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Opinion, Commentary, Dialogue |
Ivor Gurney, Wilfred Owen and T. Ratcliffe Barnett in Scotland
© 1999 by Pamela Blevins
By the time Ivor Gurney arrived at
the Edinburgh War Hospital, Bangour, on 25 September 1917, Wilfred Owen
had been in Scotland exactly three months for treatment of shellshock at
Craiglockhart War Hospital. The young poets were separated by some
12 miles, a void that might have been bridged had Gurney been able to obtain
leave during October.
Owen arrived in Edinburgh by regular
passenger train from King�s Cross on the morning of 26 June and enjoyed
a hearty breakfast in the North British Station Hotel. Unlike Gurney,
who arrived at Bangour in darkness after a 12-hour journey on an ambulance
train, Owen made his way from Waverley Station to Craiglockhart in the
comfort of a taxi. Gurney, suffering the effects of German gas, had
to be carried on a stretcher from his crowded train to the hospital ward
that would be his home for more than a month.
As an officer, Owen had his own room
while Gurney was in a small shared room in a ward with dozens of other
men. It was at Craiglockhart that Owen met fellow patient and poet
Siegfried Sassoon in August and found the key to his �poethood�.
At Bangour, Gurney met Annie Nelson Drummond and fell in love. While
patients at Craiglockart enjoyed a comfortable degree of freedom and were
able to attend lectures and classes, play golf and participate in the cultural
life of Edinburgh, the 3000 patients at Bangour were more isolated.
Few of them were able to leave the grounds and spent their days and nights
surrounded by men suffering from everything from shellshock to severe wounds
to dysentery and scarlet fever. The pleasures they enjoyed came from
conversations, ward parties, music, walks in the grounds and good food.
The hospitals were a study in contrasts.
Bangour Village, the original name of the Edinburgh War Hospital, opened
in October 1906 as a compassionate facility for the �mentally insane� where
they could �best be provided for by isolating them in the country where
they would benefit from the peace, solitude and fresh air while at the
same time being more easily occupied labouring on the land�. When
it opened, Bangour, meaning �the hill of the wild goats�, was set on 200
acres of woodland between 500 and 750 feet up the south side of the Bathgate
Hills on land that was once the home of the poet William Hamilton.
The hospital was a model of its kind, a place where the light airy buildings
housing the patients were called �villas� and where the goal was to provide
�a bright, cheerful effect� to ensure patients �liberty and freedom of
action�. The hospital was largely self-sufficient with its own farms,
dairy, bakery, laundry, reservoir, power plant, private railway station
for the convenience of visitors and staff, and a nursery which supplied
flowers, plants and trees for all the wards even during the war.
Among the founders of Bangour Village Hospital were the composer, folksong
collector Marjory Kennedy Fraser and composer Alexander Mackenzie.
Bangour was converted to a war hospital
in 1915 and the first patients arrived there in the early hours of 12 June.
Most patients arrived between midnight and 4 a.m. The Edinburgh War
Hospital was in the forefront of medical advances during the war particularly
in x-ray, orthopedic surgery, bone grafting, nerve suturing and tendon
transplants.
Upon his arrival at Craiglockhart,
Wilfred Owen could see �nothing very attractive about the place� and called
it a �decayed Hydro�. It had been in service as a hospital for �neurasthenic
officers� since the summer of 1916. Situated on 12 acres of ornamental
grounds with spectacular views, the main building dated from 1880 and had
originally been a hydropathic sanitorium. The site had been the location
of Craiglockhart Castle, a 13th-century keep. By the 17th century
much blood had been spilled there owing to feuds instigated by the Kindcaid
family. In 1865, the City of Edinburgh Parochial Board purchased
part of the land and built a poorhouse for men and women. In 1877,
the Craiglockhart Hydropathic Company purchased some 12 acres in another
section of the property to be used as a Hydropathic. The venture
ultimately failed.
Owen and Sassoon found Craiglockhart
depressing, shabby and melancholy, particularly at night when the demons
haunting the memory of their fellow officers roamed the darkened corridors.
The common bond between the two hospitals was a view of the Pentland Hills.
While Wilfred Owen taught classes, made friends in Edinburgh, wrote poetry
and explored the countryside around Craiglockhart, Ivor Gurney could only
dream of visiting �Enbro�. Yet had he been able to get into the city,
it is likely that he and Owen would have met.
