Carteret John Halford Fletcher, Oxford, 1887

 Carteret John Halford Fletcher began his working life as a solicitor. He was ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England In 1867 and from 1872 was Rector of the Church of St Martin, Carfax in the centre of Oxford (wiki. history and images). He was married to Agnes and they had three daughters and six sons.

Fletcher sat firmly at the broad church end of clerical opinion. In 1874 he invited the then notorious Bishop of Natal, John Colenso (wiki), to preach in his Church. When it became public, the invitation was met by a prohibition from the Bishop of Oxford on the grounds that Colenso was not licenced to preach in the Diocese. That Sunday the church held “an unusually large congregation” and Fletcher read the sermon Colenso had been due to deliver. Perhaps the reporter was disappointed that 

“The discourse was not of a controversial character, and consisted chiefly of a plea for liberty of conscience.” (Oxfordshire Weekly News - Wednesday 02 December 1874 p5, Col. 5) 

A collection was taken for the church in Natal, cut off from the normal sources of support after Bishop Colenso had fallen out with the Church of England 10 years previously. 

January 1887

On New Year’s Day 1887 it was reported that 

The Rev. E. S. Ffoulkes (wiki), vicar of St Mary's, Oxford, has laid a complaint against a sermon preached by the Rev. C. Fletcher, rector of Carfax, and called upon the Vice-Chancellor to appoint six Doctors of Divinity to sit in judgment upon it. The sermon is said to have been of a "very liberal " tendency. (Worcester Journal - Saturday 01 January 1887 p5 col4)

It was not clear at first precisely what it was about the sermon that had caused the complaint. The unsympathetic Pall Mall Gazette referred to “loose views of the fall of Adam” although one observer opined that “If all clergymen who sympathise with Mr Fletcher's view were condemned for heresy there would be many empty pulpits.” (Dundee Evening Telegraph - Friday 07 January 1887 p2 col1)  His opinions were denigrated as “Anythingarianism” (Oxford Times - Saturday 05 February 1887 p5 Col 2). Others recalled the suspension of Dr Pusey in 1843 and questioned the wisdom of any doctrinal proceeding (Eastern Daily Press -Saturday 01 January 1887 p2 col 7). 

In response to Ffoulkes’ complaint, the Vice Chancellor of the University, (Dr. Bellamy, President of St. John’s College) first called for a copy of the text and then convened a court. (Whitney Express and Oxfordshire and Midland Counties Herald, Thursday 06 January 1887, p. 5, Col.4)

February 1887

The court comprised Dr. Ince, Regius Professor of Divinity; Archdeacon Palmer; Dr. Heurtley, Margaret Professor Divinity; Dr. Chase, Principal of St. Mary Hall; Dr. Harper, Principal of Jesus College; and Dr. Fowler, President of Corpus and Professor of Logic.

Ffoulkes’ objection to the sermon was summarised in three charges:

1. That Mr. Fletcher’s views on the fall of Adam was said to contradict those of St. Paul. 

2. That he implicitly denied the reality of the Resurrection.

3. That he claimed for himself and his friends the liberty of interpreting the formularies as he liked. 

Only the second was considered. The first was deemed beyond the court’s jurisdiction as “... the measure of acceptability set out in the University Statutes did not include the doctrines of St Paul but only the doctrines of the Church of England.” On the third, personal, accusation the judges were agreed that “as no specific instance of such a claim was presented this could not be substantiated.”     

Having heard the case on the remaining charge of denying the resurrection the judges each, separately, prepared a written judgment. They divided into two equal groups, three for and three against Rev. Fletcher. As presiding judge, Vice-Chancellor James Bellamy, gave judgement that “while agreeing from the ambiguity of the language used there was reasonable cause of suspicion, [he] sided with the doctors who took a view favourable to Mr. Fletcher, and he was therefore acquitted.”  

JUDGMENT: The memorandum sent by the Vice-chancellor to the Rev. E. S. Ffoulkes, the complainant, and the Rev. C. J. H. Fletcher, giving the decision of himself and the six Doctors on the charges brought by Mr. Ffoulkes against Mr. Fletcher: 

"February 4. 1887.

