In Search of Reginald Heber: A Narrative of A Serendipitous Voyage of Research and Internet Discovery
By Jim Yaworsky
This story starts many years ago - in 1975, in fact, when I first viewed "The Man Who Would Be King" in its theatrical release. The film, based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling, made a terrific impression upon myself and my friends.
The heroes two discharged gunnery sergeants on the loose in Victorian India are the very epitome of the self-reliant "rankers and N.C.O.'s" of the British army - untutored men who built the Empire.
I note that to this day in interviews of Michael Caine one of the film's co-stars he consistently answers the question "which of your films do you think the most of" (or variation thereof) by stating that he considers this film the best one he's ever been in.
The theme music of the film is worked around a song sung in several scenes in the film, the most memorable being by Sean Connery ("Daniel Dravitt") whilst the two intrepid heroes are crossing a snowfield in the mountains of the Hindu Kush; then in the finale as Connery/"Dravitt" prepares to meet his fate - and "Peachy" (Michael Caine) joins in.
The song sung in the movie made an impact on all my circle of acquaintances. One musically-inclined fellow made a point of tracking it down and playing it on the guitar at residence functions.
He told us the song was "Minstrel Boy" but I was always uneasy with the fact that while the music was obviously the same, nevertheless the words of every version of "Minstrel Boy" that I ever came across in subsequent years didn't fit my memory of what Connery and Caine had actually sang in the film.
I could vaguely remember lines going: "Šwent forth to warŠ a kingly crown to gainŠ stalwart bandŠ blood red banner," etc. These stirring lyrics had seemed to fit the ethos of the movie much better than what I was hearing when "Minstrel Boy" was sung, much as I like the "standard" verses of the song that I kept coming across. I considered the movie lyrics of my memory to be the "lost stanzas" of the song or perhaps, written just for the movie by some 1970's script writer...
We now fast forward 20 years or so. A thread of discussion on the War of 1812 e-mail group ([email protected]) somehow turned to consideration of the song from The Man Who Would Be King. I did some searching on the Internet and discovered that "Minstrel Boy" was written just before the War of 1812. As I found various web sites dedicated to compilations of music and lyrics, I decided to make a determined effort to track down the "lost stanzas" to Minstrel Boy.
Instead of discovering the "missing lyrics", however, I discovered that the song actually sung in The Man Who Would Be King, while borrowing the tune of "Minstrel Boy", was nevertheless considered another separate song altogether. It was in fact a Christian hymn called "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" with lyrics written by Reginald Heber, whom I learned was an Anglican Cleric who became the first Bishop of Calcutta and died there in 1823.
This was useful information towards the discussion on the War of 1812 e-group, because it helped definitively establish that "The Minstrel Boy" must have been composed and given public circulation very early in the 19th Century before 1812, in fact so it was a song in "general release" in time to be known by the soldiers in the War of 1812.
What I found out and Œcut and pasted' from a website and then posted to the e-group, follows:
The heroes two discharged gunnery sergeants on the loose in Victorian India are the very epitome of the self-reliant "rankers and N.C.O.'s" of the British army - untutored men who built the Empire.
I note that to this day in interviews of Michael Caine one of the film's co-stars he consistently answers the question "which of your films do you think the most of" (or variation thereof) by stating that he considers this film the best one he's ever been in.
The theme music of the film is worked around a song sung in several scenes in the film, the most memorable being by Sean Connery ("Daniel Dravitt") whilst the two intrepid heroes are crossing a snowfield in the mountains of the Hindu Kush; then in the finale as Connery/"Dravitt" prepares to meet his fate - and "Peachy" (Michael Caine) joins in.
The song sung in the movie made an impact on all my circle of acquaintances. One musically-inclined fellow made a point of tracking it down and playing it on the guitar at residence functions.
He told us the song was "Minstrel Boy" but I was always uneasy with the fact that while the music was obviously the same, nevertheless the words of every version of "Minstrel Boy" that I ever came across in subsequent years didn't fit my memory of what Connery and Caine had actually sang in the film.
I could vaguely remember lines going: "Šwent forth to warŠ a kingly crown to gainŠ stalwart bandŠ blood red banner," etc. These stirring lyrics had seemed to fit the ethos of the movie much better than what I was hearing when "Minstrel Boy" was sung, much as I like the "standard" verses of the song that I kept coming across. I considered the movie lyrics of my memory to be the "lost stanzas" of the song or perhaps, written just for the movie by some 1970's script writer...