The man capable of
bringing the two young poets together was the Reverend T. Ratcliffe Barnett,
a Presbyterian minister in the Free Church of Scotland, who was serving
as chaplain at the Edinburgh War Hospital located west of the city near
Dechmont. Gurney�s first encounter with Barnett came on the evening
of October 3 when he attended an impressive lecture on Adam Smith given
by the chaplain.
After 16 months in France, Gurney was starved for intellectual
stimulation and was thrilled by both the lecture and the man who presented
it. �I could have sat all night,� he wrote the next day to Marion
Scott. �He had a slip of paper with subjects for the next ten weeks,
and O but I wished him to use them all � to start with Adam Smith and go
on to Nelson!� (Footnote *1) Within a few days, Gurney
had made himself known to Barnett and a brief stimulating friendship was
established.
Barnett was no ordinary minister, a fact that Gurney detected immediately,
noting that his chaplain was �...a Truth-teller, Lecturer on English Literature,
Mountaineer, Lover of Men, Music, and Books.� (*2)
But there was much more to this dynamic middle-aged man with his �eyes
that can look you through ...fine head with a Roman nose defiant at the
fore....A great man to finish with whose aim at present is to set men at
ease when they talk to him�. (*3)
Thomas Ratcliffe Barnett was born at the weaving village of Kilbarchan,
Renfrewshire on 23 December 1868, the son of James Barnett and Janet Ratcliffe.
He was educated at John Neilson�s Institution at Paisley, the University
of Glasgow and the United Presbyterian College, Edinburgh. He was
ordained on 20 October 1899 and inducted to Fala, Blackshiels in the Lammermoor
Hills.(*4) He and Margaret (Maggie) Muirhead Forrest
were married in 1900 and had two daughters, Margaret and Janet (*5).
In 1914, he was called to Greenbank
Church in the Morningside section of Edinburgh and a began a highly successful
ministry there, focusing drawing on young people to the parish, swelling
the congregation of fewer than 300 members to 850 and eventually raising
thousands of pounds to build a new church during his long tenure.
However, the outbreak of war cast
a shadow over Barnett�s plans for growth in his new parish. Soon
members of his church were dying in France and the Revd. Barnett�s monthly
message in the church publication Leaflet reveals how deeply he
was affected by the war and the suffering of the men and women at the Front.
In summer of 1916 at the age of 48, he joined them, serving for three months
at a YMCA hospital hut at Étretat, France. As a result of
this heart-rending experience, he volunteered to serve as chaplain at the
Edinburgh War Hospital, some 16 miles west of the city. In addition
to conducting Sunday services, he spent Wednesdays meeting with the patients
and ended the day with a lecture, usually on English literature, at 6 p.m.
When Gurney met him,
Barnett was already an established author with seven popular books to his
credit. Between 1913 and 1915, he published Reminiscences of Old
Scots Folk, The Winds of Dawn, and The Makers of the Kirk
and would go on to write another ten books before his death in 1946.
Like Gurney, Barnett loved nature and walking. He was a keen observer
and was essentially a travel writer. The majority of his books deal
with his impressions of different places in Scotland, the people who inhabited
them and their history. Barnett�s books reveal him to be a humourist,
poet, artist and above all, a mystic who understood and respected Celtic
legends and beliefs. He was also an accomplished musician who played
the violin and bagpipes and performed in public. (*6)
On 8 October, Gurney
wrote to Marion Scott to tell her that Revd. Barnett was away for a week
but that when he returned he would try to arrange an outing for Gurney
in Edinburgh, �a complete tour of everything that can be packed into a
short stay�. This letter is important because in it Gurney mentions
that Barnett was a �great friend of Lord Guthrie who owns the R.L.S. (Robert
Louis Stevenson) house� at Swanston. Craiglockhart, where Owen was
in hospital, Swanston and Morningside, where Revd. Barnett lived and where
his church was located, are all within a short distance of each other.
Owen had been introduced to Lord Charles Guthrie by Arthur
Brock, his doctor at Craiglockhart. (*7) Guthrie,
a judge, historian and friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, liked Wilfred
immediately and was so impressed by the young soldier that he talked him
into helping him do some historical research in the Edinburgh libraries.
