Article from the “East Anglian Magazine”, April, 1951, pp 494-498.

WHERSTEAD

By Freda A. Fryer

   The Rev. F. Barham Zincke used to relate that when he was curate of Wherstead, near Ipswich, he once found himself on the Scottish border seated beside a stranger who said to him: ‘There is a scene in the much-decried eastern counties which in my opinion is superior to anything I have seen in Scotland.  It is the view from a quite unknown country churchyard on the banks of the Orwell.  The place is called Wherstead.’

   That view is indeed one of the loveliest views in all East Anglia.  The wide Orwell is there, set amidst the magnificent woods and gently sloping fields.  On the right one can see along to Levington and on the left to Ipswich.  Five parks are on the river’s banks – Stoke, Wherstead, Woolverston, Nacton and Orwell.  The estuary is so wide at high tide that it looks more like a large lake with well-wooded shores.

   Mr. Zincke relates another story of an event that took place about 80 years ago.  An American visitor asked to see the church.  As Mr. Zincke was pointing to the Norman porch and explaining that it was 700 to 800 years old, he received no reply, so he turned round to see whether the visitor was listening.  With tears in his eyes the American said: ‘Excuse a weakness I have never felt before and should not have supposed myself capable of.  But a sudden emotion has overcome me.  I, brought up in a country without any antiquities, am overpowered at the thought of how many generations of men, how many even before my own country was known to the world, have entered in and gone out by this venerable porch, and among them probably ancestors of some of the first settlers of our New England states.’

   It was in the same porch that a parishioner loitered, admiring the view, one fine Sunday afternoon whilst a service was being held inside the church.  Suddenly he shouted loudly: ‘Tally-ho! Tally-ho! There she goes!’  He had seen a vixen who had gone to earth and was bringing up her cubs near the south side of the church.  Most of the congregation rose from their knees and hurried to the spot.

   On another occasion – one Saturday evening – the squire of the village had an urgent message from the gamekeeper of a neighbouring squire: ‘Yer must stop the parson from the church tomorrow.  A pattridge is sitting hard on twelve eggs close by the chutch potch.  The folk coming and going will so skear the bird that the eggs will likeliest be spoilt.  The pattridge must be kep quiet and yer must order that the chutch be shut up tomorrow.’

   WHERSTEAD Park mansion was built by Sir Robert Harland, High Steward of Ipswich 1821-1848.  The date 29 July 1792 is cut on a stone to the left of the front entrance.  The outside of the mansion is undistinguished but, inside, the staircase and the gallery round it are well proportioned and dignified.  In the lofty and spacious rooms there was at one time a splendid collection of pictures, including a Venus by Titian and other paintings by Kneller, Reynolds, Romney and Hogarth.  A copy of Romney’s portrait of Sir Robert Harland can be seen at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich.

   To have an uninterrupted view of the valley of the Orwell, Sir Robert had the old vicarage demolished.  It used to stand at the south side of the church.

   In 1819 he let the mansion to Lord Granville who entertained there many famous men.  The Rev. George Capper, vicar of Wherstead at that time and whose portrait still hangs in the  icarage to this day, used to recall that he saw Canning and the Duke of Wellington acting in a charade there.  The duke impersonated a nurse and appeared wearing a white cap and holding in his arms a pillow dressed up as a baby.  In 1823 the duke accidentally shot his host in the face and it was Dr. A. H. Bartlett of Ipswich who extracted the shots – or most of them, for two or three never were extracted.  It was while on one of these visits, in January 1821, that the Duke of Wellington was made a freeman of Ipswich.

   The family of Edward FitzGerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, lived at Wherstead Park for ten years from 1825.  It is said that an Anglo-Indian major living in the village at the time fired Edward’s mind with the lore of the East.

   In 1847 Sir Robert Harland came back to Wherstead and in the following year, at the age of 82, he died.  Lady Harland survived her husband 12 years.  On her death she left the estate to Charles Antony Dashwood who left it to his eldest son.  The property was eventually sold to Stuart Paul and it is now owned by the Eastern Electricity Board and occupied by the headquarters staff.

   THESE words are written on the lychgate at the entrance to the church: ‘In memory of Foster Barham Zincke, vicar and historian of Wherstead.  With his voice and with his pen he constantly labored in the service of humanity.’ He was buried in the churchyard and on his tombstone is written: ‘An earnest friend of social and moral progress.’

   He certainly was a remarkable man.  His ministry at Wherstead covered 52 years, 1841-93, six years as curate, 46 as vicar.  He was also chaplain to Queen Victoria.  Among other books he wrote, The Days of My Years and Wherstead Territorial and Manorial. Although the latter has over 400 pages he modestly sub-titled it ‘Some materials for its history.’  Few villages as small as Wherstead have been so well chronicled.  These notes have been taken largely from the two books.

   Zincke refused the head mastership of Queen Elizabeth’s School at Ipswich and an East India Chaplaincy.  In 1855 Prince Albert urged him to become a candidate for the headmastership of Wellington College and saw him three times at Buckingham Palace on the matter.  At the prince’s request he drew up a scheme of instruction and work for the college, but he did not accept the position.  One reason he gave was that he was not consistent with what he felt to be his life’s work and another reason was that he did not wish to uproot the 75-year-old widow of his predecessor who lived with him.

   Since his schooldays Zincke had wanted to teach.  He wanted to improve the working masses of the people intellectually, morally and materially.   He became a pioneer in the movement for reform in the principles of education long before the Worker’s Educational Association and University Extension came into being.

   He began writing pamphlets and magazine articles with great success.  Then his conscience troubled him because of the poor quality of his own 300 written sermons.  So when he was 36 he destroyed them all and resolved never again to read a written sermon or to take a note into the pulpit.  This was at a time when it was common for the clergy to read printed sermons from the pulpit.  Zincke had never done this.  His sermons were original, so far as it was possible for them to be.  For the next five years he ceased writing for the press and, except for newspapers, read nothing that was not relevant to his self-imposed task of writing 600 sermons and preaching them without any notes.  He found this to be excellent mental training. 

   In 1865 he married the widow of Sir William Stevenson, who had a son three years old.  During the years that followed he wrote and published books and traveled extensively. In 1880 he rebuilt the present vicarage and was his own architect.

   He was the first president of the London Education Society and principal of Ipswich Men’s College.  He lectured at Edinburgh and became well known for the lucid quality of his teaching.

   Then, when he was 68, he planned and worked to get his 19-year-old stepson, Francis Seymour Stevenson, into Parliament as the Liberal member for the north-east division of Suffolk.

   He wrote pamphlets, which were widely distributed, under the signature of ‘A Friend and Neighbour.’ In them he championed the oppressed farm labourers and urged that they should have the right to own land.  He went from village to village with Stevenson speaking on political platforms.  In the general election o f1885 Stevenson’s majority was 1996, in the most Tory division of the country.

   When Zincke had completed his 50th year of ministry his parishioners presented him with an address and a testimonial.  Every parishioner subscribed to it.  At the presentation in the village school, Zincke finished his speech of thanks by saying: ‘I love Wherstead more than any spot on earth.  And I love it not merely for its woods and fields and river but mainly for the friends I have had in it and that I now have in it.’

   He died on 23 August 1893.

   As a small child, Mrs. Adams, wife of the present vicar, was at Mr. Zincke’s presentation and treasures the memory of him.  I am indebted to her and the Rev. H. Corbyn Adams for much help in the writing of this article. – Freda A. Fryer.

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