The photograph above is of the Rev. John Colman Turner Fawcett, who was vicar of Kildwick from 1843 to 1867. It is almost certainly the oldest photograph in the History Group archive.
In his book on the history of St. Andrew's Church, written in 1909, E. W. Brereton gives this pen portrait of his predecessor.
Rev. JOHN TURNER COLMAN FAWCETT instituted August 16th, 1843.
Mr. Fawcett was the son of Mr, John Fawcett, and Anne, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Stockdale,, Vicar of Kingerby, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, in 1811, M. A. and Rural Dean. Mr. John Fawcett was by profession an actor and subsequently manager of the Covent Garden Theatre. His son, the future vicar of Kildwick, was, a Westminster scholar, and thence passed as junior student to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree. Having taken holy orders Mr. Fawcett became Curate of S. Thomas', Bethnal Green. During the quarter of a century that Mr. Fawcett was Vicar of Kildwick the Church made great progress. He had himself whilst at Christ Church drunk in eagerly and deeply the new learning from the great teachers of the movement that was destined to galvanize into newness of life the old dry bones of England's Church.
He [also] built the new school at Kildwick, and flagged it with flag-stones. The Education Department objected to the flagged floor, but the Vicar sent a pair of iron-round-side clogs up to London, and said that as all the children wore a wooden floor on their feet he must have a stone floor to the school.
Tall in stature, up-right as a soldier, he always wore a shepherd plaid slung Scotch-fashion over his shoulder ; the clearcut face, the hawk nose, bushy eyebrows, and keen eyes, marked him as a man of strong will.
Posted: 25/8/2018
(with thanks to David Gulliver for the photograph)