and other saints, including four early Christian writers, gathered around her deathbed, with Christ and the angels waiting above.

The best-known version of this icon is the work of El Greco, or Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541-1614), painted in Crete probably before 1567.

Alexandra Kaouki at work on her icon in her workshop below the slopes of the Fortezza in Rethymnon

It was my privilege some years ago to watch a new icon on this theme in Orthodoxy being shaped and created by Alexandra Kaouki, perhaps the most talented and innovative iconographer in Crete today, as she worked in her studio below the Venetian fortezza in the in the old town of Rethymnon.

She was creating this new icon for the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, or the Little Church of Our Lady, on a small square in the old town.

It was a careful, slow, step-by-step work in progress, based on El Greco’s celebrated icon. But, as her work progressed, Alexandra made what she describes as ‘necessary corrections’ to allow her to ‘entirely follow the Byzantine rules.’

The icon of the Dormition completed by Alexandra Kaouki for a church in the old town of Rethymnon

In her studio, we discussed why El Greco places three candelabra in front of the bier. Perhaps he is using them as a Trinitarian symbol. However, Alexandra has returned to the traditional depiction of only one to remain true to Byzantine traditions.

How many of the Twelve should be depicted?

Should Saint Thomas be shown, or was he too late?

Why did she omit stories from later developments in the tradition, yet introduce women?

Alexandra completed her icon in time for the Feast of the Dormition in Rethymnon that year.

A missed date with Mrs Fitzherbert

The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire … the planned venue for the USPG conference in July (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One of the casualties of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in Britain has been this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency, USPG, United Society Partners in the Gospel. I have been a trustee of USPG for over five years, and was a council member for many years before that.

In recent years, the conference has tended to take place in the High Leigh Conference Centre in Hertfordshire. But USPG was due to return to the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire, from 20 to 22 July.

The conference, with the theme ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’: God’s People in God’s Mission, was timed to run into the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, from 23 July to 2 August, but that too has been postponed.

Mrs Maria Fitzherbert … went through a secret marriage with the future King George IV

The Hayes has been a Christian conference centre since 1911, and I first attended a conference there in 1976. The main house at Swanwick was once the home of the Fitzherbert Wright family, a branch of the Fitzherbert family whose members, by marriage, included the famous – or infamous – Mrs Fitzherbert.

Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837) was a twice-widowed Roman Catholic who secretly contracted a marriage with King George IV that was invalid under English civil law. They were married in 1785 when he was Prince of Wales, but the marriage had not received the consent of his father, George III, although her nephew-in-law from her first marriage, Cardinal Thomas Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage sacramentally valid.

Maria Fitzherbert was the eldest child of Walter Smythe of Brambridge, Hampshire. Her first husband, Edward Weld, was 16 years her senior and died just three months after their marriage in 1775. She married her second husband, Thomas Fitzherbert (1746-1781) of Swynnerton, Staffordshire, in 1778, but was widowed once again in 1781.

***

Ralph Fitzherbert of Norbury … ancestor of the Fitzherbert family and father-in-law of Thomas Comberford

A miniature portrait of Mrs Fitzherbert was among the 1,100 lots auctioned earlier this year at Matthews Auction Rooms in Kells, Co Meath. The catalogue described her as a ‘member, through previous marriage, of the Meath landowning Fitzherbert family.’ It went on to say, ‘she was a beauty of her age and the wife of King George IV, [to] whom she bore two children.’

However this portrait came into the Fitzherbert family in Co Meath, they were not descended from Mrs Fitzherbert. Indeed, any Fitzherbert living in Co Meath at the time of her secret marriage to the future king could only have been a fifth or fourth cousin of her second husband, Thomas Fitzherbert.

The lake at Swanwick … the estate was once owned by the Fitzherbert Wright family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On the other hand, there are many interesting connections between the Comerford and Comberford families and the Fitzherbert family in Staffordshire. The supposed Comberford ancestor of my branch of the family was Judge Richard Comberford (1512-ca 1547), a brother of Canon Henry Comberford (1499-1586), Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral.

