2019 marks the Golden Jubilee of the Chaplaincy Centre, 50 years of wonderful things. As part of the celebrations which brought together past and present chaplains from the past fifty years together with students and staff, Marion McClintock presenting an inspiring account of the Centre’s history which is reproduced with her permission here.
Queen Elizabeth II with Fr John Turner, first Catholic chaplain to the University of Lancaster, on 17 October 1969
University of Lancaster Chaplaincy Centre, 1969 to 2019:
Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your kind invitation to speak in commemoration of the Centre’s 50th anniversary. I am honoured to do so and to reflect on the special place the Centre has in the life of the University. I, and no doubt others present here this afternoon, were at the dedication of the Centre fifty years ago, and I wonder whether any of us had the temerity to assume we would be present at such an occasion as today’s celebration?
The service of dedication took place in the late afternoon of Friday 2 May 1969. The procession that entered the central concourse included representatives of: Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, Church of England, and Roman Catholic churches, together with the chaplain and counsellor to Jewish students. The acts of dedication were performed as follows: the dedication of the Centre overall; the Jewish Rooms; the Anglican and Free Church Chapel, and the Roman Catholic Chapel. The seven chaplains were commissioned, and on behalf of all of them, Father Matthew Shaw made this commitment:
We pray that we may truly be thy ministers, serving the members of this community in their thinking, their hopes and fears, successes and failures, aspirations and disappointments, popularity and loneliness, faith and unbelief. Grant to us, and our successors, a constant love and growing understanding of staff and students alike, minds alert to new ideas, hearts sensitive to varied personalities and relationships.
Simple and strong words, but what decisions and choices lay behind that dedication? Why have a chaplaincy centre at Lancaster? One of the fascinating features of Lancaster, despite all its early documentation, is how much information remains to be uncovered. Perhaps people here this afternoon will be able to fill some of the gaps I shall reveal.
Queen Elizabeth II shaking hands with Bishop Brian Foley
To consider that question, let’s go back five years earlier, to a university that has Quaker grey – a reference to our founding vice-chancellor - as one of its two colours. In its founding week, the university community went first to church. Two services were held on Friday 9 October 1964. The first was at Lancaster Priory, where the Archbishop of York preached on the theme of repentance in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra, incoming Chancellor to the new university, Charles Carter as vice-chancellor, and Hugh Pollard as the principal of S. Martin’s College, the Church of England teacher training college at Bowerham dedicated by the Archbishop later in the day.
Also on 9 October an academic mass was held at St Peter’s Cathedral. That invites us to go back a further four centuries, to a Lancashire where gentry families and local communities ignored the Reformation and held onto the pre-Reformation Catholic faith. When the Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1791, a Catholic mission church was shortly afterwards founded in Dalton Square. In 1857 the foundation stone was laid for a new and much larger parish church, dedicated to St Peter, that became the Cathedral for the new Diocese of Lancaster in 1924. In the 1960s the Roman Catholic church in north Lancashire thus had the standing and the resources to take new initiatives. The appointment of Bishop Brian Charles Foley in 1962 is also I think significant to this story, as well as the energy and wholehearted commitment of the first Roman Catholic chaplain, John Turner.
We should therefore not be surprised - although I admit I still am to a degree - that the first the site development architect seems to have heard of a proposed dedicated chaplaincy building was a letter of 22 June 1964 from Gerald Cassidy, at a new firm of Preston architects, Cassidy and Ashton. Instructed by Bishop Foley, the request was for a meeting about the location of a building “purely for the purposes of Catholics attending the university”, including a resident chaplain and some public spaces, that might be at the north-west corner of Alexandra Square. Stephen Jeffreys, founding University Secretary, responded with a clear understanding that space on the site for a religious centre should also provide for other denominations, and that decision led to planning discussions over the next two years that evolved into what we see today. Not only were Christian denominations to be involved, as by the end of the year, the Jews had also expressed a wish to be associated with the new centre, using the Hillel Foundation as a source of funding.
By May 1965 a small group, consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, the Bishop of Blackburn, Bishop Foley, and the Revd Maland of the Methodist Church had come up with a statement of need. This involved two important compromises: that the Roman Catholics would have their own chapel, and that a second chapel would be shared between the Anglicans and other Protestant churches. The upper floor would be used for resident chaplains, guest space and smaller meeting rooms. A funding target of £145,000 was set and design work began in earnest.
