Harold Davidson

Harold Francis Davidson (July 14, 1875 – July 30, 1937), sometimes known as the "Prostitute's Padre", was a Church of England priest and was famous as the "Rector of Stiffkey". He was defrocked in 1932 for his alleged licentious lifestyle.

Background

Davidson had 27 clergy relatives (including his father and uncles), reaching as high as an Archbishop of Canterbury. His father, the Reverend Francis Davidson, came from a wealthy Birmingham family but poured his money into building the new parish of St Mary's in Sholing, Southampton to which he had been appointed in 1866 and also on his wife who was severely ill all her life. There was little left to finance his son's studies. Davidson was educated at the Banister Court School in Southampton and the Whitgift School in Croydon, moving there to live with his maternal aunts and grandmother.

During his years at Whitgift he formed a small group of amateur actors with other boys and they would organise fundraising events for his father's parish and, later, for other churches in the Southampton area. When Davidson left Whitgift in 1894 he and his friends decided to spend their pre-university gap year becoming professional entertainers. They toured the provinces where they became quite successful and they were invited to appear at the Steinway Hall in London in 1895.

Davidson then became a professional actor, touring the world with some of the great acting companies of the day such as the Trees'. On several occasions he appeared with Sarah Bernhardt (who would be a close friend the rest of her life) and who invited his whole family to France for her opening night performances and asked that he be put on the bill when she appeared at the London Palladium. His forte was comedy mime though he also did the classics and comedies such as Charley's Aunt.

tudent days

Davidson's father wanted him to join the priesthood and he enlisted the help of influential friends to push his son towards that calling. Davidson had intended being ordained but had undergone a crisis of conscience due to the church's opposition to the work of the Toynbee Hall Mission in the East End. After three years he realised the stage was not a very conscientious way of life for him and, having saved enough to begin studies, he joined Exeter College, Oxford.

Davidson was allowed to continue his stage career while he studied theology. However, due to his absences and his failure of written exams (which he rarely sat for), Exeter required him to leave in 1901. Davidson obtained a place at Grindle's Hall instead, where he obtained a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in the normal five-year span, though half of his time was spent away from college working and travelling the world.

He joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox with whom he would later found the Dockland Settlement in the East End of London. They used to arrange gatherings of artists for Sunday teas in Kennedy-Cox's rooms and at one of these gatherings Davidson met his future wife. He stood out in debates and his view's on church reform caught the eye of the Bishop of Stepney Arthur Winnington-Ingram who later became Bishop of London and was to remain one of Davidson's supporters at the trial and until Davidson's death. He also became president of the Oxford University Chess Club, organising tours against other universities and representing Oxford in the annual chess matches against Cambridge University in 1901, 1902 and 1903.

Ordained as a priest

His first curacy was at the Guards Chapel (Holy Trinity) at Windsor. In May 1903 he had his last professional stage employment and on September 21, 1903 he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. At first he was assistant chaplain to the Household Cavalry and then from August 1905 he was a curate of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Davidson's appointment as Rector of Stiffkey St John with Stiffkey St Mary and Morston was announced in July 1906. Stiffkey and Morston are rural parishes on the north coast of Norfolk.

Davidson was a respected High Church churchman before the war and conducted some marriages at the Chapel Royal in the Savoy. He attended several of the King's Levées. He was popular in his Norfolk parishes where he was the main employer and the only landowner living in situ; Marquess Townshend who owned all the land other than the Glebe, lived in London and rarely came up to his estates in Norfolk. The rector looked after all the villagers' needs, whether they went to his church or not. He visited everyone each week and he did special tours at Michaelmas to ensure they all had enough to pay their rents and he would pay it if they didn't. His diminutive stature (he was 5'3") led his parishioners to nickname him 'Little Jim'.

He maintained his connections with the theatre world and kept up with theatre friends all his life. He invested in a disastrous revival of the comic opera "Dorothy" at the Waldorf Theatre in 1909 at the request of a school friend, Maundy Gregory. He was asked to be the first chaplain of the Actors' Church Union of Central London while he was still at St Martin-in-the-Fields. He relinquished the chaplaincy in 1918 to work for the Dockland Settlement in the East End.

