Neville Stuart Talbot, D.D, Bp.(1879 - 1943)
Chaplain of Balliol College Oxford 1909-1914, Assistant Chaplain-General to the Fifth Army 1914-1919, Bishop of Pretoria, South Africa 1920 - 1933
Vicar of St. Mary's Church, Nottingham 1933 - 1943
Neville was born on August 21st, 1879, at Keble College, Oxford. He was the third child and second son of his parents. His father, Edward Stuary Talbot, a younger son of a younger son of the house of Shrewsbury was the first Warden of Keble, and later Vicar of Leeds, and thereafter successively Bishop of Rochester, Southwark and Winchester. His mother was the third daughter of Lord Lyttelton and a member therefore of the large family which laid its characteristic mark on various departments of English life.
Neville had two brothers, the elder of whom, Edward, was to join the Community of the Resurrection, and the younger, Gilbert, was to be killed in action in the Ypres Salient in 1915. Of his sisters, May married Lionel Ford, the Headmaster of Repton and Harrow and later Dean of York, while Lavinia was after his wife's death to keep house for him and bring up his children.
When Neville was nine his father moved to Leeds. Neville attended the Grammar School, and then was at Haileybury from 1892 to 1899. He joined the Army in 1899, just in time for the Boer War. Military life had an attraction for certain sides of Neville's character. It appealed to a certain simplicity in him and the need for courage. Neville was inclined to go straight at things, without weighing the risk. He blurted out untimely truths. The discipline of the Army did not affect him much. The Boer War was not a very good school for that. Much of it was like a shooting party, and the hazardous self-exposure in the clear air of the veldt remained his first taste of danger.
Neville went up to Christ Church in October 1903. In the winter of 1907 he went to Cuddesdon for his ordination training and was ordained Deacon at Ripon Cathedral on June 14th, 1908. He was priested in Lent 1909 and went to be Chaplain of Balliol in October. During the First World War he was Assistant Chaplain-General to the Fifth Army. In April 1918 he was married to Cecil Mary Eastwood by his father at West Stoke Church, near Chichester.
Pretoria
On April 12th, 1920 he was elected Bishop of Pretoria , in succession to Bishop Furse, and was consecrated in St. Paul's Cathedral on St. John Baptist's Day. Among the Bishops who took part in the consecration were his own father, then Bishop of Winchester, The Archbishop of Cape Town, and his predecessor in the Diocese of Pretoria, Bishop Michael Furse.
The life of a South African Bishop is not all romance. His letters are full of his financial troubles.
We start with a pretty good weight around our necks. I knew the job was going to be very stiff.
The creaking finance of the diocese has come pretty well to a crisis, in that there was not enough money come in during August (1922) to send out full cheques to the clergy, and only 65 per cent cheques were sent out all round, myself and the Archdeacon included. There is ever an enormous lot to do about getting English Church people (as contrasted, say, with Wesleyans) to realise that membership carries with it regular obligations of supporting the Church as a matter of duty. I have spoken much about it on my journeys.
I increased the number of my Clergy in faith that the Native contributions would partly maintain them, but they have simply dried up, and I am in, and getting steadily deeper into, impossible debt: I think I can hear Niagra roaring.
In all this first contact with the varied problems of a South African diocese, Cecil Mary was at every moment a joy and support to him. His delight was unbounded when on August 31st his son was born. For two days all seemed well, and Cecil herself was radiant with intense happiness and vitality. But ominous signs appeared on the evening of the third day. Anxiety and hope swayed to and fro, nor was it till the very last morning that hope perished. Cecil herself did not know till then that she was in danger, and was able to nurse her baby to within eight hours of her death.
Nottingham
Neville used to refer to St. Mary's as "St. Pelican in the Wilderness". This is explained by the comment of a priest in the diocese:
He arrived snuffing like a great war-horse, longing for the battle; determined to bring Nottingham to the feet of Christ. He was not a little handicapped by the fact that he came just when the migration from the city began, with the result that the old-fashioned kind of worshippers had largely moved into the country. This handicap was late accentuated during the war by the difficulties of transport. His congregation did not increase as he had hoped.