We now fast forward 20 years or so. A thread of discussion on the War of 1812 e-mail group ([email protected]) somehow turned to consideration of the song from The Man Who Would Be King. I did some searching on the Internet and discovered that "Minstrel Boy" was written just before the War of 1812. As I found various web sites dedicated to compilations of music and lyrics, I decided to make a determined effort to track down the "lost stanzas" to Minstrel Boy.
Instead of discovering the "missing lyrics", however, I discovered that the song actually sung in The Man Who Would Be King, while borrowing the tune of "Minstrel Boy", was nevertheless considered another separate song altogether. It was in fact a Christian hymn called "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" with lyrics written by Reginald Heber, whom I learned was an Anglican Cleric who became the first Bishop of Calcutta and died there in 1823.
This was useful information towards the discussion on the War of 1812 e-group, because it helped definitively establish that "The Minstrel Boy" must have been composed and given public circulation very early in the 19th Century before 1812, in fact so it was a song in "general release" in time to be known by the soldiers in the War of 1812.
What I found out and Œcut and pasted' from a website and then posted to the e-group, follows:
The Son of God Goes Forth To War
Words: Reginald Heber, 1812. This hymn was sung in the 1975 movie "The Man Who Would Be King," which was nominated for several Academy Awards.
The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown to gain;
His blood red banner streams afar: Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe, triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below, he follows in His train.
That martyr first, whose eagle eye could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky, and called on Him to save.
Like Him, with pardon on His tongue, in midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong: Who follows in His train?
A glorious band, the chosen few on whom the Spirit came;
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew, and mocked the cross and flame.
They met the tyrant¹s brandished steel, the lion¹s gory mane;
They bowed their heads the death to feel: Who follows in their train?
A noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid,
Around the Savior¹s throne rejoice, in robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven, through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be given, to follow in their train.
NOTES
- Lyrics written in... 1812!!!! Does it get better than this??? It is therefore the equivalent of the latest catchy song from the hit parade, for us.
- Reginald Heber: "Born: April 21, 1783, Malpas, Cheshire, England. Died: April 3, 1826, Trichinopoly, India, of a cerebral hemorrhage while bathing. Heber attended Brasenose College, Oxford, where he won a number of awards in English and Latin. He received a fellowship to All Souls College, and later became rector in Hodnet, Shropshire, England. In 1823, he became, somewhat reluctantly, Bishop of Calcutta, India. He wrote over 50 hymns in his lifetime."
- Lyrics written in... 1812!!!! Does it get better than this??? It is therefore the equivalent of the latest catchy song from the hit parade, for us.
- Reginald Heber: "Born: April 21, 1783, Malpas, Cheshire, England. Died: April 3, 1826, Trichinopoly, India, of a cerebral hemorrhage while bathing. Heber attended Brasenose College, Oxford, where he won a number of awards in English and Latin. He received a fellowship to All Souls College, and later became rector in Hodnet, Shropshire, England. In 1823, he became, somewhat reluctantly, Bishop of Calcutta, India. He wrote over 50 hymns in his lifetime."
The lines featured in the movie come from the first and third stanzas of the hymn. Mystery solved! Having satisfied my desire to find the song from the film, things rested for a few years.
Fast forward to 2002.
I was transcribing "A History of the Services of The 41st (the Welch) Regiment, (Now 1st Battalion the Welch Regiment.) From Its Formation, in 1719, to 1895" by Lieutenant and Adjutant D.A.N. Lomax, published at Devonport in 1899 (the transcript of which can be found on the 41st Website).
While typing up lists of officers from the 18th Century, to my amazement, I found "Reginald Heber" listed as "Chaplain" of the 41st Regiment of Foot! Specifically, on a list of the officers of the Regiment as of 15 February, 1787, Reginald Heber is listed as Chaplain, as of 3 May 1771.
The 41st was reorganized as a "marching regiment" (i.e a normal regiment available for general service, as opposed to an "Invalid" regiment composed of veterans and used for garrison duties in the United Kingdom), in 1787. A list of the officers of the Marching Regiment as of 25 December 1787 shows only 2 holdovers from the old Invalid regiment: the Colonel, Archibald McNab, and Reginald Heber, Chaplain.
