June - Bourne Civic Society

BOURNE CIVIC SOCIETY
NEWSLETTER
Obituaries
Carole Kitchener, wife of Robert
long serving secretary.
Carole was also a member.
John A Smith Grocer and Town
Councillor and Ex-Mayor.
JUNE 2015
Registered Charity No 512420
Diary Dates
Thursday 21st May
Quinishill – A Wartime Railway Tragedy
Bill Peasley
Wednesday 17th June
Visit to Doddington Hall
(Member’s transport can be arranged for those requiring lifts)
Friday 3rd July
Barbecue
At Brenda and Jim’s home
64 Stephenson Way. Bourne
Please let Brenda know if you are coming
£5 per head.
Monday 14th September
Lee and Green- mineral water bottling enterprise
Jonathan Smith
Memorial stone
To remember Charles Richard
Sharpe VC
The event was part of a national campaign to lay commemorative paving stones in the
home towns of each of the
628 First World War Victoria
Cross recipients.
Enquiry to our website about a car owned by Raymond Mays. Registered in RM’s name, CTL17 was
RM’s personal number plate. The car an ALFA
ROMEO GIULIA SS. This car had an article about
it in Autosport 1966. Can anybody remember this
car? A sprint special by Bertone. Was this car on
loan from Alfa Romeo? Where is this car now?
Reply to Bourne Civic Society.
Editors Brenda and Jim Jones. neskin@btinternet.com
Canadian legacy added to Civic Society display
by REX NEEDLE
A collection of old books, documents and photographs handed in to the
Heritage Centre at Bourne has revealed the life of a past vicar, the Rev Charles Horne, who served this parish for fourteen years
and as a pioneer of the scout movement during its early years in Canada.
The small archive includes a particularly important item, an ebonised walking stick with an embossed silver gilt handle presented
to him during this significant part of his career and which is now on show at the centre and illustrates the wide variety of artefacts
and archives now in the care of the Civic Society, this collection having come from relatives of a lady who worked as housekeeper
to Mr Horne who died recently.
Charles Wynn Ellis Horne was born in 1876 at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and ordained deacon at Lincoln Cathedral in 1900 and a
priest the following year, becoming curate of St John the Divine at Gainsborough and then St Nicholas at Skirbeck from 1903-07.
It was at this point of his life that he decided to emigrate under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and
was sent to the province of Calgary in Western Canada where he spent some years doing missionary work.
In 1913 he was appointed the first rector of the newly built Christ Church at Calgary where he served for the next sixteen years
during which time he was chosen by the bishop for duties at Calgary Cathedral where he was made an honorary canon in 1922 but
it was his work with the boy scouts in which he achieved great prominence.
The movement had been founded in England in 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell and soon spread to Canada where the Boy Scout
Association was incorporated by an act of parliament in 1914 and is now known as Scouts Canada. While rector of Christ Church,
Charles Horne gained a reputation as a great scouter and founded the 2nd Calgary Scout Troop which had such a profound effect
on the parish that the stained glass east window was installed in his memory.
He left Canada because of ill health and returned to England in 1929 when the troop presented him with the walking stick as a
mark of their high esteem while the local
newspaper gave a glowing tribute to his service with the parish and, more particularly,
to the dedication he had devoted to the scouting cause. “Calgary says farewell to a scholar and a leader whose absence will be sorely
missed”, said the editorial. “His personality
and leadership have extended beyond the
sphere of his church and his association
with men in community service beyond the
walls of his study has left an indelible mark
upon the life of this city.
“For more than twenty years he has been one
of the mainstays of the boy scout movement
in this province. In the very early days of
this work in Calgary, he was one of the first
to appreciate its value and one of those responsible for forming a troop among the
choirboys at the cathedral. Thousands of
boys, many of whom have since graduated
into the professions or who are now actively engaged in the business life of Calgary or
the district have come under his leadership
during their formative years and have carried
with them into the struggle of life no small
portion of the ideals of a man whose life has
been placed upon the altar of service to his
fellow men. Mr Horne will leave Calgary as
one of the city’s greatest creditors because
its citizens owe him a debt, the payment of
which in money would be impossible. He
has woven into the moral fabric of this entire
community the warp and weft of a better
citizenship and he has made Calgary a more
pleasant dwelling place for men because he
has lived here.”
On returning to England he was appointed Vicar of Castle Hedingham, Essex, in 1929 and then moved to Bourne when the living
became vacant on the resignation of Canon John Grinter in 1935.
The incumbency of the Rev Charles Horne as Vicar of Bourne from 1936-47 was particularly noteworthy because of his work in
fostering co-operation between all churches in the town and an indication of his intentions came during his induction at the Abbey
Church in February 1936 when he was welcomed by the Rev Denis Brown, superintendent of Bourne and district Free Church
Council. “I believe that Mr Horne has come to remove the barriers between the Free Churches and the Church so that they can
unite in working for the establishment of the Kingdom of God”, he told the gathering. “They will succeed far better by working
together than as individuals.”
As a result, the vicar made many friends among all creeds and at special gatherings of the non-conformist churches there was either a message from him or a few words in person and he was always among the first to welcome new ministers when they arrived
in town.
He was also responsible for re-opening the Eastgate Mission Church in Willoughby Road that had been closed for three years because of a shortage of lay readers, resuming services in August 1936 and promising further support from a newly appointed curate.
The vicar was particularly concerned that the building had fallen into disuse, particularly the clubroom at the rear which was
equipped with a billiard table and he instructed that it should be repaired in order that it could be fully used by young people, a
cause so dear to his heart while working in Canada.
But despite his hard work, the vicar was still dogged by failing health and never fully regained his full strength although he continued his ministry at Bourne until 1951 when at the beginning of January, he announced his retirement to take effect the following
Easter.
The vicar told his congregation that although a return to England had brought some improvement and he had been intensely proud
of his preferment as vicar of Bourne, he felt unable to continue discharging his duties in the expected manner.
His premonition proved to be correct because three months later he was admitted to the Butterfield Hospital in North Road where
he died on 4th April 1951, aged 75, and after a funeral service at the Abbey Church he was buried in the town cemetery where a
simple tombstone marks his grave. The high altar in the church was later enlarged by a gift in his memory.
Reproduced from A PORTRAIT OF BOURNE, the definitive history of the town and is available on CD-ROM. An order form
may be downloaded from the Bourne web site at www.bourne-lincs.org.uk
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It is the aim of the society to make sure that new developments are of the highest possible quality and developers are made aware of the issues of surrounding their schemes. Good design