They were the sons of Thomas Comberford (1472-1532) of Comberford, who became a member of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John the Baptist in Lichfield in 1495, a year or two before he married his second wife, Dorothy Fitzherbert, daughter of Ralph Fitzherbert of Norbury, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

This makes Richard Comberford a nephew of Thomas Fitzherbert, Precentor of Lichfield, William Fitzherbert, Chancellor of Lichfield, and Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, ancestor of Maria Fitzherbert’s second husband and of the Irish Fitzherberts.

There are signs and symbols of the Fitzherbert and Wright families throughout the house at Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

There are no portraits of Mrs Fitzherbert in the house at Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Fitzherbert Wright family of Swanwick was also ancestors of the Maynell family, who inherited a large painting once in Swanwick that was donated some years ago to USPG. The painting raised £550,000 and helped support work among refugees in Greece by USPG and the Anglican chaplaincy in Athens.

However, I don’t know if there ever was any portrait of Mrs Fitzherbert in Swanwick.

See Naples and … but don’t die

The Bay of Naples … who swims north of Naples when there is an ‘R’ in the month? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I heard once of a grand old lady who was asked late one year whether she had gone swimming that weekend.

‘No, my dear,’ she replied tersely. ‘I never swim north of Naples when there’s an R in the month.’

The saying ‘See Naples and Die’ is said to have been coined when the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – Naples and Sicily – was at the height of its golden age under the rule of the Bourbon dynasty.

Naples and Sicily experienced a ‘golden age’ during the rule of the Bourbon dynasty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Pompeii and Vesuvius are among the tourist attractions at the Bay of Naples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The phrase was popularised in Northern Europe 200 years ago when it was quoted by Goethe in Italian Journey (1816/1817), where he quotes it as: Vedi Napoli e poi muori.

Goethe visited Naples and Sicily for three months, from February to May 1787, when he climbed Vesuvius, visited Pompeii, and travelled on to Taormina and other places in Sicily.

During that tour, Goethe was fascinated by the lifestyle of people: ‘Naples is a paradise; everyone lives in a state of intoxicated self-forgetfulness, myself included. I seem to be a completely different person whom I hardly recognise. Yesterday, I thought to myself: Either you were mad before, or you are mad now.’

The phrase quoted by Goethe earned a new popularity in Italy with a 1950s B-rated movie with the same title.

***

I have seen the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius and Pompeii and travelled through Sicily, visiting Taormina and Mount Etna. But my planned visit to Italy this year was to neither. Instead, I had hoped to visit Puglia in June, with a few days in Bari – also known for its links with Saint Nicholas of Santa Claus fame.

I was booked to spend a night in one of the trulli or traditional dry-stone huts with conical roofs, in the town of Alberobello. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 travel restrictions frustrated those travel plans too – among many others – along with my hopes of swimming south of Naples before there was an ‘R’ in the month.

Goethe visited Taormina in Sicily during his tour of the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples and Sicily (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My GP tells me swimming is good for my sarcoidosis, a condition on my lungs first diagnosed about 12 years ago. The first symptoms included a persistent cough, minor infections on my legs and loss of breath and balance.

It was embarrassing to preside at the Eucharist in the chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, hoping not to break into an unexpected spasm of coughing, or to find myself bowed over in the chapel seats, unable to join in singing hymns. The symptoms were further complicated when I was diagnosed with a severe Vitamin B12 deficiency.

In the years since, I have been through what seems like every hospital south of the Liffey for tests and procedures. Thankfully, my GP and consultants have brought everything under control. Although I still take an inhaler twice a day, you might not notice any symptoms – though I still worries about a coughing spasm on flights or public transport that fellow passengers may fear is an indication of Covid-19.