A list of the officers as of 10 January 1794 still shows Reginald Heber as Chaplain, one of only 6 officers still left from the December 1787 list and in fact the only officer left from the Invalid Regiment & thus almost certainly the only man in the entire regiment whose service predated the 1787 reorganization.
The next list in Lomax that actually names all the officers is from 12 February 1813. At that point, no chaplain whatsoever is listed. So Heber the Chaplain was on the books of the Regiment from May 1771 to at least January 1794 a considerable period of time.
So where did this information leave me? I was excited by this possible connection to the composer of the Hymn. It was obvious that "Reginald Heber" the Chaplain couldn't be the Bishop who wrote "Son of God", for the Bishop was not born until 1783. I was left idly speculating what connection there might be.
Recently (2003) I obtained a copy of the Osprey "Warrior Series" book #67 - "The Cossacks 1799 1815" by Laurence Spring (Osprey Publishing Ltd, London, 2003). Reading it four days ago, I was astounded to find an English traveller's observations of the Don Cossack homelands in that timeframe being quoted extensively. The traveller was namedŠ "Reginald Heber". This was really too curious! Could it have been the Bishop? The Chaplain? Or some other member of what was probably an extensive family of reasonably well-to-do English gentry?
Having heard of the wonders of a Google search, I decided it was time to get serious and track down what connection, if any, these diverse sightings of "Reginald Heber" had to each other.
I typed in Œreginald + heber' for my search query. This pulled up 62 screens worth of links, constituting many hundreds of web-site references. And of course, these listings were not nicely lined up in chronological order or any particular order whatsoever, for that matter. So I started down the lists, checking out promising websites, seeing what I could find.
I found some references to Hebers who fought in the English Civil War. It was even noted that Bishop Heber was a descendant of a brother of a "Captain Heber" who was the focus of one of the web-sites I found. The family was prominent or at least, solid English gentry - long before the Napoleonic Wars.
I found many hundreds of references to Bishop Reginald Heber. I discovered more fully that he is one of the most significant composers of hymns to ever walk the face of the planet.
Some of the hymns I immediately recognized, including one, "Holy, Holy, Holy" which appeared on numerous sites identified as one of the "top ten" hymns of all time and which I imagine virtually every reader of this short article will also immediately recognize.
I found out Bishop Heber was also a poet of note, that he hobnobbed with many famous figures of the Romantic Movement, and he wrote a famous account of his travels in India. This last fact piqued my interest as regards the "Cossack connection".
It also turns out that a lot of people so admired Bishop Reginald Heber that they chose to name their offspring after him.
Reginald Heber Smith, for example, is considered the founder of the "legal aid" movement in the United States for a famous article on the subject he wrote in 1919; he was a Justice of a Supreme Court of I forget which State, and an annual award and scholarship given in his name appears in the curriculum vitae of dozens of American lawyers and jurists over the past decades.
In fact, I ended up getting quite annoyed with all the hoopla over this fellow and his subsequent followers. He and his award-winners had almost as many "hits" clogging up my search for the Bishop, the Traveller, and the Chaplain, as did the Bishop himself! Well, actually, I exaggerate.
Bishop Heber had far more sites devoted to his hymns than all the other sources of "hits" on the search put together.
But there were other individuals named after the Bishop as well, however, including an American Civil War general from New Jersey, etc etc etc.. so the search had its tedious aspects. As an aside, I had always assumed the song being played by the Union regimental musicians at the Sunday Morning service in the movie "Gettysburg" was "Minstrel Boy" but it occurs to me that it is far more likely, given the fact it was a church service, that they were playing "Son of God".
I found out that Malpas, Cheshire, is not far from Chester. From websites associated with Malpas, I found out that the Bishop's father was also an Anglican cleric. I found out the Bishop's father was also named Reginald Heber. The hunt was up and the scent was hot! The Bishop's father was a cleric, had the right name, and was living at the right time to be the Chaplain!
I found the mother of Reginald Heber, father of the Bishop, was named Mrs. Mary Heber, and she was buried in Marton, which is near Skipton in Lancashire. Web sites dealing with that area informed me that Reginald Heber the father was born in 1728 in West Marston and died in 1804 again, the correct time frame for Heber the Regimental Chaplain. "Marton Hall" was described as "the residence of the Hebers for many generations".