The First World War

During the First World War he served as a Royal Navy chaplain. When he returned his wife, Molly, whom he had married in October 1906 after a six year engagement, was pregnant by another man. There was some pressure on him to leave her but he refused, claiming marriage vows were for life but he gave his wife the option to choose separation. He accepted a post as tutor to the Maharajah of Jaipur's son for a year and he proposed taking his children to India with him. The church sanctioned the trip and Davidson contracted someone to take on Stiffkey while he was away. But at the last moment his wife decided she wanted to keep the family together and the rector's permission to go was cancelled. When the child was born he adopted her as his own. However, since he had already contracted someone to take over his parish, he had to remain in London for that year with the family till they could all return to his parish.

When they returned to Stiffkey in 1921, he continued his trips down to London as he had done before 1914. He noticed how many youngsters were now coming before the courts accused of vagrancy.

Financial difficulties

Davidson first hit the headlines in 1925 when he fell into debt. Stiffkey and Morston had been sold by the Marquess in 1911 and the two new landowners refused to pay the tithes, forcing the rector into debt. He was prosecuted for not paying poor rates of £39, 11s, 1d on the tithes paid to the church. The local Justices of the Peace ordered him committed to jail and Davidson was unable to find the £100 sureties to keep himself on bail pending an appeal because, he said, locals "were afraid of offending certain persons with whom I have got into difficulties through taking a strong line of action". Davidson won a temporary order from the High Court to prohibit his arrest.

The High Court ruled that he should not have been asked to pay rates on church property when he had not received the tithes to pay them with. Many clergy suffered the same difficulty at the time due to an overhaul of the tithe system to placate landowners who objected to paying them. The rector still retained some of his after the changes and he was allowed to declare bankruptcy as an alternative to jail. The terms of the settlement obliged him to pay a large part of the income of the rectory to his creditors. All his income went through the courts from that time on and what wasn't paid to creditors went directly to his wife. Hence it seems improbable that he could have spent it on girls in London, as was later claimed at his trial. His money in London came from other "bona fide" charity sources for which he had to make account.

Investigations begin

In November 1930, Davidson was late back from London for the annual Remembrance Day service. Major Philip Hamond, one of the landowners of Morston, who had disliked Davidson since he refused to allow him to be churchwarden in 1919 and had had several further altercations with him since, was 'incandescent with rage' and accused Davidson of doing it as an insult to the war dead. In fact he had been ill for several days and had not been able to get back and he asked to be replaced.

Hamond discovered, through a clergy relative, that if Davidson was accused of immorality the church would have to investigate. A complaint was made to Henry Dashwood, solicitor to the Church of England and adviser to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It is not certain if this was done by the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Bertram Pollock or by Hamond through a relative who was a rural dean.

There are no letters of complaint from the bishop to Dashwood at any time. Later letters confirm that nobody in the bishop's office was aware that he was under investigation until they received a notification of his impending trial a year later. It was all directed by Dashwood from London from the outset. He came for an initial visit to Hamond in early January 1931 and also met the churchwarden of Stiffkey who told him the rector was the best priest they ever had and warned Dashwood that he would find no one to say a bad word against him. Dashwood had hoped it would be a simple case of finding local parishioners to back a claim of neglect of the parish but he returned to London empty handed.

candal breaks

Dashwood then began investigating Davidson's activities in London. He hired the Arrows Detective Agency to follow the rector and report his activities in London. Again the private detectives uncovered little; of the 40 girls they interviewed only one would say anything against him and then only when drunk (she recanted when sober).

Almost a year had gone by and a lot of money had been spent without result. Dashwood was under pressure and was being threatened with the Bar Council for the way he was conducting the investigation, threatening and mistreating the girl they got drunk who was so traumatised that she tried to commit suicide. Dashwood was finally pushed to call the rector into his office in December 1931. He attempted to get the rector to sign an open confession to immorality while denying him access to the bishop and the right to know of what he was being accused. The rector refused and immediately offered his resignation to the bishop in return for a church investigation into any accusations against him. His life was an open book he wrote; all the bishop had to do was ask. His family's advice was recorded and sent in to the bishop as well and remains in the archive today. He offered to step down if his parishioners wanted him to and they refused.

