Percy Dearmer

Percy Dearmer (1867-1936), born Percival Dearmer, was an English Church of England priest, liturgist, hymn-book editor, Christian socialist, and writer on ecclesiastical art. He is especially associated with The Parson's Handbook, the English Use, and the liturgical and musical renewal represented by The English Hymnal.

Dearmer's importance for Anglican liturgy lies in his attempt to commend ceremonial that was both catholic and specifically English. Rather than importing contemporary Roman ceremonial wholesale, he argued for worship governed by the Book of Common Prayer, the Ornaments Rubric, medieval English precedent, and the historical customs of the Church of England.

Life

Dearmer was born in London on 27 February 1867. Westminster Abbey's biographical notice identifies him as a son of Thomas Dearmer and Caroline Turner, educated at Westminster School, at a school in Switzerland, and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was ordained after residence at Pusey House.

He served as vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, from 1901 to 1915. During the First World War he served abroad, including as a chaplain to the British Red Cross in Serbia, where his first wife Mabel died of fever. In 1919 he became professor of ecclesiastical art at King's College London, a post he held until his death. He was appointed Canon of Westminster in 1931 and died on 29 May 1936.

King's College London describes Dearmer's professorship as a newly established chair in ecclesiastical art and notes that, by the time he came to King's, he was already known for The Parson's Handbook, his advocacy of English Use rather than Romanised ceremonial, his work at St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, and his role in the revival of church music through The English Hymnal.

The Parson's Handbook

Dearmer's most influential liturgical work was The Parson's Handbook, first published in 1899. Its title page describes it as a book of practical directions for parsons and others concerning "the Parish Church and its Service according to The English Use as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

The introduction states Dearmer's purpose with characteristic directness:

The object of this Handbook is to help, in however humble a way, towards remedying the lamentable confusion, lawlessness, and vulgarity which are conspicuous in the Church at this time.

Dearmer's remedy was not ceremonial novelty for its own sake. He argued that Prayer Book worship should be interpreted historically and obeyed consistently. He appealed to the English Reformation's own claim that the Church of England simplified inherited catholic worship rather than inventing a wholly new ceremonial system. In that setting, the phrase "English Use" named a Prayer Book Catholic alternative to both Puritan reduction and Romanising imitation.

English Use

Dearmer's English Use should not be confused with a simple restoration of the medieval Sarum rite. He made use of Sarum and other medieval English evidence, but his practical aim was Prayer Book conformity. In the chapter on vestments and colours, he wrote that, without confusion over the word "Sarum," loyal Anglican clergy might simply have used "English Use" to describe "the hitherto untried plan of honestly obeying the Prayer Book."

The English Use was therefore a liturgical programme with several connected claims: the Prayer Book had ceremonial implications; the Ornaments Rubric mattered; English medieval and Reformation continuity could guide Anglican practice; and Anglican ceremonial need not be measured by contemporary Roman use.

Hymnody and Church Music

Dearmer also shaped Anglican hymnody. Westminster Abbey notes that he devised The English Hymnal, to which Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst contributed, and that he edited Songs of Praise in 1931. His hymn-book work shared the same instincts as his ceremonial writing: a concern for beauty, English inheritance, congregational worship, and the moral seriousness of Christian common life.

Christian Socialism

Dearmer was associated with Christian socialism as well as liturgical reform. His concern for worship was not detached from social ethics. Westminster Abbey records that as Canon of Westminster he ran a canteen for the unemployed. This social concern helps explain why Dearmer's aesthetics were not merely antiquarian. For him, the ordering of worship, the dignity of church art, the use of music, and the social obligations of Christian people belonged together.

Influence

Dearmer's influence reached beyond his own parish. The Parson's Handbook supplied clergy and parish workers with a practical ceremonial argument for Prayer Book Catholic worship. His work overlapped with the Alcuin Club, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Warham Guild, and the wider early twentieth-century search for historically grounded Anglican worship.

Later Anglican ceremonial manuals, including Alcuin Club publications, drew from the same world of concerns: the relationship of ritual to rubrics, the authority of the Prayer Book, the recovery of English precedent, and the desire to avoid arbitrary ceremonial fashion. In American Anglican and Episcopal settings, Dearmer has often been read as a guide to Prayer Book Catholic ceremonial, even where local Prayer Books require adaptation.

See Also

• Alcuin Club
• English Use
• Book of Common Prayer
• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Alcuin Ceremonial for the 1928 American Prayer Book

External Links

• Percy Dearmer at Project Canterbury
• The Parson's Handbook (1899)
• Westminster Abbey: Percy Dearmer