I found out that somebody named Reginald Heber published "An Historical List of Horse Matches Run and of Prizes Run for in Great Britain and Ireland in 1752" and another reference for this Reginald Heber as publishing "The Racing Calendar for 1755". Was this the future father of the Bishop, indulging in some sporting activity as a young man before settling down to his chosen vocation? As will be seen shortly, the Bishop also had a fling of adventure before settling down.
I was accumulating more and more information, all of it starting to tie together very nicely.
Persistence was necessary, however, to tie it all up, and in this case, it finally paid off. I came across a reference to Heber on a site dealing with a parish in Chelsea, London.
Chelsea is of course the location of the Royal Hospital for Invalids source of the 41st's personnel for the first decades of its existence as an Invalid Regiment. In fact, the Hospital is usually just referred to as "Chelsea" and British army "Invalids" were usually first "Chelsea Pensioners". This could not be a coincidence! The mystery was apparently about to be solved.
Details of the history of the parish of Chelsea are extensive on the website www.middlesexpast.net It contains such juicy tidbits as the fact the parish provided a "living" of 390 pound sterling a year for its curate, which was a considerable sum of money in the mid-18th century.
Then, I read that the "Wealthy Dr. Reginald Heber" partially rebuilt the Rectory House in the 1760's, and said Dr. Heber was minister of Chelsea Church from 1766 to 1770, when he "inherited a Shropshire estate". And finally: he is noted as being "the father and namesake of the Bishop of Calcutta".
Bingo! The connection seems clear.
I stayed on the Google search and learned a few more details.
I discovered that the Bishop, from a biography by presumably a daughter or niece dating from 1830, had made a series of European travels; specifically: August 1805, April 1806, and June to July, 1806. He is noted as travelling in Norway, Turkey, Hungary, andŠ Russia. So the Bishop is indeed the "Cossack connection". I found out that the Bishop married the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph Cathedral in Rhuddlan, in St. Mary's Church on April 14, 1809.
The picture is seemingly complete. The Bishop starts life as a member of a wealthy and reasonably well-connected gentry family. He travels Europe as young man, making very astute observations of the lands and peoples he visits, before settling down as a cleric. He writes poetry, travelogues that to this day are valuable sources of information, and some of the finest Hymns in the English language. He dies far too young.
I decided to refine the Google search. I typed in "Reginald Heber" + "Chelsea". Much to my amazement, the Google search engine found chapter 2 of Lomax on the 41st website, and found the listings of Chaplain Heber. It should be noted that while the chapter contains the words "Reginald Heber" and "Chelsea", all three words are never linked together in one sentence in Lomax. This Google feat strikes me as much more impressive than merely finding a needle in a haystack!
I also note that it's probably a good idea to run a Google search on any topic you are really interested in at least twice, because the 41st website didn't come up on my first search. Or at least, I think it didn't when you're checking 62 screens of "hits", it's possible to miss something! The Œrefined' search only brought up 4 screens, which was far more manageable. So taking a bit of time to refine your search is probably a good idea though there were things I found out from the broader search that did not appear on the narrower one, as well.
The total time to make the Google search and track down the specifics on the Chaplain and the Bishop about three hours. Pre-internet/pre-Google: finding this information might have been impossible, or might have taken years. It certainly would have taken the resources of at least one truly major research library probably in London, England.
Those who want answers to arcane questions fast live in good times!
I do note, however, that I entered the search with a good idea of what I wanted to find out, and enough background knowledge so that I could react to identify unanticipated potential sources of information, such as the Chelsea parish website.
So Reginald Heber the Chaplain of the 41st was the father of Reginald Heber the Hymnist and Bishop. Reginald Heber the Hymnist and Bishop was also the traveller to the lands of the Cossacks, amongst other exotic places.
One last consideration: is it possible that the military allusions in the lyrics of The Son of God were based on or inspired by the experiences of Reginald Heber (the future Bishop) of the 41st Regiment of Foot - whether as an Invalid or Marching regiment - via his father, its Chaplain for many years?
The Chelsea connection leaps to mind, but it is very unlikely this could be a factor. The Bishop was born after his father had moved on from Chelsea to another parish. Plus, even when the Chaplain was also minister of Chelsea, the Regiment itself was serving around Portsmouth at the time in any event.
There is also the strong likelihood that the Chaplain probably didn't perform much by way of official duties that required his actual attendance with the Regiment. They can't have seen much of him. What we see is that particular English institution: a "living" where one gets a title and a salary but seemingly doesn't have to perform much in return. It appears this was a "living" of the worst sort to the modern mind: the crass would say it meant Chaplain Heber was probably getting paid for no work.
