Henson’s Journals are so rich and varied in content that it is the intention of the project to supplement the text with substantial annotation.
Entries between 1 October 1900 and 11 October 1921 are annotated in detail; entries between 12 October 1921 and 17 June 1926 are lightly annotated; entries from 18 June 1926 are currently without annotation. The annotation will be developed as the project continues.
The annotation is guided by three main aims. The first is to provide basic identification of what may not be obvious to the reader. The second is to explain the content of the text where this is not obvious. The third is to relate the annotation to the main project themes, principally the Church of England in its relations with the state (government, politics, and civil service), with other churches, and with other national institutions.
Categories of reference. Six main categories of reference have been used in the annotation:
- Persons
- Organisations
- Places
- publications (both by Henson and by others, when mentioned in the Journals)
- Henson’s sermons, lectures, and addresses (before October 1905 only)
- Notes on particular points of context and meaning, and on significant surviving correspondence and relevant passages in the Retrospect (for further comments on correspondence and the Retrospect, see below)
Complete lists of the various types of Henson’s published works can be found elsewhere on the journal website as follows:
(a) Henson’s books and pamphlets
(b) Henson’s sermons
(c) Henson’s lectures and addresses
(d) Henson’s letters to newspapers and weekly journals and periodicals
(e) Henson’s articles in daily newspapers and weekly reviews
(f) Henson’s essays in edited books and articles in monthly and quarterly reviews
It is intended to supplement these lists periodically as more items are recovered.
The annotation includes cross-references within and between the different categories where notes are related.
Relevance and proportionality. Annotations are focused on the specific Journal entry or entries to which they relate, and on Henson more broadly. In general, annotation concerning persons is related to Henson’s interests and concerns, and how Henson would have understood the standing and reputation of the person in question when he first encountered them after 1900. Biographical details are for the most part limited to the period in which a person was associated with Henson, and which help to make sense of his initial and subsequent references to them. However, earlier details are included where these enhance understanding of the person’s significance to him. References to honours have been kept to a minimum, as have family associations unless mentioned in the Journals, or as in the case of his own family networks, meriting further elaboration. Family links between persons mentioned in the Journal are indicated by cross-references.
The principle of proportionality has been applied by more detailed entries for those who feature frequently or significantly in the Journals, and basic identification for those mentioned only in passing (for instance, someone present at a meeting or dinner party).
Main biographical sources. In descending order of importance, these are Oxford dictionary of national biography (ODNB), Who was who (WWW), and Crockford’s clerical directory (CCD). A reference to the highest of these sources is included in the notes of persons who appear in at least one of these sources, and where the reader can find further biographical details.
Supplementary sources. In a substantial number of cases, it has been necessary to consult other sources, in some cases to supplement ODNB, WWW or CCD, but most often to provide all or most of the details. Use has been made of obituaries in The Times and The Scotsman, supplemented for Scottish clergy by Fasti ecclesiae Scoticanae (the Scottish equivalent of Crockfords) and the Surman Index for ministers in the Congregational and other Free Churches. Searches in ancestry.co.uk and other online sources have also been undertaken.
The project has revealed a shortcoming in bibliographical information relating to Anglican churchmanship. Details for membership of lay bodies of the Church and even for office-holding in these bodies are rarely given in the chief biographical reference works and in obituaries. Information on persons in the houses of laity of the convocations of the two provinces of Canterbury and York and, after 1919, the National Church Assembly, is scattered across the published records of their proceedings or in yearbooks, which are available in only a limited number of libraries. It is often not easy to give start and end dates for memberships and office-holding. But where possible, at least some indications of these are provided, because such active lay churchmanship would have been important for Henson’s understanding of the significance of those concerned.
Henson’s Retrospect. References to Henson’s three published volumes of autobiography, with their selections from his Journals and correspondence, are given where these offer additional information or impressions. No attempt has been made to compare the text of the Journals with the abridgments and often modified Journal entries printed in Retrospect. But the edition includes the symbols and lines that Henson added to the text of the Journals when he was preparing them for publication. These additions may help to indicate how he made his selections and adjustments from the original of the Journals. (See Editorial policies for the rendering of Henson’s annotation in this edition.)
Henson’s correspondence. A further source has been Henson’s extensive surviving correspondence. Small selections of his letters were published in the Retrospect, in Braley, Letters, and in Braley, More Letters; the project has collected many more from a range of archives. Where relevant, these have been used to provide further information on Henson’s relations with his contemporaries and his ideas and beliefs; and where appropriate, citations are given for the letters that Henson mentions sending (and in a few cases, those he mentions receiving).
Sermons. Henson preached a huge number of sermons. Only a selection were published, and it has not been possible to provide details for all of them. For his early Westminster years, from 1900 to 1905, publication details of the sermons he preached in Westminster Abbey have been included in the notes. The sermons he preached in St Margaret’s were part of his routine duties, and for many of these information is not recoverable. However, the sermons which are known to have been published – at Westminster and elsewhere – are included in the separate list of Henson’s sermons.
Major speeches. References for Henson’s speeches in convocation, the Church Assembly and the House of Lords will be recovered from the records of their debates and published at a later stage of the project.
Newspaper sources. A range of national and local newspaper sources has been used in the annotation, along with the religious press. The project has drawn extensively on The Times digital archive, The British newspaper archive and digital editions of other newspapers and reviews, and on newspapers such as the Westminster Gazette that remain available in print only. These have made it possible to trace many of Henson’s voluminous public letters sent to newspapers, as well as providing accounts of some of those speeches and sermons where the full published text no longer exists. They also supply information on the controversies he provoked as a national figure.
Exclusions from the annotation. The general categories of annotation exclude references to biblical texts cited but not identified in the Journal.
Events. Where relevant, the key word or words in a journal entry appear at the foot of the page. These can be clicked to provide a list of other entries on the same topics.
Capital letters and punctuation have been kept to a minimum throughout the annotation.