Oxford Pastorate

The Beginnings of the Pastorate’s Ministry

 

Today, towards the close of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Oxford is a centre of vibrant Christianity.  If it is generally true that the great authorities of secularization theory have been confounded by the persistent importance of religion in the contemporary world, they certainly could not have been more wrong about intellectual hubs like Oxford.  Far from vanishing from the scene, expressions of Christian life and thought are thriving here: in the contemplative beauty of sung Evensong in the college chapels, in the hubbub of packed family services in city-centre churches, and in intellectual debates where believing academics engage the most strident spokespersons of ‘new atheism’ on equal terms. 

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the moment of the genesis of the Oxford Pastorate, the situation could not have been more different.  There was a widespread sense that, in comparison with other parts of society, the spiritual condition of England’s great universities was at low ebb.  Writing on ‘Religious Issues’ in the official, multi-volume The History of the University of Oxford, Peter Hinchliff observes:

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, university religion left much to be desired.  Services are described as “simply disgraceful” and clerical dons as “utterly indifferent to the spiritual welfare of men under their care”.  And even one of the more objective observers described chapel services as dull and formal and unlikely to satisfy the soul of the religiously minded undergraduate. [1] 

Indeed, the number of ‘religiously minded’ students was seen to be diminishing rapidly, due in part to the agnosticism of many a ‘modern young Don who mixes freely with the undergraduates’.[2]

A number of prominent Anglican clergy and laymen were burdened to do their part to address this crisis and to counterbalance the influence of the agnostic young Dons with the influence of equally inspirational Christians.  Under the leadership of Bishop F.J. Chavasse, at that time Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and later Bishop of Liverpool, they developed a plan to institute a new unofficial, extra-collegiate chaplaincy whose goal, from the first, was to complement the work of the college chaplains and the city-centre churches.[3] 

 

On the 8^th February 1893 a meeting was held at the London headquarters of the Church Missionary Society, from which emerged this statement to the press: 

The need [...] is very acute [...] It is therefore, proposed to plant in the heart of Oxford two clergymen of special gifts, whose single aim shall be to take up the spiritual side of the ideal Tutor’s work, and through frequent and affectionate intercourse, to seek to win to Christ, or to build up in him, the large number of University men, who, at the present time, as is well known, are more than ready to welcome their help.[4] 

What they were proposing was ‘an unofficial chaplaincy in the University’ which became known as the Oxford Pastorate.[5]  Following the meeting, which also resulted in the publication of their aims and an appeal for the sum of £20,000, the decision was taken to begin work without delay. 

Their decision and their press release were immediately lampooned in the journal Punch (see illustration of the original cartoon and comment, left.)

 

 

 

 

 

Almost immediately, Rev. H.H. Gibbon was appointed as the first Pastorate Chaplain.[6]   Henry Gibbon came from a family many members of which had served their country with distinction at home and overseas.  In India especially they had been judges and governors and generals [...] Gibbon himself was educated at Hailebury.  After passing through Sandhurst he became a Lieutenant in the Bengal Lancers [...] During a period of illness he passed through a deep experience.  He became suddenly convinced that if he should recover, he must leave the Army, and devote himself to full-time service for God in the Ministry of His Church.’[7]  In the early days, ‘[Gibbon’s] work was entirely personal, just making friends with undergraduates and keeping in touch with people who needed his help.  In his very first year Mr Gibbon met and got to know nearly three hundred men.[8]

Over the coming decades, the success of the Pastorate, measured by its influence on the spiritual life of Oxford students, was remarkable.  According to Oxford historian Mark Smith, ‘the Annual Reports of the Oxford Pastorate record continuous, steady and sometimes spectacular success in its work among undergraduates’.[9]  Indeed, by 1935 it was reported that numbers on the Pastorate list stood at 1,200: “That is to say, fully a quarter of the University have some touch with [the Pastorate chaplains] and look to them in matters of spiritual guidance and inspiration”.’  Therefore, it is unsurprising that by the time the next volume in The History of the University of Oxford, focusing on the twentieth-century, came to be written, the Oxford Pastorate is viewed as simply a part of the religious furniture of Oxford life.

Only Cambridge among British universities could boast a clerical presence matching that of Oxford.  In addition to the college chaplains, significant numbers of clergy were attached to the cathedral, the University church, Pusey House, the Roman Catholic chaplaincy, the Anglican theological colleges, the three non-conformist colleges, the Oxford Pastorate and the various city congregations.[10]

In this short paper, I will explore in a little more detail the aims and character of this venerable institution; consider its preferred method of ministry through the past 115 years; and finish with a few ‘snapshots’ of different epochs of its work.