YORKSHIRE PIONEERS

Mrs. J. Greenwood was born at Cawkwell, Lincolnshire May 8th, 1860, and spent all her girlhood’s days in these surroundings. At the age of 19, she left home to take a teaching post at Calder, Yorkshire. Here she met Mr. William Greenwood and was married two years later, settling down at Sowerby Bridge, from which centre and the neighbouring town of Hebden Bridge has emanated all the activities which has made and useful to her. At Sowerby Bridge, Mrs. Greenwood was attracted to the Lyceum, and in her enthusiasm gave her best efforts successively in all the offices it offered. She was elected President of the Lyceum Union in the Jubilee year 1897–8. Together with Messrs. Kitson, Kersey, Venables, Morse, Mason, Todd, Miss Naylor and others she was instrumental in laying the foundation of the organisation now known as the B.S.L.U

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In 1923 Jessy Greenwood became the first woman president of the Spiritualists' National Union.  Also first woman magistrate to be appointed in the West Riding.

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Alfred Kitson was born on 15th February 1855. He sat on the first elected Council of the Spiritualists’ National Union (S.N.U.). His name needs little introduction to the Spiritualist movement, and he is still today referred to as the Father of British Lyceums. In the days of the National Federation, the Lyceum was an integral part of its make up, teaching Progressive (non-Christian) Spiritualism to the younger generations.

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Mr. T. J. Brooks (Normanton) May I be allowed to support the Third Reading of this Bill, and to add my sincere thanks and that of the whole spiritualist movement to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrowin-Furness (Mr. Monslow), who sponsored the Bill at our request? He honoured his promise to do so if he was successful in the Ballot. The presentation of his case was most efficient, proving beyond doubt his breadth of mind, deep religious feelings and his candid opinion that religious freedom should be given to the spiritualist movement. He has earned the thanks and admiration of a great number of people. His name will be remembered and revered for the great service which he has given to the spiritualist cause. No one could have done it better or more effectively. May I also be allowed to say to the Home Secretary how much we appreciate the great help that he has given us? He has been exceptionally helpful in every way. His kindly advice and courtesy to myself and my friends, both on deputations at the Home Office and in correspondence, has been most friendly and encouraging. The promise which he gave to us on the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Act has been fully honoured. He gave the assurance that he would give every assistance if and when such a Bill as this came before the House.

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Bottom photograph is taken from the “Two Worlds”, February 9th 1952 "Movement says thanks to T. J. Brooks for his outstanding services to Spiritualism"

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Every year the North Yorkshire District Council present the Eddie Moss Award to a person who has been nominated for the work that they have carried out on behalf of Spiritualism. Minister Judith Seaman knew Eddie very well and she has provided this information about him so that he is never forgotten as a true Yorkshire Pioneer!

Eddie was very well known medium and speaker in the Yorkshire District, and in the North Yorkshire District when it was changed after merger with the old Sheffield District. He was renowned for his magnificent singing voice, especially when he sang with Iris Wormald from Castleford Church. He was a lovely gentle man, who was a wonderful baker and ran a Bakers shop in Otley.

 

I have many happy memories of time spent in Eddies company.  Minister Eddie Moss was Ordained at Huddersfield Church in 1991. His son Brendan was his sponsor on the day. Eddie passed to spirit very suddenly and unexpectedly the following year, and his wife Edith asked me to take his funeral service. The service took place at Nabwood Creatorium at Bradford, and literally hundreds of people attended from all over the country. As the Funeral cars turned into the crematorium all you could see was a sea of mpeople waiting outside the crematorium.  Most could not even get into the Crematorium and stood outside during the
service. Eddies good friend Doreen Firth and I chose the music at Ediths request. I remember well that we left the Crematorium to Nessun Dorma which had to be played more than once whilst everyone walked through.

The funeral Director paid me for taking the service, and when I tried to return the money to Edith, she refused and told me to do something with it. So I did! I bought the Eddie Moss Award trophy and set up the Eddie Moss Award for service to
Spiritualism in the North Yorkshire District. At that time the nominations went to Doreen Firth and she and Edith decided who should receive the award. After Doreen passed to Spirit, Edith continued to make the choice herself, until recently when I was asked to take on that role.
 

We forget we live in prosperous times. To earlier generations, the “Brotherhood of Man” was an instruction to improve the lives of others. Brotherhood became a verb, something you do. Logie Barrow, in his landmark 1986 book, “Independent Spirits”, put forward the idea that the Spiritualist movement of the 19 th and 20 th C. was a radical movement dedicated to social reform. The Spiritualist Press of the period debated social issues and the approaches of Liberalism and Socialism to reform. For our pioneers, the second principle meant that Man’s character could be improved if the right conditions were provided.

