Percy Dearmer goes to America

Journal article

Percy Dearmer’s time as a visiting lecturer at Berkeley Divinity School in Connecticut, USA, at the invitation of Dean William Palmer Ladd, from July 1918 to February 1919, marked a turning point in his life and career. As author of The Parson’s Handbook (1899) and Vicar of St Mary’s Primrose Hill (1901–1915), he was immersed in the Church of England. From 1919, when he left Berkeley Divinity School, with no offer of a clergy post until 1931, he worked on the margins of the church as a university lecturer, writer, and co-director of an experimental worshipping community. The experiences he had between 1915 and 1919 shaped this ‘second’ Dearmer: loss in the war; a second wife and new family; work with the YMCA in France and India; travels in the Anglican Communion and, not least, time at Berkeley where he consolidated these experiences, becoming attuned to those who wanted a spiritual life but were disillusioned by institutional religion, as expressed in The Art of Worship (1919).

Authors: Shaw, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Journal of Anglican Studies
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 4-20
• Publication date: 2020-06-17
• Acceptance date: 2019-10-31
• DOI: 10.1017/S1740355320000157
• EISSN: 1745-5278
• ISSN: 1740-3553
• Language: English
• Keywords: Nan Dearmer; The Guildhouse; William Palmer Ladd; Maude Royden; Percy Dearmer; art; FFR; liturgy