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Returning Rector – Patron of Living Back from Abroad.

September 1928

Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Saturday 22 September 1928

Returning Rector.

Patron of Living Back from Abroad.

The village of Doddinghurst is now awaiting with interest the return to-day of its former Rector, the Rev. F. I. Hutchinson, previously Vicar of Swinton, near Rotherham, who left the parish in July and is now coming back from Canada.

Before he went away Mr. Hutchinson resigned his living, and for some time after he left his whereabouts were unknown. He has now applied to be allowed to withdraw his resignation, and the Bishop of Chelmsford has replied that he has no power to permit this. Mr. A. J. Beardswell, who is churchwarden and organist at Doddinghurst, said yesterday that he would meet Mr. Hutchinson on his arrival at Liverpool, and will adviso him to make a new application for the living. If this is successful it will mean that Mr. Hutchinson will have to be instituted and inducted again. It was only last year that he was instituted Rector in succession to the Rev. F. A. Adams. The gate leading to the rectory is padlocked, and on his return Mr. Hutchinson will have to apply for the key to the Registrar of the Diocese, who is in charge of the business side of the living.

Mrs. Adams, who patron of the living, end has been abroad, has now returned to London. It is understood that she has put the matter of the benefice in the hands of her solicitors.

Mr. Hutchinson arrived on the Clyde yesterday on board the Canadian Pacific liner, Montclare. He did not land, but proceeded with the liner to Liverpool. He said everybody wanted him back at Doddinghurst, and he would go and see the Bishop. There was nothing mysterious in his disappearance, he added. “I did not tell secretary, Miss Laura Thickett, of Poplar Grove, Swinton, where I was going, and the statement attributed to in Canada that she knew where I was untrue.”

On the question of his alleged bankruptcy, he remarked that all his financial matters are in the hands his lawyers. He admitted that was terribly depressed when he wrote the ‘‘farewell” letter to a friend