Praise be: the creed of horse and hound

The country parson can never properly preach to their flock unless they have joined in with their passions, says Fergus Butler-Gallie

- Fergus Butler-Gallie

Who is the most famous vicar ever? This was the subject of a pub argument I once had with friends, all would-be clergy at the time, back in the days when such a waste of weekend afternoons — you know the drill, raised but cheerful voices, sleeping dogs, roaring fire, dimpled beer glasses all too quickly emptied — was allowed.

Various answers were given: St Peter, of Dibley, of Bray, the man who wrote Thomas the Tank Engine and so on. But to my mind, one of the most worthy candidates was a sometime Vicar of Swimbridge and Rector of Black Torrington, a clergyman whose name is now known far from the Devonian moors where he holloa’d and rode for decades in the mid to late 19th century.

This vicar was, is, of course, the Reverend John ‘Jack’ Russell. He is known, I am sure, to the reader and to his contemporaries — including no less a sporting enthusiast than the then Prince of Wales — as not only the originator of the eponymous terrier breed but also the finest horseman in England. He was sought out by hunts across the country as an honoured guest well into his dotage. All this was not to say that Russell wasn’t a well-loved parish priest.

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould — himself a huntsman of sorts, he spent much of his career obsessively documenting reported instances of werewolves — recounted a parishioner of Russell’s describing his vicar thus: “He be very fond of dogs, I allow, he likes his bottle of port, I grant you — but he’s a proper gentleman and a Christian.”