22. A RECTOR OF SOME NOTORIETY

Many of the Rectors at Willingham during the 1700’s and 1800’s were absentee Rectors, who lived and studied in one of the Colleges of Cambridge University and many of them published widely. However, there were some notable exceptions, none more so than Sir Henry Bate-Dudley. He was Rector of Willingham from 1812 to 1824.
A flavour of what was to come is in his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, which designates him as ‘Henry Bate. Journalist. Educated Queen’s College Oxford, but despite the letters MA and LLD sometimes shown under his name, there is no record that he obtained a degree from the University’.
In 1772 he was appointed curate to the vicar of Hendon who had just published a celebrated farce, High Life Below Stairs. Henry Bate spent most of his time in London society, where he became well known as a man-about-town and an associate of the wits of the day.
His journalistic career started in 1772 with his appointment as editor of the newly established Morning Post, where ‘the smartness of his articles and the excitability of his temperament frequently involved him in personal quarrels, ending in a fight or duel, earning him the nickname of The Fighting Parson’. The following year his involvement in an affray in Vauxhall Gardens brought him national notoriety. In 1780 he left the Morning Post and started the Morning Herald in opposition. That same year he married Mary White, the sister of a celebrated actress. In 1781 he was committed to the King’s Bench Prison for 12 months for a libel on the Duke of Richmond, after which he assumed the name Dudley. In 1810 the Gentleman’s Magazine reported that he had won an alleged duel with a Mr Stoney-Bowes in defence of the character of the Countess of Strathmore. He then composed a series of comic operas, and took up hunting, becoming master of a pack of hounds in Essex, where he is quoted in The English Country Parson as having chased a fox with three hounds up the ivy-covered buttress of Cricksea Church on to the chancel roof.

Suddenly everything changes at the age of 67 and he becomes ‘respectable’. Perhaps he had a health scare as 40 years of high living caught up with him. Or he ran out of money. Whatever the cause, he went to Ireland to take up two Church appointments, before being appointed Rector of Willingham in 1812 by the Prince Regent. Things then happened in quick succession as a second career took off. He was created a baronet the following year, a Canon of Ely in 1815, and then appointed a magistrate. He was now Canon Sir Henry Bate Dudley – a far cry from his previous London society lifestyle.
Any hopes of a quiet retirement in Willingham were shattered by the Littleport Riots in 1816.There was a great deal of social misery at the end of the Napoleonic wars, caused by high unemployment and high grain prices. and labourers rioted at Littleport and Ely. Troops of the Royal Dragoon guards from Bury St. Edmunds were sent in response, led on horseback by Canon Sir Henry Bate Dudley, the magistrate, from Ely to Littleport. The rioters were arrested and a Service held in Ely Cathedral immediately before the trial. The Bishop of Ely led a procession with his sword of state, and Canon Bate Dudley preached the sermon on the text of ‘The law is not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient’. The outcome was 23 men and one woman condemned, of whom 5 were hanged, 7 sentenced to penal transportation to Australia on the convict ship ‘Sir William Bensley’ and 11 to local jails. The Canon was later presented with a piece of plate for his ‘very spirited and firm conduct during the riots.’
There is no record of the opinion of the people of Willingham of their Rector. He died in 1824.

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