By 1908, Charles Stokes Read’s 26-year-old son Harold, who was by then a composer, had already attempted to distance himself from his embarrassing parents by adding ‘Jervis’ to his surname. One day he would leave his wife and children for one of his former music students, but in late 1908 his main concern was his parents and their known association with the infamous Agapemone. So, one November evening, Harold took pen and paper in his Royal Societies Club in London and wrote to the bishop pleading his parents be kept out of the now seemingly inevitable court proceedings.
The Establishment wagons were already circling the Somerset community; dozens of Smyth-Pigott’s former religious colleagues and acquaintances, even members of his wife’s family, had been subpoenaed to appear before a Consistory Court in the ancient Chapter House of Wells Cathedral in Somerset. The trial, believed to be the first of its sort ever held there, was to be presided over by the Worshipful Chancellor Chadwyck-Healey, C.B., K.C. – whose wife had been nursed by Annie Preece just before she met my grandfather.
Court officers had tried their hardest to serve Smyth-Pigott with a subpoena, attempting to force their way into the Agapemone or waylay him in the surrounding lanes. On 3 December 1908, the Reverend Fairfax Nursey, vicar of St Margaret’s, Spaxton, scrawled a hasty letter to the bishop’s legal team. The elderly vicar had no love for the scandalous community just down the road from his own church and was eager to help in the prosecution of its leader.
‘If you are still desirous of personal service of the complaint,’ he began, ‘Mr Bradfield suggests that he might probably obtain access to the grounds on Sunday, during the time they are in the chapel – as the policeman on duty knows him and would station himself near – and when Mr Pigott left the chapel he would come forward and might without difficulty serve the notice [to appear].’
It didn’t work. My grandfather successfully evaded being served, but my great-grandfather, the faithful Charles Read, volunteered to appear and accepted a subpoena in the naive belief that he would be able to speak on behalf of the man for whom he had sacrificed his wealth and position in society.
And the bailiffs weren’t the only ones to call on the Abode of Love. On the evening of Sunday, 3 January 1909, Michael Sale, the man responsible for tarring and feathering the luckless Charles, once again entered the grounds. The community’s rattled residents hastily sent for the local constable, who escorted Sale away.
A Mr Perris, news editor of London’s Daily Chronicle, offered the bishop ‘any of the information which the Daily Chronicle has in its possession with regard to Pigott’. He went on to say, ‘We have been collecting evidence for some time and we should be glad to place it at [your] disposal.’ The editor insisted that the deal with the bishop was kept private to maintain the objectivity that the newspaper’s readers expected – or at least the appearance of it.
Wells Cathedral is one of the most beautiful of England’s magnificent cathedrals. Set at the foot of the rolling Mendip Hills, it was awarded its cathedral status in 1245. Its magnificent West Front boasts the world’s most complete record of twelfth- and thirteenth-century statuary, more than 400 of them and all originally painted in vivid colours.
It was here in the cathedral’s medieval Chapter House on the morning of Wednesday, 20 January 1909 that my grandfather was to be tried in absentia on three charges of immorality under the Clergyman Discipline Act of 1892 and contrary to the 109th Canon issued by the Province of Canterbury in 1603. The charges of immoral acts, immoral conduct and immoral habits were designed to cover the births of Glory in 1905 and Power in 1908, as well as general allegations of an immoral life. The bishop, perhaps wisely, made no reference in the charges to his troublesome priest’s blasphemous assertion that he was Christ come again.
Charles Stokes Read was nearing 60 when he toiled up the magnificent flowing stone staircase to the Chapter House, followed by his son John. Above them openwork tracery soared, their footsteps echoing as they climbed to the imposing decorated Gothic room where their leader was to be tried. Charles would surely have been attired in top hat and frock coat, beard and moustache immaculately groomed, giving little hint, except in the tiredness in his eyes, of his recent ordeal.
The previous couple of weeks must have been some of the worst in his memory. He was still recovering from his tarring and feathering, while trying to hide his aches and pains from his increasingly concerned wife. Not even Belovèd’s loving cup ceremony the previous Sunday evening in Eden lessened this loyal man’s sense of foreboding. It was Police Superintendent Williams who had arrived unannounced and served Charles with his subpoena – a task Charles later assured his leader he was pleased to undertake. Worse still, today was cold, very cold; a cold that soon permeated the blankets that John tucked round his father. Yet Charles toiled upwards, at last taking his seat towards the rear of the rows of seats at one end of the astonishing polygonal room.