How did one get such a benefit in late 18th Century Britain? It came down to your social position and whom you knew your social connections. The answer to how Reginald Heber in particular got this particular "living" can probably be found in official correspondence currently buried in the Public Record Office in Kew, London. One would probably have to have good knowledge of the "who's who" of Government in the late 1760's and be able to read between the lines of the document(s) to see why the patronage was exercised in Heber's favour.
Did the Chaplain take his son when attending some regimental functions in Portsmouth? Is it speculation stretched too far to even suggest this possibility?
Perhaps.
Still, one would think that surely Reginald Heber the father would have attended, as Chaplain, at least some regimental functions attendant upon the birth of the new regiment in December 1787, such as its first inspection, or its receipt of new Colours which Lomax tells us took place 12 March 1789? After all, he was still Chaplain of the Regiment until at least 1794.
Still, however many functions the Chaplain might have attended in Portsmouth, the Regiment left for Cork in May 1789 when the future Bishop was only 6 yrs old. No Heber is likely to have seen the whole Regiment again before the Chaplain died in 1804, for there is no record of the Hebers leaving England during the time the Regiment served in Ireland, the West Indies, Ireland again, then the Canadas.
So the evidence seems fairly clear that opportunities for the Bishop to have interacted with the 41st in any way as a child would have been limited, to say the least.
Did the future Bishop see the newly-formed 2nd Battalion while it was still in the UK in 1813? By that time, his father, the former Chaplain, had been dead 9 years. This seems quite unlikely. And the lyrics had been written by him the year before in any event.
Did the Bishop see the Regiment in Calcutta before the Burma War of 1822? While it might be nice to think so, of course, the hymn by that point had been written a decade before.
So it seems that whatever his military inspiration for the lyrics of the hymn, it was not the 41st specifically in the Bishop's mind. Perhaps (said tongue firmly in cheek) it was the Don Cossacks?
My Google search suggests more leads that remain to be followed. The best would appear to be to track down and read the 1830 biography of the Bishop. That volume undoubtedly has a lot of information in it, if not the answer to any and every lingering question.
But for the moment, my little investigation has gone as far as I want to go. There are other more pressing questions to be tackled next.
My 25 year search for the words of a song has led to the shedding of some light on the last serving member of "the 41st(Invalids)", and some interesting reflections on the role of chaplains, and patronage in the late 18th Century. This is part of the fascination of such research: you can never be totally sure what unexpected paths will open before you, when you start the journey.
As a closing observation, it would perhaps be appropriate to remark upon another Œfloater' with the Regiment in the late 1780's (i.e. someone "on the books" for one reason or another, but not actually doing duty with the Regiment on a daily basis). This individual also exemplifies Œpatronage in action'. He is Lieutenant Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.
This young officer apparently spent his entire time as an officer of the Regiment stationed far from the Regiment acting as an aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In other words, "living it up" in high society circles with probably less than onerous duties to perform. He was merely passing through the Regiment, putting in necessary time called for in the Regulations as a "lieutenant" before being allowed to continue further purchases on his way up the ladder of ranks of the officer corps of the Army to the Lt. Colonelcy of the 33rd. That's when Sir Arthur's serious soldiering would begin.
The Œhard evidence' I uncovered in my quest could have been conveyed in a few paragraphs. What I have tried to convey in this article by tracing the route and steps taken to discover that information is some of the excitement and sense of discovery in researching back in to such matters.
It was fun to discover the connections between a famous movie, its "featured" song, that song's composer, and the personnel and services of a Regiment that groups of dedicated volunteers on both sides of the Atlantic are proud to currently be commemorating by re-enacting their experiences.
And it is important to note that "re-enacting" is more than just dressing up and pretending to be a soldier.
Fast forward to 2002.
I was transcribing "A History of the Services of The 41st (the Welch) Regiment, (Now 1st Battalion the Welch Regiment.) From Its Formation, in 1719, to 1895" by Lieutenant and Adjutant D.A.N. Lomax, published at Devonport in 1899 (the transcript of which can be found on the 41st Website).
While typing up lists of officers from the 18th Century, to my amazement, I found "Reginald Heber" listed as "Chaplain" of the 41st Regiment of Foot! Specifically, on a list of the officers of the Regiment as of 15 February, 1787, Reginald Heber is listed as Chaplain, as of 3 May 1771.
