David Mellor

Slightly belated, I note this obituary of the designer David Mellor. He is interesting in this connection as one with affinities with Arts and Crafts thinking on the right integration of work, art and life. He was also married to Fiona MacCarthy, biographer of William Morris and Eric Gill, amonst others. He was also something of a cult figure amongst a certain type of Sheffielder in my time there.

'Jim' Cadbury-Brown

I note this obituary of the architect H.T. Cadbury-Brown. He is of note here as the architect trusted by Benjamin Britten to work for him at Aldeburgh, also building there a house for Imogen Holst.

John Masefield's 'The Coming of Christ'

I am bound to note the appearance, on the School of Advanced Study's institutional repository SAS-Space, a post-print text of my article on this play by John Masefield. Commissioned by George Bell for performance in Canterbury Cathedral in 1928 (one of Bell's last acts as Dean before his appointment as Bishop of Chichester), it is often (incorrectly) described as the first play to be staged in an English cathedral since the Reformation. The article explores what precedents there were for such a performance; examines the controversy provoked by the play, on theological, moral and aesthetic grounds; and locates it in the development of Bell's own thinking with regard to the relationship between the Church of England and the arts.

The article is to be published in Humanitas. The Journal of the George Bell Institute later this year. I am extremely grateful to the Editor for permission to publish this version at this time. It was originally given at a conference under the auspices of the Institute last year.

Westminster Abbey

Some early reactions to the proposals made by the Dean of Westminster to add a corona to the Abbey, in connection with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2013; see the Times report, and material on the Abbey's own site.

So far the reactions have been predictable: that money shouldn't be spent on frivolities while anyone is still homeless (see comment on the Times article); that it should be left as it is (editorials and columns in the Guardian and the Evening Standard.) I anticipate further wrangles about style when the competition to design it begins.