Chaplains past and present, and friends of the Chaplaincy Centre
I had the pleasure in March 1973 of meeting Gerald Cassidy and he spoke eloquently of the aesthetics of the building: three tulip petals, each one perfect, but stronger when united. In a written note to me he said:
As soon as the brief began to clarify, it was felt that, anxious though the churches were to preserve individuality of worship, there must be no thought of two quite distinct chapels linked (and separated) by accommodation for communal activities. The individual elements of two chapels and other accommodation were seen to be of equal importance, but subservient to the whole theme, and the process of design forced the conclusion that by far the most important feature was the link which quite literally held the pieces together.
The shape follows naturally from this philosophy. While the identity of each element is preserved, each develops into and is swept upwards towards a tripartite spire surmounting and giving majesty to the central link area and enabling it to dominate the whole. . . . The underlying feeling throughout is unity without loss of identity, with full scope, as is proper in a university, for liberal experiment both in liturgy and in worldly action.
The resulting building seems to me to be a triumph. Externally located on its prominent site, it gives visual variety and vigour from the approach road with the three upswept spires, eminently contemporary in their steel framing and white plastic cladding, that sit above the three drums clad in the same Stamford buff brick as their near neighbours. The rhythms of fenestration and entrances are beautifully controlled, with the strong verticals of door framings and narrow and wider widow openings complementing the three drums. Internally the chapels each have their own distinctive character while being respectful of each other. The silence, stillness and uncluttered central concourse give repose and welcome, and direct the incomer’s gaze upwards and outwards, while the third drum has a different function as a place of sound and movement. Meanwhile, the upper floor has a pleasing domesticity about it that is safe and reassuring. The building has an enduring appeal that does not date and is timeless, because the values underpinning its form are also timeless.
Bishop Paul Swarbrick celebrating the Mass of the Holy Spirit this year, inaugurating the new academic year, and thanking the Lord for the past 50 years. Bishop Paul is flanked by some of the previous Catholic chaplains together with Fr Philip Conner, to the bishop’s right on this photo.
There was however the little matter of the three crosses. At a fairly late stage the Jewish students complained about having a Christian cross above all three of the spires over accommodation that included Jewish sacred space. The discussion became quite heated and, after the completion of the building and before its dedication, the horizontal arms of the tallest cross were cut off, leaving a simple spike. The story that Ninian Smart, founding professor of religious studies, personally climbed up with a bolt cutter is, I am afraid, an urban myth. It was however the case that the Bishop of Blackburn expostulated for a while about fitting the spike with a fish symbol, but in vain.
The other often-quoted story is that H.M. the Queen undertook a second dedication of the Centre later in 1969. Alas, the facts tell us otherwise. She went to each of the new universities in turn, and Lancaster’s visit on 17 October 1969 was heralded as a visit to North Lancashire, starting with the Castle and LRGS, and concluding with Myerscough College. She spent 90 minutes at Bailrigg, her car arriving at 10.45 and leaving promptly at 11.45 a.m. During that time she met officers at University House, walked through Alexandra Square, and went by car to County College where she unveiled a plaque and had coffee with students. She then walked through the Great Hall complex to the Chaplaincy Centre, where nineteen people were lined up to meet her, and was given a conducted tour that I am assured included the Jewish rooms. She also, said John Turner, had a brief opportunity to kick off her shoes and rest her feet. That is not a schedule that allows for the solemnity of dedication.
Therese Monaghan, current CathSoc President, carving up the Chaplaincy Centre!
From the day of dedication onwards, staff and students immediately assimilated the new centre into their routines, using the centre in diverse ways. The beginning of academic year services took place here from 1969 onwards, and debates, tea parties, exhibitions, lectures and seminars competed for the space available. The service of Songs of Praise was broadcast in 1971, and on the tenth anniversary Bishop Trevor Huddleston came to preach. Almost every liturgical practice that could be thought about has taken place at least once. There was a wide range of denominations and faiths represented: in the mid-90s, for example, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, United Reformed, Unitarian, Christian Brethren, Society of Friends, and Jewish and Buddhist.
Individual students quickly recognised the Centre as a place where the welcome was consistent and real, and particularly at examination periods when stress levels rise. Staff across the university were involved by means of weekly newsletters, Angle and then CentrePoint, and for a time staff lunches and seminars were organised. At times of institutional difficulties and strained relaionships, the Centre was a neutral place where people could meet informally in a way that was not possible at any other place in the university.
A wonderful spread of food for all the guests at the celebrations
Funerals and memorial services were held, as well as weddings and musical performances. For a time a highly successful café, George’s, did a roaring trade, but tastes and circumstances are constantly on the move and it became unsustainable. At least two chaplains became principals of the university’s colleges, and a management committee chaired by a senior member of the university has ensured close liaison between chaplaincy and university.