The parish was largely non-residential, and the church was surrounded by factories and offices which Neville used to visit carrying handbills announcing the special dinner-hour service. In the last years he was sometimes restless and longed for a sphere more suited to his gifts - he had just secured it when God called him away from his work on earth - but he won the strong affection s of his parish and city, as was shown by the large congregation of all classes of people who attended his Memorial Service, and from the tributes of affection which poured in from a great variety of people on his death.
Neville treated his curates as colleagues not as subordinates. As he himself said, he looked to them to make good his own deficiencies on the pastoral side, some of which came from the fact that he had much to cope with outside the parish. He often published his curate's sermons in the parish magazine - perhaps not a common habit with vicars.
One of the marked features of his parochial ministry was his dealings with young couples about to be married. His own experience made him deeply concerned for the integrity of marriage: and he was revolted by books and pays that made light of it. He always interviewed couples both together and singly before marrying, and regarded the preparation thus given to them as one of the most important parts of his work, an estimated that was corroborated by the expressed gratitude of those he helped in this way.
Neville was in excellent relations with the non-Anglican religious bodies in Nottingham. In co-operation with Dr McNulty, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, and Mr James, the Free Church leader, he helped to create the Nottinghamshire Christian Council, which owed much to the combination in Neville of an outspoken loyalty to his convictions with a warm spirit of fraternity.
In May 1941, Neville wrote from Nottingham :"We had a visitation - nothing compared with some places, but still a very real taste. Began about twelve. We had gone to bed, and tried to believe that the explosions were our guns, but soon one and then another were unmistakable - one was not far off down Friar's Lane. Peering out of the top window, I soon realised that big fires had been started, so, there being a lull, I went down. I found a fire going in the South Transept of the Church. It took a long time really to put it out."
Neville was often restless within the conditions of his restriction in his parish at Nottingham - restrictions greatly increased by the war. He likened himself to "an old hulk stranded on a lee-shore". His fearless honesty made him accuse himself of ambition, but, if it was there, it did not lurk in any secret corner. In March 1939 he was offered the Bishopric of Croydon. He would have been Suffragan and Archdeacon as well as Vicar. His first feeling was that he must accept. He felt that nine years in Nottingham were enough, and that "the call came from the Church and not from Downing Street." However, after inspecting conditions on the spot, he decided against. With the coming of the war, there seemed to open out at last the chance for work that suited his gifts. It arose out of his interest in the RAF. In January 1941, he took a four days' Mission for them at Cranwell, and in 1942 he took a Mission in the RAF depot at Donnington. Such experiences convinced him that far more was needed on the spiritual side in the Chaplains' department, and he began a long and unwearied bombardment of the authorities (military and ecclesiastical). In November 1942, the two Archbishops wrote to inform him that he had been appointed as one of the seven men that were to give the greater part of the time to visiting Air Force centres. On December 9th he wrote that he was to start on January 12th 1943. However, just when the direction of his life was moving in a direction that would more suitable employ his talents, came the tragic collapse. On December 12th he had a severe heart-attack, from which he never recovered. He retired to Sussex for convalescence, and died on April 3rd 1943. He was buried at All Hallows, Barking, the religious headquarters of Toc H.
In the Bidding Prayer, his brother said: "Let us thank God for the life of His servant, Neville Stuart Talbot, for his witness in thought, word and life to the reality of God and to the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, for the strength and tenderness of his ministry, and for his greatness of heart in leadership, love and friendship. Let us pray that God may give to him the Light of His Presence, the Peace of His Pardon and the Joy of His Service in the City of God."
Adapted from A Memoir, Neville Stuart Talbot F.H. Brabant, SCM Press, London, March 1949