The 41st was reorganized as a "marching regiment" (i.e a normal regiment available for general service, as opposed to an "Invalid" regiment composed of veterans and used for garrison duties in the United Kingdom), in 1787. A list of the officers of the Marching Regiment as of 25 December 1787 shows only 2 holdovers from the old Invalid regiment: the Colonel, Archibald McNab, and Reginald Heber, Chaplain.
A list of the officers as of 10 January 1794 still shows Reginald Heber as Chaplain, one of only 6 officers still left from the December 1787 list and in fact the only officer left from the Invalid Regiment & thus almost certainly the only man in the entire regiment whose service predated the 1787 reorganization.
The next list in Lomax that actually names all the officers is from 12 February 1813. At that point, no chaplain whatsoever is listed. So Heber the Chaplain was on the books of the Regiment from May 1771 to at least January 1794 a considerable period of time.
So where did this information leave me? I was excited by this possible connection to the composer of the Hymn. It was obvious that "Reginald Heber" the Chaplain couldn't be the Bishop who wrote "Son of God", for the Bishop was not born until 1783. I was left idly speculating what connection there might be.
Recently (2003) I obtained a copy of the Osprey "Warrior Series" book #67 - "The Cossacks 1799 1815" by Laurence Spring (Osprey Publishing Ltd, London, 2003). Reading it four days ago, I was astounded to find an English traveller's observations of the Don Cossack homelands in that timeframe being quoted extensively. The traveller was namedŠ "Reginald Heber". This was really too curious! Could it have been the Bishop? The Chaplain? Or some other member of what was probably an extensive family of reasonably well-to-do English gentry?
Having heard of the wonders of a Google search, I decided it was time to get serious and track down what connection, if any, these diverse sightings of "Reginald Heber" had to each other.
I typed in Œreginald + heber' for my search query. This pulled up 62 screens worth of links, constituting many hundreds of web-site references. And of course, these listings were not nicely lined up in chronological order or any particular order whatsoever, for that matter. So I started down the lists, checking out promising websites, seeing what I could find.
I found some references to Hebers who fought in the English Civil War. It was even noted that Bishop Heber was a descendant of a brother of a "Captain Heber" who was the focus of one of the web-sites I found. The family was prominent or at least, solid English gentry - long before the Napoleonic Wars.
I found many hundreds of references to Bishop Reginald Heber. I discovered more fully that he is one of the most significant composers of hymns to ever walk the face of the planet.
Some of the hymns I immediately recognized, including one, "Holy, Holy, Holy" which appeared on numerous sites identified as one of the "top ten" hymns of all time and which I imagine virtually every reader of this short article will also immediately recognize.
I found out Bishop Heber was also a poet of note, that he hobnobbed with many famous figures of the Romantic Movement, and he wrote a famous account of his travels in India. This last fact piqued my interest as regards the "Cossack connection".
It also turns out that a lot of people so admired Bishop Reginald Heber that they chose to name their offspring after him.
Reginald Heber Smith, for example, is considered the founder of the "legal aid" movement in the United States for a famous article on the subject he wrote in 1919; he was a Justice of a Supreme Court of I forget which State, and an annual award and scholarship given in his name appears in the curriculum vitae of dozens of American lawyers and jurists over the past decades.
In fact, I ended up getting quite annoyed with all the hoopla over this fellow and his subsequent followers. He and his award-winners had almost as many "hits" clogging up my search for the Bishop, the Traveller, and the Chaplain, as did the Bishop himself! Well, actually, I exaggerate.
Bishop Heber had far more sites devoted to his hymns than all the other sources of "hits" on the search put together.
But there were other individuals named after the Bishop as well, however, including an American Civil War general from New Jersey, etc etc etc.. so the search had its tedious aspects. As an aside, I had always assumed the song being played by the Union regimental musicians at the Sunday Morning service in the movie "Gettysburg" was "Minstrel Boy" but it occurs to me that it is far more likely, given the fact it was a church service, that they were playing "Son of God".
I found out that Malpas, Cheshire, is not far from Chester. From websites associated with Malpas, I found out that the Bishop's father was also an Anglican cleric. I found out the Bishop's father was also named Reginald Heber. The hunt was up and the scent was hot! The Bishop's father was a cleric, had the right name, and was living at the right time to be the Chaplain!
