Life Stories - Rev Francis Norton

Rev Francis Collins Norton
1848 – 1921
Francis Norton holds the distinction of being the longest serving Vicar of Ditchling – 1883-1921. He was a somewhat eccentric and controversial Vicar. Some of his parishioners found him to be ‘very generous and hardworking’ while others found him an ‘odd man… who expected respect and obedience’. His arrival in the village was entirely due to the generosity of his younger brothers. They bought the right to appoint the Vicar and, in 1883, they did just that for their brother. Later, he showed his gratitude to them by providing, in their name, two new bells for the belfry.
Norton's eccentricity was shown by his celebrated aversion to
illness. If there was an epidemic in the village he immediately took his
wife and family away until the emergency was over. If his wife
indicated that she was not feeling well she was immediately dispatched
to bed and told to stay there. Village children who saw him coming in
the street were known to pretend to be ill just to see him immediately
cross the road to avoid them! Care for his daughters also
preoccupied the Vicar. This he solved by keeping them firmly at home in
the Vicarage.
In those days, the Vicarage was a large house in East End
Lane and the girls were rarely allowed out of their father’s sight.
They became so frustrated by the lack of excitement in their lives that
they made up fantastic stories of what they had got up to out in the
world. As day girls, they then poured details of their adventures into
the eager ears of the boarders at Dumbrells School. This resulted in
the boarders becoming more difficult for the Misses Dumbrell to handle
and so the Vicar had to be asked to remove his daughters from the
School.
Whether or not he was as difficult a father as his daughters
claimed is hard for us to judge, but he certainly was prepared to
provide the facilities for them to serve the community. Thus, during
the First World War, the daughters did sterling work in charge of the
nursing home, set up by Francis Norton, at ‘Meadowcroft’, Lewes Road,
where wounded soldiers were given tender care under the supervision of
the Misses Norton.
In the 1890s the normal Sunday services at St
Margaret’s were Morning Prayer at 11.00 am, a Children’s Service at 3.00
pm and Evening Prayer at 6.30 pm. The average attendance at each
service was 100. The Eucharist was celebrated every other Sunday with an
average attendance of 30 although Francis Norton reported to the
Archdeacon of Lewes that there were 300 communicants in the village. His
report of 1890 reveals that over 100 children attended the Sunday
School, but that, once these children had left the village school, they
did not stay on at the Sunday School. Cryptic comments are a hallmark of
Mr Norton’s returns and, of the nine teachers at the Sunday School, his
description is ‘a few ladies and others of the middle class’. He was asked whether he thought that the morals of his parishioners had improved during his incumbency, and to this he replied ‘some would say yes, others would say no, I am unable to judge’. He was scathing of how well nonconformist villagers attended their churches, ‘very badly – small shopkeepers.’ Perhaps
such contempt of those who were non Anglican helps to explain the view
of him by Frank Buffard whose family abandoned St Margaret’s for the
Congregational Mission Chapel in Hassocks. Of Francis Norton, he wrote, ‘the
Vicar was an odd man. He was of the old school and an ardent Tory who
expected respect and obedience from his parishioners. His principal
interest was Egyptology, and when he preached, which was not often,
there was usually more about Egyptology than religion ... the general
result was a half empty church, with nothing there for children and
youth.’
The interest in archaeology was confirmed by
Penelope Hale, Mr Norton’s granddaughter; she believes that the Vicar
was often absent from the parish on his archaeological expeditions, but
the parish registers indicate very few baptisms, marriages or burials
not conducted by the Vicar – so there is little evidence of reliance on
curates. Certainly, the antiquarian interest spread further than Egypt
for Henry Cheal in his The History of Ditchling in the County of Sussex, published in 1901, paid tribute to Francis Norton ‘whose antiquarian researches have added much to the interest of the work [the history].’
Without
doubt, Norton was generous towards the village. In addition to
providing the Nursing Home run by his daughters, he also he made a
significant contribution towards funds for the 1887 extension of the
School (now the site of Ditchling Museum) and he was fully involved in
the running of the Working Men’s Club in Chichester House in the High
Street. Here members could play cards or billiards, they could read in
the Library and the younger members could enjoy what was called the
Lads Recreative Room. The connection between St Margaret’s Church and
the Club was strengthened by a Cricket Section for the junior members of
the church choir and there was a Glee Club run by Peter Parsons who was
the Parish Clerk. But it was after the First World War that
controversy reared its head. Norton was opposed to the erection of the
War Memorial on land to the west of what is now the Village Green and he
refused to subscribe to any fund raising. It is not clear whether this
was because he felt that the memorial should have been located within
the churchyard or because he felt that money raised could have been put
to a more practical benefit for the village. But what really upset the
villagers was that he refused to dedicate the new memorial. In fairness
to Norton, as his memorial to those who had died in the War he did
provide the Church Room at the end of Boddington’s Lane – a facility
which was to serve the parish for the next 50 years.
Even his
last moments arouse speculation! He died in his son-in-law’s car on the
way back to Ditchling from Brighton Station – medically from a heart
attack, but, according to family tradition, from the shock of the news
that, at last, a boy had been born into the Norton family!