Conrad Noel

Template:Short description Template:Infobox clergy Conrad le Despenser Roden Noel (12 July 1869 – 22 July 1942) was an English priest of the Church of England. Known as the 'Red Vicar' of Thaxted, he was a prominent Christian socialist.

Early life

Noel was born on 12 July 1869 in Royal Cottage, Kew Green, London,Template:Sfnm the eldest son of the poet and essayist Roden Noel, who served as Groom of the Privy Chamber, and his wife Alice Maria Caroline Noel (née de Broë).Template:Sfnm His paternal grandfather was Charles Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough, and his paternal grandmother Lady Gainsborough was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria.Template:Sfnm Noel's parents were both Anglican, though in his youth, Noel repudiated the Calvinism of his mother and attended higher-church services with his father.Template:Sfn

He was educated at Wellington College and at Cheltenham College, then also an all-boys public school.Template:Sfn He then entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1888, but was rusticated (suspended) for a year and chose not to return to complete his degree.Template:Sfn

Career

Ecclesiastical career

File:Thaxted church front.JPG

St John's Church, Thaxted

Noel underwent training for ordination at Chichester Theological College, an Anglo-Catholic theological school.Template:Sfn At first he was refused ordination into the Church of England because of his theological views: he had been offered a curacy at All Saints Church in Plymouth, but on the day on which he was scheduled to be ordained, the Bishop of Exeter refused to ordain him.Template:Sfnm

In 1894, he was ordained deacon in the Diocese of Chester and became a curate in Flowery Field, Cheshire, but left following parishioners' objections to his socialism.Template:Sfn He also spent time as a curate at St Philip's in Newcastle, under W. E. Moll.Template:Sfn Also in 1894, he married Miriam Greenwood.Template:Sfn In late 1904 he became assistant priest to Percy Dearmer at Primrose Hill.

In 1910, he became the vicar of Thaxted, EssexTemplate:Sfn presented by the patron of the living Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, who was herself a socialist.Template:Sfn

Within Thaxted Parish Church, Noel hung the red flag and the flag of Sinn Féin alongside the flag of Saint George.Template:Sfn This led to the "Battle of the Flags" with students from Cambridge leading attacks on the church to remove the flags. Eventually, in 1922 a consistory court ruled against displaying the flags and Noel obeyed the ruling.Template:Sfn

He founded the socialist organization Catholic Crusade in 1918,Template:Sfn which had some impact in the origins of Trotskyism in Britain.Template:Sfn

On Noel's perspective on the Middle Ages, which was similar to that of William Morris and John Ruskin,Template:Sfn Reginald Groves wrote: Template:Quote

Politics

Having become a socialist shortly after finishing his university studies, he joined the Social Democratic Federation.Template:Sfn He joined the Independent Labour Party, but in 1911 became a member of the newly formed British Socialist Party.Template:Sfn

Noel also supported the British Provisional Committee for the Defence of Leon Trotsky, and signed a letter defending Trotsky's right to asylum and calling for an international inquiry into the Moscow Trials.Template:Sfn

Personal life

He was a friend of the composer Gustav Holst who also lived for some years in the town of Thaxted.Template:Sfn

He died of cancer on 22 July 1942 aged 73.Template:Sfnm A sculpture by Gertrude Hermes is in Thaxted church.

Publications

• Ought Christians to be Socialists?, 1909. Transcript of a debate with the Christadelphian Frank Jannaway.
• Socialism in Church History. London: Frank Palmer, 1910.
• The Life of Jesus. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1937.
• Jesus the Heretic. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1939

See also

• John Groser
• Stewart Headlam
• Liberal Anglo-Catholicism

References

Works cited

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