Hopefully, my sarcoidosis symptoms remain under control. In the meantime, I hope the Coronavirus recedes and that a vaccine or an immunisation is found.

I suppose I shall have to wait until Christmas before I see Saint Nicholas of Bari. But it would be good to swim south of Naples again – whether or not there is an ‘R’ in the month from now on. And I still hope to see the Bay of Naples once again.

This feature was first published in the August 2020 edition of the 'Church Review', the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan magazine

‘When life gives you lemons’ … do not give up on returning to Naples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From icons in Crete and musings in Swanwick to swimming in Naples

A photo-spread in the September 2020 edition of the ‘Church Review’ (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

My monthly column is given a three-page spread in the September 2020 edition of the Church Review, the magazine of the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough, edited by the Revd Nigel Waugh.

In this month’s feature, I discuss a variety of topics, from the Feast of the Dormition or the Assumption, a feast almost unknown in the Church of Ireland and with a variety of interpretations and emphases in other traditions; Mrs Fitzherbert and the place of the king’s mistress in a number of family trees; and swimming and dying in the Bay of Naples.

Some of these topics have been inspired by a missed holiday in Greece this summer – I might have been returning from Thessaloniki yesterday (4 September 2020) – and the cancellation of this year’s annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). The conference had been planned for July at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, once a family home of a Derbyshire branch of the Fitzherbert family.

But there is more to tease the mind in the Church Review, which is being distributed in churches tomorrow (6 September 2020).

Rather than steal my ow thunder, come back and read this column on this blog tomorrow afternoon (6 September 2020).

Happy memories and missed conferences at Swanwick in Derbyshire

Swanwick Hayes was built in the 1860s as a wedding present in the Fitzherbert Wright family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing earlier this morning how the annual conference of USPG was due to take place this week in the Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire. But the Covid-19 travel restrictions have forced the cancellation of both this year’s USPG conference and the Lambeth Conference, due to begin later in the week.

Instead, I spent much of today taking part in an online meeting of USPG Trustees. But I am missing a few days in the Derbyshire countryside, and had also hoped to spend a night or two at either end of the conference in Lichfield.

For most years, the USPG conferences have taken place at the High Leigh Conference Centre, in the Hertfordshire countryside, close to Stansted Airport and close to Cambridge It is 44 years since I first attended a conference at Swanwick. It was a peace conference in 1976, and one of the speakers was Bruce Kent, who was then involved in Pax Christi. Both of us quickly found ourselves being involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

I remember well how I had a room in the old house at Swanwick that year, much to the amusement – perhaps even slight jealousy – of other conference delegates, who realised that there is something special about this house.

I was back in Swanwick for a few peace conferences since then, in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and then – after an absence of decades – for USPG conferences in 2008, 2010 and 2016.

Swanwick became a Christian conference centre in 1911, providing residential and day conference facilities for up to 400 delegates. It is set in beautiful Derbyshire countryside, and several church-based organisations have been delighted in this place as a venue for many decades.

Swanwick is an old Derbyshire village, midway between Ripley and Alfreton. Before the Hayes was built in the 1860s, several families have figured prominently in the history of Swanwick. The Turners, beginning with George Turner in 1620, owned the local mineral rights and became coal magnates, until the death of Charles Turner in 1736.

John Turner built Swanwick Hall around 1690. Elizabeth Turner built a school in 1740 for 20 children from poor families. The schoolhouse is now a private residence. The other most significant family was the Woods family, who lived at the original Swanwick Hall (‘The Old Hall’) in what is known as Wood’s Yard, and was built in 1678.

A famous painting by Joseph Wright of Derby of Hugo Wood and his children used to hang in the family dining room in Swanwick Hall. Joseph Wright also painted the work of art that raised £550,000 at auction five years ago to support the work of USPG and the Anglican chaplaincy in Athens with refugees in Greece. The Meynell family had inherited the painting of Julia, and Mary Maynell was an ancestor of Fitzherbert Wright family of Swanwick, marrying William Fitzherbert (1712-1772) of Tissington.