In a final meeting with the bishop he tried once more to offer to resign in return for a church investigation. He claimed that it would do the church harm to allow the case to come to court. The bishop replied he was entirely in Dashwood's hands and the rector should sign the confession or go to trial. He asked again what he had done; the bishop told him he couldn't remember but he knew the charges were very grave. The rector asked how he could possibly sign a confession to charges his bishop couldn't even remember; if that was the choice then he could only choose trial.

The media enters the ring

The newspapers were able to write stories that conveyed the impression of guilt. Dashwood had taken his time, spending a whole year before calling the rector in to accuse him but he now acted to bring charges that could be reported to the press. Within the space of 3 weeks the rector had been called in, accused, and charges signed by his bishop.

Charges under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892 were served on the rector on 20 January 1932, with a Consistory Court trial date set for 1 February. The rector barely had 10 days to find himself a defence team and no money to do it with.

Dashwood sent detectives to serve sub poenas on everyone the rector knew. At the last moment his bishop changed his mind and agreed to accept his resignation rather than a trial but Dashwood released charges to one London newspaper to ensure the bishop could not withdraw.

There have always been rumours that Davidson contacted the press. Evidence shows that he didn't. He was in Norfolk at the time having been called to the bishop's offices. He later requested a trial in camera so he could present a defence. It was denied to him. He never gave interviews to the press even after the trial. He did write a series of articles himself for the "Empire News" called "Why I am fighting" when the paper offered to defend him. It was quite usual for the media to come in when a defendant in a major trial had no money and offer to pay for his defence in return for exclusive access. In the rector's case a top counsel was retained, but the prosecution successfully sued for contempt of court so the paper and its counsel were obliged to withdraw. He finally got a Jewish defence team which offended the judge who considered it a court of Christian morals.

When the "Daily Herald" published its story it was fined £50 for Contempt of Court (the "Empire News", to which Davidson had given a series of articles on why he was fighting, was fined £100). Davidson was cleared of contempt.

Trial

Much went on behind the scenes before Davidson's trial finally began on 29 March, 1932 at Church House, Westminster, before the chancellor of the diocese of Norwich. This was a church disciplinary trial, not a criminal prosecution, but it was a public sensation. Many of the charges related to inappropriate intimacy with girls employed at Lyons tea rooms. Davidson often befriended them because, when working for low wages in the West End, they were easily led into prostitution. The prosecution's star witness, Gwendoline Harris (known as Barbara Harris) who was 16 years old when she first met Davidson, claimed the rector had posed as her uncle and paid her rent, later arranging for her to live at his London home in Macfarlane Road, Shepherd's Bush. Harris claimed the reason Davidson had missed his train on Remembrance Day was that he was "trying to kiss me all the time". Evidence in the form of letters between them support the rector's claim that he never disguised the fact that he was a priest. Her claims could be said to be "wild teenage claims", and were unsupported, but they damaged him by smearing him rather than by direct accusation of any wrongdoing.

His defence was that his work in London had been authorised by his bishop, and that only Harris had actually given evidence of immorality, she having been paid by the prosecution. He admitted to trying to help up to 1,000 girls with advice and sometimes money (one woman, Rose Ellis, had her treatment for syphilis paid for by Davidson). He had connections with the film industry and could get girls claiming to be actresses parts as extras. The rector's family including his daughter Patricia gave evidence that some of the girls mentioned in evidence had visited the family at Stiffkey and that neither she nor her mother had objected. The hearing lasted 26 days and attracted large crowds as Davidson was already a cause célèbre.

The turning point in the trial came when the prosecution produced a photograph of Davidson standing talking to a 15-year-old girl who had her back to the camera. She was wearing a black shawl but was naked underneath. Although the photograph was not printed in the newspapers, it made headlines. Davidson claimed he had been set up and that he had been offered money for posing with two of his acquaintances in the hope that the publicity would be helpful to his case, but the photograph seemed clearly to incriminate him. It was never examined for authenticity and neither he nor the girl knew how it had been taken.

