Page 16 - KBHA BULLETIN 3
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till I heard that he had arrived in Cape Town, as it was the last he then possessed. To me it
was doubly valuable as his last mite. His noble and generous nature must never be
forgotten.” (One of his priests, recounted in Anderson-Morshead, p. 204.)
“Another reminiscence shows the playful manner in which he sometimes treated his clergy.
On the day when he opened the new buildings at Zonnebloem he noticed one of his
Archdeacons looking ill. He was a devoted man who had taken the pledge to help the hard-
drinking navvies, and his health was suffering much from it. The Bishop poured out a glass of
port, and insisted on his draining it. ‘I not only give you a dispensation from the pledge,’ he
joyously cried, ‘but I require and charge you on your Canonical obedience to break it
forthwith, and at once to swallow that glass of wine, and if you resist with contumacy, I shall
make two Canons hold you, and myself administer the dose.’” (recounted in Anderson-
Morshead, p. 205.)
As an equal:
“I cannot forget … [the] genuine hospitality, the kindness, the pleasant walks in the
afternoons, generally over Wynberg Hill, after many hours of work and consultation … -- it
was wonderful in those early days of his episcopate, which were full of cares and anxieties, to
see his cheerfulness, his kind consideration for others, his enjoyment in the climate and
scenery, his interest in everything round him.” (Bishop Welby, recounted in Anderson-
Morshead, p. 213-214.)
“When the Bishop visited his clergy, he threw himself into the ways of each household, and
one rector’s wife remembered that when he was with them, shortly before his death, he
insisted on going into the dining-room to help her give the children their tea, and cut the
bread and butter.” (Anderson-Morshead, p. 215.)
As an animal lover:
“He was very fond of his horses,” writes another, “and tried to spare them as much as
possible. It was a pleasing sight to watch him pluck the leaves and gather tit-bits to feed them
on the way. Often his voice - walking before them up a steep hill - was the only incentive to
make the faithful creatures struggle up a mountain. Many a time I have seen him take a pear
from dessert, and go down to the paddock to give it to a favourite horse; while if a horse were
very ill or dying, the sympathetic master lost his sleep.” (Anderson-Morshead, p. 44.)

