Walter Hussey

My study of Walter Hussey, Anglican patron of the arts at St Matthew’s Northampton and Chichester Cathedral, is now published by Palgrave Macmillan. (It’s available as an ebook, and hardback or paperback (at £22.99). Each chapter may also be bought singly.)

I introduce Hussey here, and there is also a slightly more academic introduction here. There are also summaries of each chapter.

In brief, the structure is:

Chapter 1: Introduction: the last great Anglican patron of the arts ?
WH’s posthumous reputation / Historiographical neglect / The Hussey papers / Why study WH ?

Chapter 2: The formation of a patron
Education and the formation of a connoisseur / Curacies / Personality (and sexuality) / The blind spots: religious drama & architecture / The Church of England and art in the 1930s / WH’s theology of art

Madonna and Child by Henry Moore, commissioned in 1944. Image: West Sussex Record Office, all rights reserved.

Chapter 3: Jubilee
Northampton St Matthew (1937-55) / The 1943 Festival at Northampton / George Thalben-Ball / The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Adrian Boult / The first commission: Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb / A fanfare by Michael Tippett / Henry Moore’s Madonna and Child

Chapter 4: Expansion
Musical commissions: Finzi, Lo, the full final sacrifice / Lennox Berkeley, Festival Anthem / Edmund Rubbra / Malcolm Arnold
The poetry: W.H.Auden, Litany and Anthem for St Matthew’s Day / Norman Nicholson
Painting: Graham Sutherland, Crucifixion (1946)
Recitals and recitalists: Kirsten Flagstad
The ones that got away: T.S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, John Betjeman

Chapter 5: Networks
The revival in visual arts in the Church of England / WH and the media / WH and Kenneth Clark / WH and George Bell, bishop of Chichester / WH as collector / Previous attempts to bring WH to Chichester / Dean of Chichester (1955)

Hussey in the late 1940s. Image from West Sussex Record Office, all rights reserved.

Chapter 6: Chichester Art
What were cathedrals for, now? / Religious language and the crisis of communication in the Sixties / The art commissions: Sutherland (again) / John Piper / Marc Chagall / Geoffrey Clarke / Cecil Collins / Ceri Richards

Chapter 7: Chichester Psalms
Leonard Bernstein, Chichester Psalms / William Walton, Chichester Service / William Albright / Lennox Berkeley (again) / Bryan Kelly and ‘church pop’ / The Southern Cathedrals Festival / WH and John Birch, cathedral organist

Chapter 8: WH as Dean

Conclusion

ISBN:  (hardback):  ISBN 978-1-137-36909-3

ISBN: (ebook):  978-1-137-36910-9  /

Ebook DOI:  10.1057/978-1-137-36910-9