When we arrived in the parish, the then churchwarden was undertaking that enormous task and produced a book from his research, so I have an excellent resource to start from, but the internet gives opportunities to discover more since that project was completed. And I want to write a little about the history of our church too. So I want to write about some of the people who lived here in the Vicarage, whose stories I’ve learnt about in the years we’ve lived here (fifteen in the middle of February!). It’s a real privilege to live in an old house and to know the names (and profession!) of all its principal inhabitants since it was built. It’s been so long since I blogged, but I’ve had a project bugging me for ages. Mind you, it was almost impossible to get our kids to look at a camera at the same time when they were younger. I’m not sure I’ll have the full lowdown on how all nine of them bumped along together in the Vicarage, but I like to imagine that it wasn’t all as neat and serious as they look in the photos and was perhaps rather more like our messy Vicarage life now. So there are more stories of the Irvine family to come. Thanks to one of Arthur and Louisa’s great granddaughters, who came to visit our church in 2019, I have some more pictures and stories of life here in the Vicarage in the second half of the reign of Queen Victoria. (Guessing the order from left to right from their ages, and if Louisa was about ten in this photo, taken in about 1885). Who knows who will join us next? The Vicarage Children, Amy, William, Maziere, Arthur, Louisa, Constance, John. I think this may be the last time that nine people lived here at once, although the Vicar and I are always up for a challenge. He lived in the Vicarage with his wife Louisa and their seven children. Arthur was in post here from 1874 to 1902. Meanwhile, I’ve been rereading some emails from the great granddaughter of the fifth vicar of our church, Rev Arthur Benjamin Irvine. Rev Arthur Benjamin Irvine MA 1838-1907 Louisa Caroline Irvine 1840-1912 And then we had a call from a minister in London who had a church member starting a job very close to us here, and so this Saturday we have a young man coming to stay whilst he settles into a new life in West Brom. And now we have the Gentle Gs living in the attic whilst they continue to look for somewhere more permanent. And of course, that same week a lady at church told us about her friend who was having trouble finding a new home with her two small daughters. So the Vicar and I had a little pray about the next stage of Vicarage life, asking the Lord to guide our steps. It was beginning to feel a bit quiet in our Victorian vicarage – the Vicarage Hound only barks when he wants a chew. The Joker got himself an apprenticeship at a law firm in Sheffield after his two wonderful years volunteering at The Oakes, the Queen is working hard at a proper job in Lancaster and the Engineer is mostly at uni now. Our lovely Persian lodgers found a flat and moved out just before their baby was born. Our Vicarage was beginning to empty out earlier this year.
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