However, all the photographs show a wide white line down the centre of them which could indicate that they were faked as he claimed. Rumours were rife during the trial that the prosecution wanted to get Davidson in a compromising situation due to the weakness of their case and the possibility that Barbara Harris' evidence might be ruled as unreliable since she was paid for it. In a court of law it would have been rejected. Davidson's defence team ordered that he never be left alone day or night.

Conviction and sentence

On 8 July Davidson was convicted on all five charges. After Davidson had exhausted his appeals, his sentence was announced on 21 October, 1932 and he was defrocked at Norwich Cathedral.

A final appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury failed. Davidson tried to speak at a meeting of the Church Assembly in 1936 but was told by the archbishop that he had no right to speak. Increasingly he came to believe that he had been framed, and referred to the episode as a 'clerical Dreyfus case'.

Aftermath

With the loss of his clerical income, he went back to public entertainment and in September 1932 advertised his appearance fasting in a barrel at Blackpool. This appearance did not go according to plan as the massed crowds caused an obstruction and the police arrested the promoter Luke Gannon for causing it, and Davidson for aiding and abetting him. Both had to give undertakings "that the barrel business with Mr Davidson will cease"; they were fined 40s. each.

However, Davidson's contact with the law was not entirely as the defendant; after his last service at Stiffkey he was assaulted by Major Philip Hamond, one of the churchwardens. Davidson had asked to speak to Hamond on parochial business apparently to ask for the key to the church, but Hamond did not wish to speak to him and told him "Clear out, or I'll kick you out!". Hamond then kicked the Rector off the step, stating at the Magistrates' court that it was "a kick of finality and contempt". Hamond also kicked a companion of Davidson's, Clinton Gray-Fisk; he was convicted of two counts of assault and fined 20 shillings on each plus the court costs. Local legend states that the Major received many letters from sympathisers paying part of his fine, and that one enclosed a packet of hobnails with a request that he put those into the soles of his boots for next time.

Davidson then went to Blackpool to live off his notoriety. He would appear either in a barrel or being apparently roasted in an oven while a figure dressed as a devil prodded him with a pitchfork. In August 1935 he was summonsed again, this time by Blackpool Corporation, for attempting suicide by fasting – an entertainment again promoted by Luke Gannon. Davidson was still a public figure and appeared in court in ecclesiastical robes, described as "an ex-clergyman of no fixed abode". This time, however, he was found not guilty: the court did not believe that he was intending to take his own life. He then successfully sued the Blackpool Corporation for false arrest and malicious prosecution and was awarded £382 in damages. Late in 1936 he was fined for trespassing on Victoria Station. On Tuesday 20 July 1937 he was arrested by two policemen after exiting a lion's Cage, for not paying the fine and was subsequently given 15 days to pay £7 8s.

The rector retained his popularity among his friends, his former parishioners and the people he met in the years following the trial, particularly women. He was an admirer of Annie Besant whom he knew during his youth in the East End when he joined the Fabians and he supported her work there. He became a great supporter of women's rights.

Death

For the summer season in 1937 Davidson worked at Thompsons' Amusement Park in Skegness, where he was billed as 'A modern Daniel in a lion's den'. He would enter a cage with a lion called Freddie and a lioness called Toto, and talk for about ten minutes about the injustice he felt had been meted out to him. On 28 July, he was moving through his act when he accidentally tripped on the tail of the lioness. Presumably perceiving this as an attack, Freddie the lion attacked and mauled him. Renee Somer, the 16 year old lion attendant entered the cage and fought the lion back using a 3 ft whip and an iron bar.

Davidson was taken to Skegness Cottage Hospital with a neck injury and broken collar-bone and lacerations on his upper body.The lion had mauled him at the neck leaving a gash behind his left ear. The injury was not severe; the lion was old, toothless and sedated.Fact|date=September 2007 He was recovering from his injuries and it was arranged that he should be taken back to London by one of his daughters. Then the man who had employed him, a Captain Rye sent private doctors to treat him. They diagnosed an advanced case of diabetes without testing him for the disease. They ordered insulin and supervised the injection themselves. The rector sank into a coma and died the next morning.Fact|date=May 2007

His solicitor wanted an investigation but his widow rushed up to stop it, she wanted no more publicity and she wanted nobody touching him. She sat with her husband's body until it was removed for burial. A coroner's jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure. His former parishioners requested that he be buried in Stiffkey.

