Easter 1890. Easter 2025 feels really late, even for this movable feast. Which I guess isn’t surprising, given last year it was March 31; and (this year’s) April 20 is almost the limit of when it can be.

According to this site:

In the Gregorian calendar, it is always observed on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25. While the most-common Easter date is either March 31 or April 16.

How it feels is subjective, of course. And at Easter 1890, which fell on April 6, the Westmorland Gazette thought:

‘the holidays fell unusually early’.

Luckily, the weather was fine. And Good Friday was a public holiday for pretty much everyone:

‘with the exception of the building trade’.

Easter 1890 in Kendal

While the poor construction workers were having to toil away, a (very precise!) total of 1,199 people were able to hop on excursion trains from Kendal to Morecambe, Barrow (and intermediate stations), and Windermere.

‘A large amount of vehicular traffic was also indulged in’

No change since, then!

Meanwhile, there were no fewer than five football matches in Kendal. And on Easter Saturday, the mills were shut.

Easter Sunday, of course, was a day for church services.

‘Monday was not a general holiday, but little business was done in the town.

‘Young people appeared to enjoy themselves on the Castle Hill, trundling their dyed eggs and oranges’

Which jollity was interrupted by a heavy hailstorm and gale.

Grateful parishioners in Staveley

The author of the write-up in the Westmorland Gazette seems to have had some personal experience of services at St James’ Church, Staveley.

For the report says at that the congregation

‘had very reason to be devoutly thankful’

for the Easter weekend services held there.

‘None but those who remember the dull and lifeless services of former days can appreciate the great changes which have taken place’.

A huge compliment to the new vicar, Mr Chaplin. Less flattering for his predecessor.

William Chaplin (senior) was the incumbent from 1858 – 1898. He had succeeded James G Elleray (1837-1858).

From those dates, the author must have been talking about services from more than 30 years prior. And there are no similar comments about any of the other village churches in the Gazette’s Easter 1890 round-up. Although the line:

 ‘on the whole, the cantata was successful’

isn’t perhaps the most fulsome praise Tebay Methodist Church choir might have hoped for.

Given his reference to:

‘that painfully dull and monotonous dreariness too much affected in many churches’

one can only imagine the Rev Elleray’s sermons had left a lasting mark!

The Rev Chaplin had for sure been part of great changes at Stavely: the original church was 14thC St Margaret’s.

Dating back to 1338, by the mid 19th century the church was said to be damp and in poor repair, its congregation ‘small and spiritless’. Source:

St Margaret’s was replaced in 1865 by a new church, St James’, built on a different site, and including a window made by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

I’ve never visited, but if the stained glass is anything like their awe-inspiring work in St Martin’s, Brampton, then the congregation indeed no longer had reason to feel ‘spiritless’.

Rev William Chaplin

Born around 1825, in Middlesex, William Chaplin was promoted to vicar of Staveley from his previous role as curate at Kendal Parish Church, where he had spent eight years. 

A ‘testimonial’ from folk in Kendal saw him given leaving gifts of 120 sovereigns and a silver coffee pot and tea pot. An inscription on the silver plate referred to his:

‘self-denying labours in the discharge of his duties during the protracted illness of his late vicar’.

The protracted inscription is 55 words long, so either it was a big coffee pot or the engraver used a small font.

The gifts left him ‘at a lost for words’.

A few months later, in March 1859, William Chaplin married Jane Ann, ‘second daughter of the late Lieut Thomas Wiggins Moffett, RN,’ of Kendal.

Three children were to follow: Mary Beatrice, Helen Agnes and William – who was to become vicar of St James’ in 1902.

Looking through news reports, one stood out from the routine.

In March 1863, at celebrations for the Prince of Wales’ wedding (the future Edward VII to Princess Alexandra of Denmark)

‘a balloon was sent up by the Rev William Chaplin, but owing to the strong which was blowing, it unfortunately caught fire before it had ascended very far’.

I suspect the village children, who’d enjoyed games, and currant buns and milk, may have found it just as entertaining as a successful launch.

Rev James G Elleray

Born around 1798, in Longsleddale, Westmorland, the James Godmond Elleray had a wife Julia née Hesketh, born in Liverpool, and children James Charles and Julia Ann, born in Knutsford, Cheshire, before his return to the county of his birth in 1837. 

Sadly, Julia Ann died in June 1851, aged just 18. Julia died nine months later. And James Charles a few months after his mother, in September 1852, aged 24.

James Godmond Elleray himself died in May 1860, at Hugil, aged 63.

Having lost his wife and two children within the space of 15 months he can surely be forgiven if his services were ever ‘dull and lifeless’.