Swanwick is set in beautiful Derbyshire countryside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen resolution)

In the late 18th century, the Butterley Company changed the face of Swanwick. The company took any surplus labour that Swanwick had and a new turnpike from Alfreton to Derby opened in 1807. Much of the land around the centre of the old village was built on at this time.

Swanwick Hayes – now the Hayes Conference Centre – was built by the Derbyshire industrialist, Francis Wright, in the 1860s as a wedding present for his son, Fitzherbert Wright (1841-1910), when he married Charlotte Rudolphine Louise von Beckman (1848-1932), the daughter of a German pastor, in 1865.

Fitzherbert Wright’s father was a leading Derbyshire industrialist, while his mother, Selina Fitzherbert, was a daughter of Sir Henry Fitzherbert (1783-1858) of Tissington Hall, an early 17th-century Jacobean mansion house at Tissington, near Ashbourne.

The Fitzherberts acquired Tissington by marriage in 1465. The old moated manor at Tissington was replaced with the new mansion in 1609 by Francis Fitzherbert, and it remains the home of the Fitzherbert family. Today, it is the home of Sir Richard Ranulph Fitzherbert. These connections are recalled in the name of the Tissington Room on the ground floor of Lakeside, where I stayed during the 2016 conference.

Fitzherbert Wright had interests in the Butterley ironworks and local coalmines, and was a county councillor and JP. When he was retiring from the Butterley Company as managing director in 1903, he paid for a new tower as a gift for the Parish Church of Saint Andrew, which was built at the crossroads in Swanwick in 1860.

Fitzherbert Wright died on 19 December 1910, and in 1911, the FitzHerbert Wright family sold the house for £11,500, about a fifth of its original building cost, to the First Conference Estate Ltd, and it was converted into the Christian conference centre that operates to this day.

During World War II, the Hayes was used as a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners. Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe officer, escaped from here, but was recaptured at nearby RAF Hucknall as he tried to steal an aircraft. He later made the only verified German escape, from Canada.

Walking in the Derbyshire countryside at Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Well-dressing survives as an old Derbyshire tradition, and at one time there were several wells around Swanwick, often in obscure places. By far the largest well once stand on Hayes Lane close to the entrance to the Hayes Conference Centre. This was a massive Victorian affair with a large seat. However, it was removed in the 1970s to make room for housing on Hayes Lane.

The remains of the well were supposedly buried on the Chapel Street recreation ground. But when he Parish Council tried to find them, the search was soon abandoned – the stones were either placed under the pavilion or were taken and are now serving as fireplaces in Swanwick.

Undaunted, the council decided to build a new well to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee in 2002. The new well was placed on Broadway Head close to Saint Andrew’s Church. Now a well-dressing ceremony takes place every year in Swanwick, with Morris Dancing as a feature.

Today, the Hayes is one of the largest conference centres of its type. But past stories are cherished with names on rooms such as Butterley, Tissington, Haddon, Chatsworth and Alan Booth.

I am not sure when the USPG conference next returns to Swanwick or High Leigh, but hopefully I shall return to Swanwick soon.

Night settles on the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Missing a few days in the Derbyshire countryside at the USPG conference

The Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire … the venue for the USPG conference 17-22 July 2020 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I ought to be in Derbyshire this week (20-21 July 2020), taking part in the annual conference of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

The theme for this year’s USPG conference was going to be ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’: God’s People in God’s Mission.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions meant the conference was cancelled, I was looking forward to a few days in the Derbyshire countryside, but had also planned to spend a day or two on either side of the conference staying in Lichfield, visiting Lichfield Cathedral and Saint John’s Hospital, and, perhaps, also visiting Tamworth and Comberford, with time too in the Staffordshire countryside.