Davidson's widow refused to wear black and arrived for his funeral dressed in white. She wanted it to be a celebration of his life. 3,000 mourners crammed into the village to attend the funeral service. The police had to attend in force to keep crowds at bay. His coffin was carried slowly through the streets of his old villages; people stood outside their homes bowing as it passed then followed it up to the Church. Round the sides of his grave, in gold lettering, is a favourite quotations from Robert Louis Stevenson which says "For on Faith in Man and genuine Love of Man all searching after Truth must be founded".

Posthumous treatment

The strange story of the Rector of Stiffkey has been the subject of several fictionalised retellings. David Wright and David Wood wrote a two-act treatment "A Life in Bedrooms", produced in Edinburgh at Traverse Theatre, 1967 and then produced as "The Stiffkey Scandals of 1932" on BBC2 TV and at Queen's Theatre in London, 1968, which trod a middle ground on Davidson's guilt or innocence. This was subsequently revived as "The Prostitute's Padre" at Norwich Playhouse, 1997. [ [http://www.davidwood.org.uk/my_biography.htm David Wood's biography] ] A musical "And God Made the Little Green Apple" was staged at the Stables Theatre, Manchester in 1969. Stuart Douglas wrote a play in 1972 entitled "The Vicar of Soho" which portrays Davidson as a politically naive but well-intentioned social reformer. Ken Russell made a 1990 underground film "Lion's Mouth" based on the scandal; the central character is a female journalist on the "Skegness Sentinel". John Walsh's novel about Davidson's life, "Sunday at the Cross Bones", was published on 8 May 2007. [ [http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/features/article2489681.ece The rector of Stiffkey: Britain's most infamous clergyman - Features, Books - The Independent ] at enjoyment.independent.co.uk]

There is also a film, The Missionary (1982), which takes its basis from the story of Rev. Harold Davidson, but sets it back in the Edwardian period. Michael Palin played the clergyman based on Davidson, but he was supported in the film by Maggie Smith, Trevor Howard, Denholm Elliott, Phoebe Nicholls, and Michael Hordern.

Many documents concerning the case are now in the public arena, except his personal letters and papers which remain with his family. The documents have been used by Davidson's descendants and the present priest at Stiffkey as proof of the fact that he was not guilty of the charges which were found proved against him. A BBC documentary in 2004 showed their attempts to posthumously exonerate him.

Gossip about Harold Davidson continues. When Nick Auf der Maur of the "Montreal Gazette" wrote about the Rector of Stiffkey it was based on a conversation he had with a patron of a Bishop Street bar in Montreal. The "Gazette" printed a response to Auf der Maur by Ruth Roach, Harold Davidson's granddaughter, explaining the inaccuracies of the hearsay.

References

*" 'The Reason Why' " by Harold Francis Davidson (Deane Printing Works, London, 1935)
*" The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties, 1919-1940 " by Ronald Blythe (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1963; 2001 reprint is ISBN 1842122584); chapter on Davidson, pp. 134-154.
*" 'The Prostitute's Padre' " by Tom Cullen (Bodley Head, London, 1975)
*" 'The Troublesome Priest' " by Jonathan Tucker (Michael Russell Publishing, 2007)
*" 'Biography of the Rector' " by Karilyn Collier (2004)
* Citation | title = Lion attacks ex-rector of stiffkey : Girl of 16 rescues him
newspaper = Daily Mirror Late Lon Ed | date = 1937-07-29 | year = 1937 | pages=1 & 28
* Citation | title = Neck broken, he talks to his children
newspaper = Daily Mirror (Late Lon Ed) | date = 1937-07-30 | year = 1937 | page=27
* Citation | title = Dying ex-rector asks to hear stories of his last adventure
newspaper = Daily Mirror (London Ed) | date = 1937-07-31 | year = 1937 | pages=3 & 4

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/extra/series-1/vicar_lion.shtml BBC Inside Out profile] arguing for Davidson's innocence
* [http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/pasttimes/pt_scandalousrector.htm Norfolk History and Past Times]
* [http://www.rectorofstiffkey.co.uk/ Rector of Stiffkey] website written by his granddaughter, Karilyn Collier