LITTLE GIDDING CHURCH - Key Persons
Ian was born in 1953, his mother an academic who had emigrated from China and his father a pharmacist. He was educated at Winchester College, where he excelled both academically and in all kinds of sport, and where he developed his love of literature and of music. He then studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. He quite soon realised that his vocation was teaching and his style as a teacher was completely true to his own personality - provocative, funny, risk-taking, energetic and unconventional. Both throughout his career and after he died, many of his former pupils testified to the inspirational effect he had on their education and their lives.
He was a lifelong sports fan, a devoted follower of Liverpool FC and Surrey CCC, but his true passions remained music and literature. Once a fine cellist and pianist, he loved classical, rock and jazz and some kind of music filled his house at all times. He read in every area - history, biography, fiction, poetry - and his favourite writers included Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, Philip Roth, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and, of course, TS Eliot. Although he did explore Christianity late in life, he was never religious in the traditional sense, but he always had a strong spiritual side to him that found its expression in music and poetry.
In his later years he battled with depression and he did so in a characteristic way, not only exploring the causes of it through therapy and analysis but also reading widely in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis. The Four Quartets had been important to him from an early age but when he finally visited Little Gidding, he found a place of beauty and history, a kind of spiritual home where he felt at peace. Ian died quite unexpectedly of a heart attack on 29th May 2017.
This obituary was written by Ian's friend, Anthony Goff.
Ian Bentley left a very generous bequest to St John's Church, Little Gidding. The PCC is grateful to Ian and his executors, as the bequest has enabled us to do some urgent preservation work on the Church and its fabric, as well as being able to support current work from St Johns and Ferrar House. We recognise both its historic role and also the role that St John's plays in people's ongoing spiritual journeys, and hope that St John's will continue to inspire people for many years to come.
Lady Margaret Proby, daughter of the Earl of Donoughmore, was born in 1857, and in 1882 married Douglas Hamilton, who inherited Elton Hall in 1909 through his mother and adopted her surname of Proby. Lady Margaret died in 1937, and is buried in Elton churchyard.
She was a great supporter of her own Elton church and of Little Gidding church, in which she took a keen interest. Her first visit was on Tuesday April 26th 1910, which she recorded in her diary. She signed the church visitors book on that date, and paid 3d (threepence) for the key, kept by a local farmer.
She frequently motored over to Little Gidding, sometimes when she had friends visiting, and corresponded with the Vicar, Mr Jones, on such matters as the altar linen, the appearance of the church building before the 1714 restoration, and during the 1930s a long investigation into the installation of a paraffin heater. Her architect cousin Mr Hope Bagenal was appealed to for advice: he did not seem very enthusiastic, remarking "today the whole of London is one paraffin heater".
Lady Margaret provided the brass sconces still in regular use in the church, designed by W.A. Lee in the Arts and Crafts style in about 1920, and also a Caroline copy chair, a small pipe organ, the lectern Bible, a sanctuary carpet, and kneeling mats.
Nicholas Ferrar was the son of a London merchant who was an early member of the Virginia Company, the group which established the American colony in 1607. In 1622 Nicholas succeeded his elder brother John as the company's Deputy, becoming responsible for its day-to-day administration. In 1624 twin disasters struck; the company was dissolved and John faced a threat of bankruptcy. This turn of events convinced Nicholas and the family that they should renounce worldliness by leaving London and devoting themselves to a life of godliness. Nicholas and John's widowed mother, Mary, purchased the manor of Little Gidding as part of a deal to rescue John from debt. An outbreak of plague in London in 1625 caused the family to move to Little Gidding more promptly than they had intended. On arrival they found the church used as a barn and the house, uninhabited for 60 years, in need of extensive repair.