Clergy Gallery

The Parsonage, c1780-1825. Creator: Thomas Rowlandson

The Parsonage, c1780-1825. This drawing of The Parsonage is vigorous, emphatic, and one might say brilliant in Rowlandson's best manner. He gives us an idea of the luxurious habits of the upper classes in the England of that time. With this type of subject it is difficult to establish a line of demarcation between seriousness and humor, for the scene is only one of many where the cultivated are real material for the subjects of Rowlandson's imaginative and prolific pen...Rowlandson's typical and conventional pretty lady holds the attention of her dashing suitor with a selection on the spinet, while on the other hand, a group of over-indulgent and unattractive elders are completely absorbed in themselves'. From "The Watercolour Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson from the Albert H. Wiggin Collection in the Boston Public Library" with commentary by Arthur W. Heintzelman. [Watson-Guptill Publications, Inc., New York, 1947]

© Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The altar of the new church of St. Giles. Camberwell - ceremony of consecration, 1844

The altar of the new church of St. Giles. Camberwell - ceremony of consecration, 1844. Solemn dedication of a newly built church in south London. This magnificent structure...was consecrated by the Lord Bishop of Winchester [Charles Sumner]...the sermon (a very excellent discourse) from the 12th chapter of Deuteronomy, v. 5, was preached by his Lordship the Bishop'. The church ...is built of Whitby stone and stone from Caen, in Normandy, in the style of the time of Edward II., when the decorative manner began to be ingrafted on the plainer English Gothic of the earlier ages. The architects are Messrs. Scott and Moffatt, of whom it would be unjust not to say that they have rescued modern church building from the reproach of want of taste and architectural authority, which some recent edifices had brought upon it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Peers Spiritual in the House of Lords in 1894, (1901). Creator: Unknown

Peers Spiritual in the House of Lords in 1894, (1901). In the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, the 26 bishops of the established Church of England are known as the The Lords Spiritual. There are also bishops who sit by right of a peerage. Some find it unacceptable that the UK is the only Western democracy to give religious representatives the automatic right to sit in the legislature. From "The Illustrated London News Record of the Glorious Reign of Queen Victoria 1837-1901: The Life and Accession of King Edward VII. and the Life of Queen Alexandra". [London, 1901]

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images