Present—The Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Ince, Dr. Heurtley, Dr. Palmer, Dr. Chase, Dr. Harper. Dr. Fowler. 

Mr. Ffoulkes' letter of Dec. 15. 1856. was read. The written opinions of the six Doctors were separately read. The opinions being evenly divided, the Vice-Chancellor declared that his own judgment accorded with that expressed by three of the Doctors—viz., that Mr. Fletcher (though his sermon afforded a reasonable cause of suspicion on account of the ambiguity of its language), had not in plain and express terms advanced 'anything dissonant or contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England as publicly received.'—J. BELLMY, W.C." 

To which the newspaper added its own opinion:

We trust that Mr Fletcher will take warning by the narrowness of his escape to avoid subjects on which he is plainly incompetent to speak. The Oxford Correspondents of the Ovardies, while rejoicing that the trial is stopped, does not see "how he can conscientiously retain his position as a minister of the Church of England, or any professedly Christian Society." Oxford Herald. 

(London Daily News - Tuesday 08 February 1887 p6 col 4. Summarised in the Oxford Journal - Saturday 12 February 1887, p.6)

The Oxfordshire Weekly News told its readers that Mr Ffoulkes’ action had been entirely on his own responsibility and that he was generally regarded as “ill-advised”. It opined that the “University sermon system is not so logical and defensible in practice”; that the procedure under the Statute was unsatisfactory and discredited; that it was incongruous for the University to pronounce on theological issues; and “the chief result will be to advertise what was already forgotten, and to create an adventitious sympathy for its author.” (Oxfordshire Weekly News - Wednesday 09 February 1887 p6 col 1) 

On acquittal

Mr Fletcher returned to his pulpit and, naturally, preached again on the fall of Adam. This time, taking advantage of the public pulpit given him by the interest the trial had provoked, his views were recorded and publicised nationally. However, so far as I have seen, he avoided making any statement of his views on the Resurrection.  (Oxford Journal - Saturday 12 February 1887 p6 Col 3, - a shorter version was widely printed)

Fletcher’s basic question was: “Whence he and the things around him have come?” Science - astronomy, geology and now evolution - was, he said, shedding new light on the old question. Given that all truth was from God, revelation and science could not be at variance: each had their own province and each “supplies the differences of the other”. Genesis should be read in the light of both revelation and science. 

He asserted that two a priori principles of interpretation should guide the understanding of the opening three chapters of Genesis. 

First, it was necessary to read them as “poetry, a work of the imagination, not a literal history of facts. “Their letter(iio) killeth, but their spirit giveth life.” To read these chapters as a literal account of creation, instead of as the poetic works of imagination that they were, would be self-deceiving: such a reader would be “so attracted by the earthen vessel as to forget the spiritual treasure it contains.”

His second principle for studying Genesis was 

that the Bible is not meant to teach us those truths which man can by means of scientific inquiry discover for himself. Its object is moral and spiritual, to set forth the eternal relations between God and man. Whenever, therefore, the Bible refers to things that are within the scope of science it should be read, and, if necessary, it should be corrected by the light of science. ...

On the other hand, 

Broadly speaking, the provinces of Science and revelation may be thus distinguished: Science has to do with the laws of matter, including those of man's body, while Revelation is concerned with the inner man - with the soul, the conscience and the heart.

The two spheres of enquiry that Carteret thus distinguished had, he asserted, their correlates in modes of enquiry: science could interpret Genesis in regard to “the process of creation and of man’s power over Nature,” But science could go no further. It was, he said, “stone-blind and deaf to the fundamental truth of the creative mind.” the faithful “student of the Book of Nature should study it in the light of those spiritual ideas which lie beyond its range, and which can be learned only from the book of Revelation.” 

After which, so far as I can see, Mr Fletcher no longer attracted the attention of the press. He died on November 2nd 1918, at 63, Pevensey Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, aged 91.

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His daughter, Margaret, trained as an artist but she relinquished a professional career to care for Carteret and her younger brothers and sisters on the death of her mother in 1880. She continued to paint and exhibited a picture at the Royal Academy in 1886.  In 1897 she converted to Roman Catholicism and in 1906 she founded the Catholic Women’s League in 1906. Wiki.