Lewen Street Tugwell

Lewen Street Tugwell: Minister/Vicar of King Charles the Martyr 1879-1898

Lewen Street Tugwell (1835-1898) succeeded the long serving William Law Pope as Perpetual Curate of the King Charles Chapel in 1879 and was appointed the first Vicar of the newly formed parish of King Charles the Martyr in 1889. Trained by the Church Missionary Society, he had two spells of missionary duties abroad, interspersed with a series of curacies in England, before his final church work in Tunbridge Wells, coupled with his continuing work in support of the Spanish reformed church.

Tugwell was born on 6 October 1835 in Landford, Wiltshire, the first of two sons of Humphrey Tugwell (a tenant farmer and bailiff) and Frances (Fanny) Street. Lewen, who had attended Wilton Grammar School, was apprenticed as a grocer in Newport, Isle of Wight for four years until 1854 but he resisted this and then worked as a tutor to prepare wealthy pupils to gain entry to public schools such as Eton and Harrow. He then gained an M.A. from the Church Missionary Society College. In 1860, in Islington where the Church Missionary Society was based, he married Harriet Leah Greenwood, daughter of another CMS missionary, the Revd Charles Greenwood. They promptly left for missionary work in British Columbia in the area of Metlakatla and the mission at Fort Simpson. Unfortunately the health of both Lewen and Harriet broke down in the damp climate, forcing them to return to England after just fourteen months on the Canadian coast. But his efforts did not go unappreciated, with Tugwell Island and Tugwell Reef, near the entrance to Metlakatla Bay, named after him.

Returning to England in 1862, Tugwell took a series of curacies in Cheshunt, Keynsham and Workington, and for a time Morning Reader at Westminster Abbey and chaplain to Westminster Hospital. But missionary work abroad recommenced in 1867 when Tugwell became the British chaplain at Seville, where he remained until 1875. We learn a little more of Tugwell’s standing in that part of the world in H E Noyes’ A Short History of the Reformed Episcopal Churches in Spain and Portugal from 1868 to the Present Time (1897). Only since 1868 had there been a measure of religious liberty in Spain – hitherto visitors, let alone Spaniards, could not assemble for religious purposes other than Roman Catholic. Noyes describes Tugwell as the father of this Episcopal development of Reform and noted that before this religious freedom came about, Tugwell had to ensure, for the hitherto very small congregation, that if responses were to be said, or hymns sung, both doors and windows had to be closed, every measure being taken to avoid publicity.

It was while in Spain that Tugwell met, and corresponded with, the Revd Thomas Godfrey Pembroke Pope (1841-1902) who, while not an apparent blood relation of Wiiliam Law Pope, was married (at Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells) to Pope’s niece, Louisa Anne Powell, a daughter of Pope’s deceased sister Charlotte, wife of the Revd Professor Baden Powell. Thomas Pope and his new wife moved to Lisbon in 1867 where he was appointed the English Consular Chaplain at Lisbon, adding a Canonry of Gibraltar from 1882. Both Louisa and her husband were beneficiaries under the will of William Law Pope.

Thomas Pope was the leading cleric in the Anglican (Lusitanian) church on the Iberian peninsula, and with Tugwell’s standing in Seville also high, it can be surmised that when Tugwell felt the need to return to England, Pope recommended him to his uncle-in-law in Tunbridge Wells. Tugwell arrived back in London in 1875 when he took the office of the Organising Secretary of the Spanish work of the Spanish and Portuguese Church Aid Society. By August 1878 he was in Tunbridge Wells acting as William Law Pope’s curate; by October of that year he and his family were residing at Montague House, Mount Sion. Tugwell resumed the evening service at the King Charles Chapel, in addition to the morning one on recent offer, and was eventually appointed Perpetual Curate in May 1879, three months after William Law Pope’s death.
Tugwell did not abandon his missionary roots while in Tunbridge Wells, continuing to act as the organising secretary of the Spanish and Portuguese Church Aid Society (based in London). He was held in high regard by that Society, his contribution to its work being considered important and far reaching, if not unique.
He was also well acquainted with the education of children – both as a missionary and in Tunbridge Wells. For example, Elizabeth Jane Whately, eldest daughter of the late Archbishop of Dublin, and a niece of William Law Pope, wrote in 1872 to the Colonial and Continental Society:

"Mr Tugwell first took advantage of the newly-acquired freedom to open a school for residents – English children, and those of mixed parentage – but the Spaniards, to some of whom he had privately administered in the times of persecution, eagerly sought a share in the privilege".

In Tunbridge Wells Tugwell’s first known contact with the King Charles School was recorded in the Tunbridge Wells Gazette, which reported on the school’s annual dinner and prize-giving of 2 February 1879 where, after the prizes were distributed by the Hon F G Molyneaux, Tugwell added a few words of earnest exhortation and of thanks to the friends of the school, and it was announced that the Reverend gentleman intended to give annually two good prizes for the best knowledge of Scriptures.