Owen was far from enthusiastic about the assignment and felt he had fallen
into �a trap�.
�I was not all that keen, & pleaded
in vain my ignorance & my hatred of legal matters,� he wrote to his
mother. �But I had to meet him this morning in The Advocates� Library,
& have now my work cut out.� Owen had previously joined Lord
Guthrie for tea and commented that his host was a �most courteous gentleman
withal, and no lady has ever given me tea in so fine a manner�. They
had their tea alone in �Stevenson�s room, but scarcely a word was spoken
of him!�
In the meantime,
Revd. Barnett had returned to his duties at the Edinburgh War Hospital
and resumed his meetings with Gurney. He had learned of Gurney�s
�literary dealings� and gave him a copy of Reminiscences of Old Scots
Folk which he inscribed �My House an Ever Open Door to You�. (*8)
The inscription refers to an experience Barnett had in Galloway.
In his essay �The Hidden Sanctuary�, he writes of hearing about a church
�among the trees� where it was �the desire of the minister that the door
of the church should never be closed.� As a Presbyterian minister
he had also heard his denomination called �the religion with the closed
door�, since the churches were only open on Sunday for public worship but
closed the other six days of the week thus denying parishioners access.
He could not believe that the door of the little church in Galloway stood
open all night so he set out at night to see for himself.
�There was a touch of frost in the
September air...[as] down the road I wandered to the gate and up the pitchy
avenue under stilly trees,� he wrote. Beyond the gleam of graves,
he saw the church and groped his way to it in the dark, passing his fingers
along the wall until he found the door. It was standing wide open
and he could find no means to close it.
�Wayfaring men...might slip in here
to sleep, to make a vow, or to pray,� he wrote. �After all, was it not
their Father�s House? Who then dare close the door? I looked
at the stars quivering above the graves and wondered what God thought of
our narrow ways. Then I went into the pitch dark church and made
my vow. From that day to this the door of another church has been
open every day of the year.�
Time was moving fast. Wilfred Owen was expecting
orders to leave Craiglockhart any day and Gurney could not obtain leave
to get away from Bangour. Ratcliffe Barnett had no choice but to
postpone his plans to treat Gurney to a tour of Edinburgh and to introduce
him to Lord Guthrie and other members of the cultural community of the
city.
On 29 October, Wilfred Owen learned
that he was to be �boarded next Tuesday � and be sent away...I am rather
upset about it,� he wrote to his mother. Owen was discharged from
the hospital on 30 October, declared fit for light duties. He spent
several nights of his three week leave in Edinburgh but any chance of a
meeting between Owen and Gurney was now lost. By 4 November, Owen
was back in Shrewsbury visiting his family before returning to France.
He had exactly one year to live.
On the day Owen was discharged from Craiglockhart, Ratcliffe
Barnett invited Gurney to play the piano for officers at the Edinburgh
War Hospital. He performed an ambitious programme of Beethoven, Bach
and Chopin and was pleased to report to Marion Scott that the officers
�listened beautifully� while �Mr. Barnett...listened in a pure ecstasy.�
Gurney had copied out By a Bierside for Barnett who insisted
that he sing it for him along with The Folly of Being Comforted.
The evening was a great success and Barnett returned home to Morningside
full of joy.
Two days after his acclaimed hospital
performance, Gurney learned that he was to be discharged. �This chuck-out
is unexpectedly early,� he told Marion Scott. On 5 November while
Wilfred Owen was in Shrewsbury writing to his friend Siegfried Sassoon,
Ivor Gurney was finally �roaming about Edinburgh� but alone as he waited
for a train to take him south to London for a reunion with Marion Scott
and a 10-day leave.
Shortly after Gurney left Edinburgh,
Ratcliffe Barnett decided to give himself over completely to his work with
sick and wounded soldiers. He applied for and was given the rank
of Chaplain to the Forces and served in that capacity full-time at Bangour
until the autumn of 1919. The board of Greenbank Parish insisted
that he continue to be paid his stipend and Revd. Barnett gave part of
it to the Edinburgh War Hospital to supply �comforts� for the soldiers.
After he returned to Greenbank, Revd.
Barnett focused much of his time on young people in his parish. He
established a Young Men�s League of Service and encouraged its members
to run weekly clubs for crippled men and boys in the poorer parts of the
city. This eventually led to a project known as the Cripple Lads�
Club which in turn led Ratcliffe Barnett to found the Princess Margaret
Rose Hospital for Crippled Children in 1932.