Structurally the building has stood up well, and the university has been supportive in its willingness to keep it in good condition. The most unhappy event was a small but nevertheless damaging fire in the Roman Catholic chapel, which served as a reminder of the fragility of fittings in a building such as this. Interestingly, there were discussions in the early 90s about whether the university should have a mosque. This would have been quite a large building, at the position on the perimeter road where the Health Centre now stands. For a variety of reasons, including finance, this did not proceed, and successive forms of alternative provision have been made for the Muslim faiths.
I asked earlier, why have a chaplaincy centre at Lancaster? Of the Shakespearean Seven universities of the early 1960s, Lancaster was the only one to initiate such a centre. The days when prince bishops endowed universities are long gone and modern universities regard themselves as secular institutions that work through business models. Budgets and annual accounts, national and international league tables, student recruitment and graduate employment, resource allocation and strategic direction, quality assurance and research funding, these make up the hard realities of higher education in the 21st century. Why should Lancaster be different and, if I may be presumptuous, what might its role be for the future?
A full house for Marion McClintock’s talk
Inevitably I speak from within the tradition that I personally know best; the Anglican church. However, I also speak within an institution that had Ninian Smart as the founding professor of our Department of Religious Studies. In his inaugural lecture of February 1968 he listed the distillation of the originating syllabus: the study of modern religious and atheistic thought in the West, comparative and descriptive studies of religion, including the history of Indian religions, sociology of religion and the phenomenology of religion, and biblical studies, chiefly the New Testament. What an interesting list, and note the position occupied by biblical studies! Although the discussion about whether to have his department post-dated the decision to have a Chaplaincy Centre, and the two should not be confused, nevertheless Lancaster has consistently been a place where fearless examination and debate of controversial issues, including religion, has flourished. It has been suitable place for a department that has helped to define world wide how religions can be studied.
A delicious cake was enjoyed by all!
I see university chaplaincies as having a particularly privileged position. The parishes within the Church of England have churches that typically care for members of a particular community; know their people, (usually) have agreed liturgical positions, and are at the historic core of village or town. The 42 cathedrals, on the other hand, span England and in the words of Martyn Percy (2017) [the recently re-instated dean of Christ Church, Oxford] are typically low threshold. By this is meant anyone can come, without any need or pressure to join a rota, a group or a class, and this is combined with high reward; superb music, preaching of high calibre, and an elegant and well-delivered liturgy. Chaplaincies are anomalous in a good way. They have a free-flowing and constantly changing constituency, like cathedrals; they care for individuals like parishes; they make their own history through their involvement with a particular academic institution and its culture and values. Lancaster has benefitted from this freedom to choose and change and evolve, and has done so across Christian denominations and world religions.
Lancaster is also fortunate in its location. Universities in city centres, with buildings widely separated and adapted from other uses do not make for a sense of shared destiny. Here at Bailrigg the founders of the university were able to work from pasture land to form the campus that we have today. Their early choices in particular were of critical importance in establishing Lancaster’s institutional personality. Those choices included a chaplaincy centre that is distinctive, prominent and unmistakeable, and which conveys a sense of welcome and openness. I well remember coming here the day after Storm Desmond had extinguished electricity across Lancaster, and the university had ended the term a week early. In the twilight of a December afternoon, hundreds of students clustered quietly in this area of the university, waiting for the coaches that would take them to their respective destinations. I was struck that by some quirk of infrastructure, the lights of this building were still on, and gave illumination to what would otherwise have been a desolate scene. It seemed symbolic.
So, to sum up, I suggest that the reasons why we have a chaplaincy, and a chaplaincy centre are as follows. First: historical, about the region in which we are situated; secondly because we are an institution where truth lies open to all, whatever their background or faith - or absence of it; thirdly because we have the gift of this building as a beacon on the hill; and fourthly, because of the excellence of the chaplains and counsellors over fifty years and into the present, supported by the university and valued by our students.
David Martin is another theologian who has been involved with Lancaster, and I hope he would accept that words of his from 1998 that I now paraphrase have a wider resonance that are relevant to this chaplaincy. He refers to a repository of all-embracing meanings, pointing beyond the immediate to the ultimate, an institution that deals in tears and concerns itself with the breaking points of human existence, an entity that provides frames of reference and signs to live by. Those words sum up for me an important message for those who draw on this centre and care for it.
So, many congratulations on your first half century. May the second fifty years of this outstanding chaplaincy contribute as strongly and consistently to the life and work of the university as the first fifty years have triumphantly done.
Marion in full flow!