AN UNFINISHED MEMORIAL
Griffin Memorial
Did you know that Haselor Church had a notorious vicar, Cornelius
Griffin, 1846-1867?
Revd Frank Wain, who was vicar of Haselor from
1955–1983, spent over ten years researching information for a book on
Cornelius Griffin. He found that he had got to remove repetitions and to
make the whole thing significantly shorter. He did shorten it from
130,000 words and put forward a version of 104,000 words. He did not
want to shorten it, even more. He sent a letter to the publishers,
saying: -
“The story of Cornelius Griffin could no doubt be
told in a simpler manner, but I believe that a fully documented account
ought to be available. I have much abbreviated the relevant documents
and letters for the sake of brevity and to avoid repetition.
I believe also that Griffin cannot be fully
understood without a knowledge of the history of his parish, which
itself is out of the ordinary.
The book was never finalised with pictures etc. because it was going to be
too costly to publish.
In 2016, I (John Finnemore, Walcote Farm) was given all the correspondence
that Frank had received and the draft copies of the book, that was in
four boxed folders and other folders and told that “I could do what I
like with it.” I read a few of the 400 typewriter written pages and
decided that I had got to try and get this published.
The book, has the title, “A Stormy Petrel”. I looked up the meaning and
found it was a person who delights in conflict or attracts controversy. The book has all the ingredients to make an excellent,
comical film. An unbelievable, true story, taken from church records,
newspapers, court cases, etc. As the editor, I have added new
information, comments, pictures and maps to make it more
reader-friendly.
Griffin was
involved in 20 court cases in 3 years and lost 18 of them. One case was
a hanging offence. The jury found him not guilty. The bishop said
afterwards, “that he had a merciful jury”. He was imprisoned twice at
Warwick for other offences. He disguised himself in women’s clothes, to
avoid being arrested. He built his own Griffin Memorial on the north
wall of the church and bought his coffin, 15 years before he died, aged
73. The coffin came in useful, to store his food and other things, when
living in the church.
This next part of the Griffin
story, only became known in 2007, when a great-grandson of the vicar
that came after Griffin, John Heath Sykes, was visiting Haselor Church
and said that his grandfather had written his life story, “Life at
Haselor Vicarage”.
He always expressed a wish to be buried in church, but by the time his
strange ministry came to an end, a law had been passed forbidding
interment in churches. However, the resourceful Griffin had made his
plans, and one can see to this day the place where, according to his
instructions, he was pushed in from outside through an alcove under the
north window, and where his name is engraved on the stone in the wall.
My eldest sister who played the organ and practised during the week
declared she could always smell ‘old Griffin’ when she passed up or down
the aisle. Perhaps this was not a mere flight of fancy, as my mother,
soon after going to Haselor, took a Colonel and Mrs Childs to look at
the church, and all exclaimed at the unpleasant smell. Upon recounting
the incident to various parishioners my mother was assured that it was
undoubtedly the corpse of the previous vicar making itself felt.
It was a ‘wow’ moment for me, after
I had used a wire brush, to reveal his name in 2008.