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© Heart of Norfolk Benefice St Swithun Church, Bintree, Norfolk. |
This priest of conscience and conviction arrived at his final Parish of St Swithun Church Bintree (then called Bintry) in 1895, after being presented to the benefice by its Patron, Lord Hastings of Melton Constable.
The well attended induction service for the Revd Richard Enraght to St Swithun’s Church was conducted by the Revd J. H. Anderson, Rector of Foulsham, Norfolk, in September 1895.
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© National Library of Australia The Telegraph (Brisbane) 29 October 1895 from the British Daily Chronicle |
Fr Enraght and his wife Dorothy were very active in village life, in organising social and charity events within the Parish, many of which were held in the vicarage and vicarage's gardens.
There
second son, Hawtrey was ordained a priest at Norwich Cathedral in
June 1895 and served as a Curate of Melton Constable and Briston, a
village that was just seven miles from his parents home in Bintree.
Lord Hastings was the Patron of St Peter’s Melton Constable and also for Fr Richard Enraght's Church of St Swithin’s in Bintree.
Hawtrey excelled in athletics and football in his days as an undergraduate at
Cambridge University, and after moving to the Melton Constable, he played centre forward for Melton Park F.C.
(see also the Revd Hawtrey Enraght on the Enraght Family History page)
It
appears that Fr Enraght was a very keen cyclists while living in
Bintree, which was the period of Victorian history when the mass ownership of
bicycles was sweeping the United Kingdom.
Fr Enraght served as a Patron of The Road & Path Cycling
Association, and is listed amongst an illustrious company of Patrons:- Lord & Lady Norreys, Earl of Huntingdon,
Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl De La Warr, Viscount Maitland, Lord Aldenham
and the Archdeacon of St Albans.
(The London based, Road & Path Cycling
Association, was established in 1889 as a national organisation, with the mission to promote cycle meetings on both path and road)
One of the topics for discussion at 1897 Lambeth Conference was the “Revival of Religious Life” within the Anglican Communion. Also in the same year, the book Some Thoughts on the Third Order of St Francis, Ancient and Modern was published, written by an anonymous Anglican author. This book advocated for the revival of Anglican orders, which would be organised along the lines of the ‘Franciscan and Poor Clare models’. At the end of this book, under the chapter The Third Order or Parochial Order, members of the proposed National Council for the introduction of such Anglican Orders were listed, named as the sole representative for the Diocese of Norwich, was the Revd Richard Enraght of Bintree.
Fr Enraght died on St Matthew’s Day, September 21st, 1898 and is buried at the south east end of St Swithun’s churchyard, Bintree. His grave is that of a “Confessor” (someone who suffered for the faith, while not dying for it). Two windows of the Lady Chapel, depicting the Annunciation of Our Lady are dedicated to Fr. Enraght as well as a statue of St. Swithun above the porch, inscribed: “It is placed as a memorial to a great and good priest Richard William Enraght”. [46]
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© Revd D. M. Swyer St. Swithun statue above the porch, inscribed: “It is placed as a memorial to a great and good priest Richard William Enraght |
Those who knew the Revd Richard Enraght at Brighton, Portslade, Birmingham and the East End of London could bear witness to his kind and helpful life as priest and friend to all his people, and those who were witnesses of his arrest and imprisonment would never forget the solemnity and pathos of that event. [47 ]
Throughout Fr Enraght’s ministry his wife Dorothea played an active part in church life wherever he served, and stood by him through the times of prosecution, imprisonment and the family’s eviction from their Bordesley vicarage. In this period of hardship of losing his living in Birmingham and the next stage of his ministry in finding a new parish, the Church Union’s Sustentation Fund generously supported Fr Enraght and his Family, while they spent a short time to convalesce in Brighton after a most traumatic period of his and his Family’s lives. [48] [49]
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© Revd D. M. Swyer
Revd
Richard Enraght's gravestone at Bintree.
His
grave is that of a “Confessor” (someone
who suffered for the faith, while not dying for it). |
Dorothea (née Gooch) Enraght died in 1932 and was buried next to her husband.
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The
Lady Chapel windows at
St Swithun’s Bintree depicting the Annunciation of Our Lady ('The Enraght Memorial Window') |
St Swithun Church, Bintree, Norfolk.
In April 1933, 'The Enraght Memorial Window' was dedicated at St Swithun Church, Bintree. The subject was a two light window is the Annunciation. This window was installed in the Lady Chapel above the altar. This stained glass window was a gift from members of the Enraght family. Bishop O’Rorke dedicated the window at a special evensong service, two representatives of the Enraght family, Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs Spurgeon, both from Aldeburgh, were amongst the large congregation. (Bishop Mowbray Stephen O'Rorke, a former Bishop of Accra, the Rector of Blakeney in Norfolk and a Guardian of The Shrine at Our Lady of Walsingham)
Anglo-Catholic Mass Marks Pastoral Festival of St Swithun
Bintry (Bintree) annually observes the festival of its patron saint, St Swithun, by the celebration of Holy Mass. On Monday morning the Guild of St Michael, a guild of twenty-six Anglo-Catholic priests, drawn mainly from North Norfolk, attended the Mass, which was noteworthy for the rendering of the office, the chants of John Merbecke (1513-85) being used. Priests in their ceremonial vestments, attended by crucifer, thurifer, and acolytes, made a colourful spectacle in procession from the Chapel of Our Lady.
This was at least, the 116th anniversary of the church, which owes its Anglo-Catholic traditions to the late Father Richard Enraght, Rector from 1895 to 1898’.
See the Enraght Family History 1805 - 1955
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