In the 2006 study, “Dead Men’s Embers”, this author found that Barrow’s thesis was correct but that the local York Spiritualist Church’s involvement in socially progressive causes dated from after the First World War.

Ernest Vickers was a member of the SNU Executive Council and President of the British Spiritualist Lyceum Union (BSLU). It is forgotten that in 1948, the Lyceum amalgamated with the SNU and previously was independent. Ernest was described
as “…a sensitive youth” whose mother thought he suffered from a “malady.” Visiting a Spiritualist Church, the Lyceum Banner (BL) reported in 1914, “…that his high mediumistic abilities then unfolded”. Ernest was an active Socialist and may well have known SNU President Ernest Oaten, a labour-party member and campaigner.

Ernest Vickers of Sheffield and Alice Hesp of Leeds were regular speakers onYorkshire Church platforms and at York. Both devoted their lives to teetotalism, education, physical health and nutrition of children.  Alice Hesp was elected Vice-President of the BSLU in 1914 and President of the Leeds District Council. A teacher and conductor (or head) of the Sunday, Leeds Psycho (Psycho meaning the soul’s  composition). Miss Hesp was described by the BL in June 1914 “I would urge every boy and girl to emulate as far as possible the example we have before us. Yorkshire is just proud of its Yorkshire Lass.”

The BSLU was Pacifist by policy, and the First World War was regarded as an offence of the Second Principle. The issue of Conscientious Objectors or “Conscies” divided the SNU conferences throughout the First World War. In 1917, Ernest
Vickers proposed a compromise first put forward by Reverend Stainton Moses (1839-1892). Moses’s aphorism suggested, “Your war is our wholesale murder” Vickers, inspired by Moses, proposed to conference, “All War is Murder”. Secondly,
support should be given to those whose conscience forbade them to fight. The conference accepted the first motion as a moral statement that all Spiritualists could agree upon, and the conference avoided a split. The 2nd motion of support was lost.  Alice Hesp, aged 37 in 1925, disappears from the records. Hesp appears never to have married perhaps her beau died? As far as is known, she took no part in supporting the war. Vickers’s short life summoned up the dilemmas of being a

Spiritualist in times of war. A spiritual man and thinker, President and leader, social reformer, educator, sensitive, pacifist and soldier. Ernest Vickers last served the York platform in late spring 1917. And Private Vickers
245254, the “Conscie” who had stood before conference in the army uniform of the Durham Light Infantry, on 10 th July 1917, was killed in action at Flanders.

Gerald O’Hara B.Sc. CSNU

History of the President's badge and its connection to York Spiritualist Church (extract Pioneer Journal No 4 August 2017)

The reverse worn side of the badge states:

PRESENTED TO THE S. N. U.

BY MR & MRS HENRY RICHARDSON OF YORK

IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF BLESSINGS

RECEIVED THROUGH SPIRITUALISM

—~—☼—~—

Presented to Robert A Owen at the twenty-fifth Annual General Meeting of the Union, held at Caxton Hall, Westminster and the Artworkers’Guild, Queens Square, Southampton Row, London, on July 2nd and 3rd 1927 respectively, SNU President Robert A. Owen was presented with a new President’s badge. For many years, a farthing coin was the symbol of office carried by the President of the Spiritualists’

July 3rd, when Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, of the York Spiritualist Church, presented the Union with a gold President’s Badge. The Badge is in blue enamel on gold, with the name of the Union round the edge, the centre design showing the Setting Sun over the Book of Nature, with the words Light and Truth standing in relief. The back is suitably inscribed to commemorate the gift. It has a bar above on which is inscribed the word President.

Mrs. Richardson, in making the presentation, said that two farthings were once found in the collection at an annual meeting. She had discovered that one of them was put in by a resident of York. Whether the actual coin, which had served as a President’s Badge for many years, was the York coin, she did not know, but it was appropriate that since the humblest coin of the realm had come from her city, a gift of the pure metal, gold, should also come from that ancient city. Mr. Richardson took up the thread and expressed the pleasure it gave him to have the honour of bestowing upon the Union some token of adornment to mark the growing honour and dignity of the great Movement of Spiritualism.

By the unanimous desire of the Conference Mrs. Richardson pinned the badge on the coat of Mr. Owen, who had been elected the previous day to the office of President for the third year in succession.

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Photographs by kind permission of Gerald O'Hara from York SC Archives: Spirit Extra on Medium Billy Hope Photography