This year’s conference was to take place from Monday to Wednesday this week, immediately before the Lambeth Conference. As well as the annual conference, the programme included a meeting of USPG trustees and the annual meeting of the USPG Council.

For some years now, the conference has taken place at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. So, after some years’ absence, I was looking forward to returning to returning, for the first time since 2016, to the Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick, outside Alfreton in Derbyshire.

The Lambeth Conference was due to take place from 23 July to 2 August, and the pre-Lambeth Conference Hospitality week, 17-22 July, was to bring many opportunities for engagement with global mission for many in the churches of Britain and Ireland.

USPG was planning to play a full part in this hospitality initiative, and this included this year’s conference in Swanwick.

The Swanwick conference was planned as an opportunity to gather with a number of the bishops and their spouses from around the Anglican Communion ahead of the Lambeth Conference, to pray and reflect together on our common mission as the people of God, to be inspired for service in Christ’s name and to reaffirm USPG’s role in God’s mission.

The speakers at the conference were to include Professor Esther Mombo, Associate Professor at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya; Dr Paul Ueti, Anglican Alliance Theological Adviser and Latin American Regional Director, Assistant Director for Theological Education for Lusophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking regions of the Anglican Communion; and Bishop Emelyn Dacuycuy and Bishop Carlo Morales of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente.

Sadly, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant the USPG conference in Swanwick and the Lambeth Conference have both been cancelled.

Instead, I am spending most of today [20 July 2020] at a Zoom meeting of USPG trustees. Meanwhile, not to be outdone by circumstances, USPG is organising two webinars this week to take the place of both the Conference and Council meetings.

The first webinar, at 2 p.m. tomorrow afternoon (21 July), is primarily for supporters who would have attended Conference, although anyone with an interest in USPG is welcome.

The second webinar, from 2 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon (22 July), features Professor Esther Mombo, who was to have been the keynote speaker at the Conference, and the response is being offered by Dr Paulo Ueti from Brazil, who was also due to be a speaker at the conference.

The lake at Swanwick in the Derbyshire countryside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘Rejoice in the Lord always’: USPG conference and this year’s Lambeth Conference

The Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire … the venue for the USPG conference 20-22 July 2020 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I spent most of Wednesday [4 March 2020] in London at a meeting of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

During the day, I heard about the planning for this year’s USPG conference, with the theme ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’: God’s People in God’s Mission.

This year’s conference takes place from 20-22 July, immediately before the Lambeth Conference. For some years now, the conference has taken place at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. But, after some years’ absence, the conference is returning this year, for the first time since 2016, to the Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick, outside Alfreton in Derbyshire.

This year is also a momentous year for the Anglican Communion, which UPSG seeks to serve. The Lambeth Conference takes place from 23 July to 2 August, and the pre-Lambeth Conference Hospitality week, 17-22 July, brings many opportunities for engagement with global mission for many in the churches of Britain and Ireland.

USPG is playing a full part in this hospitality initiative, and this includes this year’s conference in Swanwick.

A number of USPG’s partner churches are celebrating significant anniversaries this year. The Anglican Churches of Tanzania and Myanmar, and the United Churches of North India and Pakistan all mark their 50th anniversaries this year, and USPG has been invited to these celebrations.

This year’s conference in Swanwick offers an opportunity to gather with a number of bishops and their spouses from around the Anglican Communion ahead of the Lambeth Conference, to pray and reflect together on our common mission as the people of God, to be inspired for service in Christ’s name and to reaffirm USPG’s role in this, God’s mission.

The speakers at the conference include Professor Esther Mombo, Associate Professor at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya; Dr Paul Ueti, Anglican Alliance Theological Adviser and Latin American Regional Director, Assistant Director for Theological Education for Lusophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking regions of the Anglican Communion; and Bishop Emelyn Dacuycuy and Bishop Carlo Morales of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente.

Online bookings for the USPG conference in Swanwick are now open HERE