Shock to religious scandal! See how ministers clash! Watch armoured Puritan shock troops as they grind down the proud spires of ancient worship! And when you’ve done that, look at some photographs of Peterborough Cathedral while you have a nice cup of tea. Today, dear listener, we remind you of E G Swain, supernatural tale teller, vicar, and acquaintance of the more famous M R James. And we visit the colonies briefly. But it’s not really a convention report, so relax…

(All UK photographs by kind permission of Brian Showers and Amelia)

It may not have escaped everyone’s attention that we recently went to the only convention we usually risk, Fantasycon in Peterborough. And we enjoyed it.

Peterborough is, as you know, a small town in New Hampshire which was established in 1749. In 1760 it was incorporated by Benning Wentworth, then governor of New Hampshire and great-grandson of William Wentworth (1616-1697), an adherent of the divisive Free Grace faction in early New England church politics.

William Wentworth and most of the dissenters came from the same part of Lincolnshire in the UK – around Alford-  with a certain Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson being a leading light. Put crudely, they believed that personal salvation came through faith alone, and unlike ‘preparationists’, who thought that charitable deeds and action ‘prepared’ the way for faith and salvation, they preached that you were saved by your faith even if you were a complete sod, and then sinned afterwards as well. Which must have been a touch convenient at times. Anyway, they got squished.

Despite all the above being true, we have to admit that Fantasycon 2017 was actually in one of the other Peterboroughs, that city across the waters in Britland. The New Hampshire settlement wasn’t even named after it, even though Alford, the ancestral home of the Wentworths, Mayburys and Hutchinsons, is less than sixty miles from the cathedral city in question. It was named after a bloke whose first name was Peter.

It is to the cathedral, largely completed by 1237, that we turn our attention next. In the early summer of 1643 the cathedral was badly damaged by Parliamentarian troops during the English Civil War – troops whose core was made up of Puritans. In that very same summer, Anne Hutchinson, who had been cast out by the Puritan churches in New Hampshire, was killed, along with all but one of her family, by members of the Siwanoy tribe. That very same summer, listeners. It makes you wonder.

Or possibly it doesn’t. That would be an ecumenical matter…

THE REAL PETERBOROUGH

We had hoped to do a bit of sight-seeing whilst down there, but the convention and its bar put a stop to that. Our interest was in the relationship to E G Swain (1861-1938), mentioned before on greydogtales. Swain wrote only one short collection of supernatural stories, The Stoneground Ghost Tales, but what a marvellous collection it is. All the stories concern another churchman, the delightful Reverend Roland Batchel. We re-read it on a regular basis, and it never grows stale. One Mr Batchel story, taken slowly and in relaxed surroundings, is an antidote to most ailments.

Swain was vicar of Stanground near Peterborough from 1905 to 1916 (Stanground = Stoneground), and died in Peterborough after undertaking a number of roles in service to the cathedral.

He had been chaplain at King’s College Cambridge at the same time as M R James was the Dean there. His collection, published in 1912, is dedicated:

TO
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
(LITT.D., HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN,
HON. LL.D. ST. ANDR., F.B.A., F.S.A., ETC.)
PROVOST OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
FOR TWENTY PLEASANT YEARS MR. BATCHEL’S FRIEND,
AND THE INDULGENT PARENT OF SUCH TASTES
AS THESE PAGES INDICATE.

Swain was neither Puritanical nor heretical, and it is thought that his central character Mr Batchel must reflect, at least in part, his own quiet and dry-humoured nature.

At the time of Fantasycon, a specific trip to Stanground was mooted, but it never happened. We did see the outside of the cathedral, but only because we kept getting lost in the enormous enclosed shopping centre and coming out of the wrong exit.

Then Brian Showers, the knowledgeable owner of Dublin’s Swan River Press, mentioned that he was on the hunt for Swain’s grave in the cathedral grounds, and we awaited the findings of his expedition. That seemed to require considerably less effort.

Happily, Brian was successful, and with grateful thanks to him and Amelia, we are able to provide a photographic record of the result.

“I explored Peterborough Cathedral for traces of ghost story writer, Rev. E. G. Swain (1861-1938), the first Jamesian. I am happy to report we were successful. The tower door bears a memorial plaque to Swain, and the latch is fashioned into an “S”. We found his grave in the south-east corner, much-covered with moss, though his name just barely still legible.”

Brian J Showers

We can always recommend a browse through Swan River Press’s site, where many beautifully produced books can be found. We picked up the latest issue of the always informative and interesting Green Book.

https://swanriverpress.wordpress.com/

You can read more about Swain and the geography of his stories in our article here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/m-r-james-friend-fens/