I found the mother of Reginald Heber, father of the Bishop, was named Mrs. Mary Heber, and she was buried in Marton, which is near Skipton in Lancashire. Web sites dealing with that area informed me that Reginald Heber the father was born in 1728 in West Marston and died in 1804 again, the correct time frame for Heber the Regimental Chaplain. "Marton Hall" was described as "the residence of the Hebers for many generations".
I found out that somebody named Reginald Heber published "An Historical List of Horse Matches Run and of Prizes Run for in Great Britain and Ireland in 1752" and another reference for this Reginald Heber as publishing "The Racing Calendar for 1755". Was this the future father of the Bishop, indulging in some sporting activity as a young man before settling down to his chosen vocation? As will be seen shortly, the Bishop also had a fling of adventure before settling down.
I was accumulating more and more information, all of it starting to tie together very nicely.
Persistence was necessary, however, to tie it all up, and in this case, it finally paid off. I came across a reference to Heber on a site dealing with a parish in Chelsea, London.
Chelsea is of course the location of the Royal Hospital for Invalids source of the 41st's personnel for the first decades of its existence as an Invalid Regiment. In fact, the Hospital is usually just referred to as "Chelsea" and British army "Invalids" were usually first "Chelsea Pensioners". This could not be a coincidence! The mystery was apparently about to be solved.
Details of the history of the parish of Chelsea are extensive on the website www.middlesexpast.net It contains such juicy tidbits as the fact the parish provided a "living" of 390 pound sterling a year for its curate, which was a considerable sum of money in the mid-18th century.
Then, I read that the "Wealthy Dr. Reginald Heber" partially rebuilt the Rectory House in the 1760's, and said Dr. Heber was minister of Chelsea Church from 1766 to 1770, when he "inherited a Shropshire estate". And finally: he is noted as being "the father and namesake of the Bishop of Calcutta".
Bingo! The connection seems clear.
I stayed on the Google search and learned a few more details.
I discovered that the Bishop, from a biography by presumably a daughter or niece dating from 1830, had made a series of European travels; specifically: August 1805, April 1806, and June to July, 1806. He is noted as travelling in Norway, Turkey, Hungary, andŠ Russia. So the Bishop is indeed the "Cossack connection". I found out that the Bishop married the daughter of the Dean of St. Asaph Cathedral in Rhuddlan, in St. Mary's Church on April 14, 1809.
The picture is seemingly complete. The Bishop starts life as a member of a wealthy and reasonably well-connected gentry family. He travels Europe as young man, making very astute observations of the lands and peoples he visits, before settling down as a cleric. He writes poetry, travelogues that to this day are valuable sources of information, and some of the finest Hymns in the English language. He dies far too young.
I decided to refine the Google search. I typed in "Reginald Heber" + "Chelsea". Much to my amazement, the Google search engine found chapter 2 of Lomax on the 41st website, and found the listings of Chaplain Heber. It should be noted that while the chapter contains the words "Reginald Heber" and "Chelsea", all three words are never linked together in one sentence in Lomax. This Google feat strikes me as much more impressive than merely finding a needle in a haystack!
I also note that it's probably a good idea to run a Google search on any topic you are really interested in at least twice, because the 41st website didn't come up on my first search. Or at least, I think it didn't when you're checking 62 screens of "hits", it's possible to miss something! The Œrefined' search only brought up 4 screens, which was far more manageable. So taking a bit of time to refine your search is probably a good idea though there were things I found out from the broader search that did not appear on the narrower one, as well.
The total time to make the Google search and track down the specifics on the Chaplain and the Bishop about three hours. Pre-internet/pre-Google: finding this information might have been impossible, or might have taken years. It certainly would have taken the resources of at least one truly major research library probably in London, England.
Those who want answers to arcane questions fast live in good times!
I do note, however, that I entered the search with a good idea of what I wanted to find out, and enough background knowledge so that I could react to identify unanticipated potential sources of information, such as the Chelsea parish website.
So Reginald Heber the Chaplain of the 41st was the father of Reginald Heber the Hymnist and Bishop. Reginald Heber the Hymnist and Bishop was also the traveller to the lands of the Cossacks, amongst other exotic places.
One last consideration: is it possible that the military allusions in the lyrics of The Son of God were based on or inspired by the experiences of Reginald Heber (the future Bishop) of the 41st Regiment of Foot - whether as an Invalid or Marching regiment - via his father, its Chaplain for many years?