Above father and son, as they arranged themselves side-by-side, soared the 32-rib vaulted ceiling, seeming to grow from the central pillar. Light poured in through the huge stained-glass windows depicting scenes of the Resurrection, and beneath them stood the canons’ stalls, each with their own nameplate.
The proceedings began. Charles was called to answer that he had received the subpoena. As he resumed his seat, the prosecuting lawyer informed ‘his Worshipful Chancellor’ that the court had received no answer to the complaints. He went on to outline the absent defendant’s career and that of his predecessor, the notorious Brother Prince, who, he remarked, ‘under the guise of a so-called religion lived a life of blasphemy and fraud and immorality’.
Barrister Beverley Vachell went on to say that Smyth-Pigott ‘claims to be the Messiah, the sent of God . . . They further claim that sexual intercourse is the highest form of spiritual worship.’ But, he assured the court, they were not here to deal with these ‘terrible blasphemies’. Instead, he concentrated on Smyth-Pigott’s life to the point where he succeeded Prince and took his spiritual bride ‘whatever that might be’ to the Somerset community, where she gave birth to two children fathered by Smyth-Pigott.
‘The Bishop was desirous, if the charges were proven, that this man should be cast out of the Church of England,’ he concluded. ‘It was a lamentable thing that this beautiful hamlet of Spaxton should be turned into a wilderness of particularly repulsive vice.’
The trail of witnesses called to bear out the facts laid out in the lawyer’s opening statement must have seemed endless to the watching Charles: Belovèd’s former religious superiors, even a clerk bearing Smyth-Pigott’s signature to his oath of allegiance and ordination; his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who testified to his marriage to their sister – and the fact that Catherine still resided at the Agapemone; the registrars of the births of Glory and Power, who were witnesses to Smyth-Pigott’s and his spiritual bride’s signatures claiming they were the infants’ parents; and lastly journalist Frank Farncombe, who told how he had managed to get into the community and had persuaded the gardener to point out Sister Ruth. He continued his evidence saying he had interviewed Smyth-Pigott, who had told him that not only were members of the community ‘above sin’ but had said ‘my wife is no more my wife than any other person here. We are brothers and sisters in the spirit.’
Charles could sit still no longer. Before his son could restrain him, the old man had risen painfully to his feet. ‘There is no one here to defend Mr Pigott,’ he said. ‘May I say a word?’
The chancellor looked down from his lofty throne and addressed Charles. He could not hear him as no answer had been received to the subpoena.
‘I would like to say what I think of the last witness,’ persevered Charles.
A court official called out for order in the court. He went over to Charles and commanded he be silent.
It was all over in minutes. The chancellor announced that the case had been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Smyth-Pigott was guilty on all counts and must pay all the court costs, pending the bishop’s final decision.
Six weeks later, on Saturday, 6 March at 2.30 in the afternoon, my grandfather was formally defrocked by George Wyndham Kennion, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, in an imposing ceremony within the cathedral. My grandfather did not attend.
‘The scene was a striking one,’ one newspaper reported. At least three bishops attended in full Episcopal robes, and the diocesan chaplain, the chancellor in a full-bottomed wig, registrars and priests proceeded through the choir to the altar rails.
‘To some it must appear a strange fact that no charge has been brought against the defendant for the blasphemous utterances with which he has been credited,’ began the bishop from his chair near the Holy Table. ‘Upon this I would observe that there is grave doubt whether under the Clergy Discipline Act, under which the last proceedings were taken, a prosecution for blasphemy could have been included. If it could have been included, it is not easy to see how any other punishment could have been imposed than it is my painful duty now to inflict.’
The bishop then pronounced my grandfather ‘entirely removed, deposed and degraded from the said offices of priest and deacon respectively’. Calling on the assembled throng, the bishop then prayed, ‘grant to our erring brother true repentance and amendment of life, and to us and His whole Church pardon and peace’.
The ceremony was not noted in the Agapemone diary.
The following afternoon, Charles’s wife Sarah passed away.