In 1925, Revd. Barnett added the title
Doctor to his name when he was awarded his PhD in literature by the University
of Edinburgh. His thesis was entitled Queen Margaret and the
influence she exerted on the Celtic Church in Scotland. He
published this work in 1926 under the title Margaret of Scotland, Queen
and Saint. Dr. Barnett did not find time to resume his writing
career until 1924 when his book The Road to Rannoch and the Summer Isles
appeared.
He retired from his ministry on 31
December 1938 but soon after he was called back to fill in for the new
minister who had been called up as a Territorial Chaplain. However,
Barnett�s health broke down and he was not able to continue his work.
He did, however, publish one more book in 1942, Scottish Pilgrimage
in the Land of Lost Content. For his remaining years he never
again enjoyed good health but one of his friends commented that �his spirit
must have been often cheered by the memories of his rich and varied ministries,
his walks among the hills, his friends in all walks of life and his friends
among books [and] the inward eye that is the bliss of solitude�.
T. Ratcliffe Barnett died on 20 February
1946. He kept the copy of Severn and Somme, which Gurney had
inscribed: �To that Bon Chaplain and Good Friend T. Ratcliffe Barnett,
this Highly Expensive Book from Ivor Gurney, December 1917, Seaton Delaval�.
Inside the book the Revd. Barnett kept a photograph of Gurney and a copy
of his obituary notice.
1. R.K.R. Thornton, Ivor Gurney Collected Letters, MidNAG/Carcanet, 1991, p. 335. [Go back to text.]
2. R.K.R. Thornton, Ivor Gurney Collected Letters, MidNAG/Carcanet, 1991, p. 345. [Go back.]
3. R.K.R. Thornton, Ivor Gurney Collected Letters, MidNAG/Carcanet, 1991, p. 345. [Go back.]
4. Like many people living in the Lammermoor Hills region, Ratcliffe Barnett was intrigued by Lady John Scott, composer of Annie Laurie, who had been born and raised at Spottiswoode on the other side of the hills. Her name and her exploits were legendary. Barnett devoted part of his essay �Home of My Heart� in his book Scottish Pilgrimage in the Land of Lost Content to this �little Scots gentlewoman...full of music and poetry�. [Go back.]
5. Janet Barnett, who worked as her father�s driver, is living in an Edinburgh nursing home. She is 94 years old. Her sister, Margaret, a teacher, died in 1992 at the age of 91. Mrs. Barnett died in 1952. [Go back.]
6. Barnett�s books occasionally contained one or two of his poems as well as beautifully drawn and sometimes whimsical maps complete with sea monsters, spouting whales and ships. His mysticism is reflected throughout his books in observations such as �Mountains always speak with a mystic voice to those who love them. But that voice can only be heard by those who climb and it is heard best by those who climb alone. You must woo Nature in solitude and silence if you would enter into her secrets.� Gurney�s friend Marion Scott was also a mystic who shared Barnett�s beliefs and vision and who sought solace in mountains. They never met. [Go back.]
7. Charles John Guthrie was born in 1849. His father was Thomas Guthrie, one of the founders of the Free Church of Scotland. Charles Guthrie and Robert Louis Stevenson were both members of the Speculative Society, �a snobbish literary and debating club�. Guthrie amassed a notable collection of Stevenson�s letters and published Robert Louis Stevenson: Some Personal Recollections in 1920. [Go back.]
8. Reminiscences of Old Scots Folk,
published by T. N. Foulis in 1913 is a particularly fine edition.
Bound between warm brown boards with gold embossing on the cover and printed
on high quality paper, it contains ten colour plates of paintings by R.
Gemmell Hutchison, R.S.A. [Go back.]
Coming soon:
Response to Blevins: Gurney, Owen, and Barnett
If you would like to respond to what Blevins has written
here, or contribute other Perspectives, Opinions, or Commentary on Ivor
Gurney, please write to: ivor@gurney.net
Subject to editorial review, responses
will be posted on this site.
| File last updated: 04/03/2025 20:17:18 Location URL: https://www.geneva.edu/~dksmith/gurney/BlevinsGurneyOwenBarnett |
