Torquay’s Other History: “If Christ came to Ellacombe”

By Kevin Dixon, on Sunday, May 29, 2011

Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Ellacombe from Stentiford Hill if Christ had come to Ellacombe in 1895, he wouldn’t have been happy, according the Rev CE Storrs

One of the impressions we have of Victorian Torquay is of a deeply religious society. However, church attendance had begun to decline during the middle of the 19th century, while the decline in actual membership began in the Edwardian period.

Recognising that Christian observance wasn’t what it used to be was the Vicar of Ellacombe, the Reverend CE Storrs, who in 1895 gave a sermon entitled “If Christ came to Ellacombe”. The Reverend believed that Jesus would be displeased at what He would find:

If He came again, what would Christ find in villadom, amongst the villa residents? He should be compelled to say some plain and true words of the selfish luxury of a very large proportion of the affluent and well-to-do classes. We should picture Christ standing almost homeless in Ellacombe. Could we not picture Him looking around Ellacombe Green, Hoxton Road, or Church Road?

He would no doubt express disappointment, that to such a great extent His work and the sacrifice of His life had been to all appearances such a terrible failure in Ellacombe… if Christ came into that parish he would see frightful indifference. He would observe a few score men, perhaps a hundred or two on Sunday evenings. We could imagine Him saying “Where are the men? Don’t they ever come to offer Me prayer and praise? Have they no hearts to feel? Is the parish made up altogether of women? Ye men of Ellacombe, how would I have gathered ye together but ye would not. There is one here and there in this large parish here to serve Me; the rest are the servants of pleasure, business, money-making and gain.”

If Christ came to Ellacombe he would see indifference and unbelief more than ever he suffered on earth before. He would find the evil of intemperance rampant. He would meet it everywhere. He would see drunken crowds and sottish selfishness. If Christ came to Ellacombe and did a miracle, instead of turning water into wine, as he did in Galilee, He would be rather disposed to turn all strong drink into water… (The people of Ellacombe) had better renounce the name of religionists, and call themselves ‘alcoholists’.

The sermon was followed up by research amongst “the working men as a class” to find out why they weren’t going to church. Women, it was decided, were retaining their church-going habits as “it was more of change for women to go out on a Sunday, because they had been in all week, where the men had not”.

At a public meeting the top 10 reasons for not attending church given by Ellacombe locals were read out. Some of these included “the great need for fresh air” and that working men had unsuitable clothes for church. Others said that they did not care to attend a church that had one part for the rich (where seats could be bought) and another for the poor, or that men and women were divided up. Some claimed that the sermons were too long, too dull and too dry.

Above all, the researchers found that amongst the men of Ellacombe there was an “indifference to religion”.

Perhaps surprisingly, the meeting reported that “some weren’t Christians” at all, and “a great reason in large centres of population for men not going to church was the spread of atheistic doctrines”.

The decline in church-going continued during the 20th and early 21st centuries and has accelerated since the 1960s. In 1989 the English Church Census found 11.2% of Torbay’s population attended church on a normal Sunday. By 2010, this had fallen to 5.8%.

(image: Ellacombe from Stentiford Hill © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)