Tugwell’s family life can be viewed in two parts. The first reflected his time with his first wife, Harriet, who bore him ten children before dying in Islington on 10 November 1877. Whilst in Canada they also temporarily adopted two native girls. Their children included firstborn Lewen Greenwood Tugwell (born at sea in 1862 as his parents left Canada for England) who became an Archdeacon, buried at St Merryn, Cornwall in 1937; Arthur (born in Islington in 1864) who became registrar of a college in South Africa, dying of wounds in the First World War on 28 March 1917 aged 53; Henry, born in Spain in 1869, who became a missionary but died young (1896) in India; and Duncan, born in Islington in 1875, who followed a teaching career before dying in Maldon, Essex in 1953.

Tugwell’s second wife was Annie Emily Peirce, born in Stepney in 1849, who he married at St Anne’s church, Poole’s Park, Islington on 13 March 1879. By the 1881 census they were living at 19, Mount Sion, Tunbridge Wells together with six of his children from his first marriage and his and Annie’s firstborn, William Basil Pope Tugwell who was just two months old at the time of the census having been born the previous 13 January. A visitor from Islington and two servants completed the household at that time. The inclusion of Pope as a name for the first of his second family may perhaps reflect his acknowledgement of William Law Pope’s acceptance of him as his successor at the King Charles Chapel, while that of Basil was in recognition of his father’s work at San Basilio church in Seville.

By the 1891 census the Tugwell family was living at 5, Montecute Gardens, Tunbridge Wells with three of their four children, two daughters from Tugwell’s first marriage and two servants. Tugwell’s second family was completed in 1891 with the birth of his final child, Joan Monica. All five surviving children of this second marriage were born in Tunbridge Wells, as was a sixth child, Godfrey Lewen Tugwell, surviving only ten weeks, dying on 8 December 1883, buried in Hawkenbury cemetery, the plot later used to contain Lewen Street Tugwell himself.

It was during Tugwell’s early years at King Charles that the chapel’s interior was re-orientated to conform to general practice in Victorian England, from a west facing “preaching box” to the church more recognisable today, with the usual layout of nave, chancel and sanctuary, and an altar in the sanctuary at the east end. This transformation was undertaken by Ewan Christian, the Ecclesiological Commissioners’ architect. Further details of these major changes are described in the John Fuller and Philip Whitborne church guides published in 2000 and 2015 respectively.

Movement from chapel to parish status proceeded slowly, King Charles chapel being consecrated as a church on 18 July 1887 (by Edward Parry, Suffragan Bishop of Dover) and then acquiring some sixty-six acres as its parish area, with full parish status granted from 31 May 1889, this transforming Tugwell from a chapel minister to the first vicar of the parish of King Charles the Martyr.

The first marriage conducted at the newly formed parish church took place on 4 September 1889 between Tugwell’s eldest daughter by his first marriage, Harriet Frances, and John Maughan Barnett, a church organist. They soon emigrated to New Zealand, spending the rest of their days there.

Tugwell’s later years at KCM were more difficult. A growing number of the congregation preferred a more ritualistic approach to communion services, this coming to a head in 1894 when the curate of eighteen month’s standing and Tugwell had an irretrievable stand-off. The archive at Lambeth Palace Library contains much correspondence about the dispute during this time. The curate, the Revd A H C Trewman, adopted the more modern practice of kneeling eastwards at communion (Tugwell knelt northwards), added water to the wine and indulged in superfluous genuflexion according to Tugwell. Once Tugwell sought the curate’s resignation – which was refused – a number of parishioners wrote directly to the Archbishop (KCM was in Canterbury diocese between 1845 and 1907), the Archdeacon and the Rural Dean in support of the curate and regretting, in their opinion, the Vicar’s lack lustre performance in contrast. The Bishop of Dover made private enquiries into allegations made by certain parishioners against the vicar and urged the Archbishop to intervene before other complaints are forced on the Archbishop regarding the conduct of the services and the administration of the parish by the vicar, his pecuniary circumstances and habits of life.

The outcome was that as Tugwell was increasingly unwell and could not be expected to move even if he so wished, the curate was moved instead. While this provoked more correspondence from parishioners to the church hierarchy (and the local press), with the curate’s departure a series of temporary clergy took the services and other pastoral duties during Tugwell’s lengthy illness, suffering from angina and heart attacks. He produced a doctor’s note to the Archbishop in March 1895 stating that Tugwell is in a very weak state and it is absolutely necessary that he should be kept perfectly quiet and free from all mental excitement. A lengthy period of convalescence in Bexhill followed but Tugwell never completely recovered to fulfil his duties fully. He died on 10 January 1898 and was buried with his infant son in Hawkenbury cemetery.

On Tugwell’s death, his widow Annie returned to Islington and by the 1911 census, aged 61, was living at 1, South Hill Park, Hampstead Heath with son William (a Captain in the Indian Army), daughter Joan and step-daughter Beatrice Maud and one servant. Annie eventually died on 5 April 1939, aged 90. There is not space here to outline what happened to Tugwell’s many children but these details (and of the wider Tugwell family) can be found on the genealogical website geni.com. Suffice it to say that those adult children of the second marriage all lived into old age except Oswald Norman Tugwell, a school master who, as a junior army officer in World War One, died of his wounds on 22 April 1917 following the battle of Bullencourt; he was buried at Bethune Town cemetery in the Pas De Calais.

David Bushell
25 November 2015