The Chelsea connection leaps to mind, but it is very unlikely this could be a factor. The Bishop was born after his father had moved on from Chelsea to another parish. Plus, even when the Chaplain was also minister of Chelsea, the Regiment itself was serving around Portsmouth at the time in any event.
There is also the strong likelihood that the Chaplain probably didn't perform much by way of official duties that required his actual attendance with the Regiment. They can't have seen much of him. What we see is that particular English institution: a "living" where one gets a title and a salary but seemingly doesn't have to perform much in return. It appears this was a "living" of the worst sort to the modern mind: the crass would say it meant Chaplain Heber was probably getting paid for no work.
How did one get such a benefit in late 18th Century Britain? It came down to your social position and whom you knew your social connections. The answer to how Reginald Heber in particular got this particular "living" can probably be found in official correspondence currently buried in the Public Record Office in Kew, London. One would probably have to have good knowledge of the "who's who" of Government in the late 1760's and be able to read between the lines of the document(s) to see why the patronage was exercised in Heber's favour.
Did the Chaplain take his son when attending some regimental functions in Portsmouth? Is it speculation stretched too far to even suggest this possibility?
Perhaps.
Still, one would think that surely Reginald Heber the father would have attended, as Chaplain, at least some regimental functions attendant upon the birth of the new regiment in December 1787, such as its first inspection, or its receipt of new Colours which Lomax tells us took place 12 March 1789? After all, he was still Chaplain of the Regiment until at least 1794.
Still, however many functions the Chaplain might have attended in Portsmouth, the Regiment left for Cork in May 1789 when the future Bishop was only 6 yrs old. No Heber is likely to have seen the whole Regiment again before the Chaplain died in 1804, for there is no record of the Hebers leaving England during the time the Regiment served in Ireland, the West Indies, Ireland again, then the Canadas.
So the evidence seems fairly clear that opportunities for the Bishop to have interacted with the 41st in any way as a child would have been limited, to say the least.
Did the future Bishop see the newly-formed 2nd Battalion while it was still in the UK in 1813? By that time, his father, the former Chaplain, had been dead 9 years. This seems quite unlikely. And the lyrics had been written by him the year before in any event.
Did the Bishop see the Regiment in Calcutta before the Burma War of 1822? While it might be nice to think so, of course, the hymn by that point had been written a decade before.
So it seems that whatever his military inspiration for the lyrics of the hymn, it was not the 41st specifically in the Bishop's mind. Perhaps (said tongue firmly in cheek) it was the Don Cossacks?
My Google search suggests more leads that remain to be followed. The best would appear to be to track down and read the 1830 biography of the Bishop. That volume undoubtedly has a lot of information in it, if not the answer to any and every lingering question.
But for the moment, my little investigation has gone as far as I want to go. There are other more pressing questions to be tackled next.
My 25 year search for the words of a song has led to the shedding of some light on the last serving member of "the 41st(Invalids)", and some interesting reflections on the role of chaplains, and patronage in the late 18th Century. This is part of the fascination of such research: you can never be totally sure what unexpected paths will open before you, when you start the journey.
As a closing observation, it would perhaps be appropriate to remark upon another Œfloater' with the Regiment in the late 1780's (i.e. someone "on the books" for one reason or another, but not actually doing duty with the Regiment on a daily basis). This individual also exemplifies Œpatronage in action'. He is Lieutenant Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.
This young officer apparently spent his entire time as an officer of the Regiment stationed far from the Regiment acting as an aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In other words, "living it up" in high society circles with probably less than onerous duties to perform. He was merely passing through the Regiment, putting in necessary time called for in the Regulations as a "lieutenant" before being allowed to continue further purchases on his way up the ladder of ranks of the officer corps of the Army to the Lt. Colonelcy of the 33rd. That's when Sir Arthur's serious soldiering would begin.
The Œhard evidence' I uncovered in my quest could have been conveyed in a few paragraphs. What I have tried to convey in this article by tracing the route and steps taken to discover that information is some of the excitement and sense of discovery in researching back in to such matters.
It was fun to discover the connections between a famous movie, its "featured" song, that song's composer, and the personnel and services of a Regiment that groups of dedicated volunteers on both sides of the Atlantic are proud to currently be commemorating by re-enacting their experiences.
And it is important to note that "re-enacting" is more than just dressing up and pretending to be a soldier.