Magazine History

150 not out!

Gordon Neal, a retired lecturer living in Worcester, has been interested for many years in the history of the church and parish magazine. He tells us that his investigations suggest that this January is its 150^th anniversary.

Mr Neal says: 'In spite of claims for Frome's The Old Church Porch (first published 1854), there seems to be general agreement that Erskine Clarke's Parish Magazine (1 Jan 1859) marks the real start of the genre.' This rival claimant to the title of very first local parish magazine certainly appears to fit some of the criteria, but probably doesn't quite get there!

The Association for Church Editors (ACE) also reckons that the church magazine more or less as we know it today dates from around 1860. For example, Suffolk's official website gives the earliest date for such a magazine in that county as the 19^th century. Another known early magazine - for Gillingham in Kent - is dated December 1866.

The Revd J Erskine Clarke was Vicar of St Michael’s, Derby when he spotted the opportunity for a publication with a very clear objective: his magazine was ‘aimed not at the committed in the parish but at the other half’.

‘Each month’, writes Keith Wood, ACE Chairman, ‘the magazine contained sixteen pages of general interest material, but with a strong “preachy” and moralising thrust, and was offered to parishes to include in their own cover and whatever else they chose. Parish Magazine was circulated initially to 54 parishes and eventually reached out to 200.’

There were obviously many local efforts at parish communication, but Erskine Clarke was probably the first to promote his own publication within locally-published church magazines. Peter Croft's The Parish Magazine Inset (Parish and People, 1993) gives a good introduction to the subject, listing all the insets which were to become popular in the wake of Erskine Clarke's success.

One was SPCK's Dawn of Day; others were Home Words, and Mowbrays' The Sign. These last two may still be found today, so there is an unbroken link via Home Words from the early 1870s to the present.

There are earlier newsletters written in the early 1600s but they are not church magazines as we understand them. They seem to have been documents discussing relations with the Roman Catholic Church, its conflict with the state and how some form of toleration might be achieved.

So it looks as though the period around 1859/1860 may be about right, but can we say that definitely? We doubt it! And we doubt also whether we can track down an exact "first" - because who knows what has been produced and lost?

Can any visitor to this site shed further light on this, please? Any information is most welcome, so if any of you can come up with anything more definitive, please contact Webmaster.

Louis Henderson

Senior Media Officer

(and Editor, Working for the Heart of Walthamstow, the magazine of the Walthamstow Team Ministry: http://parishofwalthamstow.wordpress.com/ )

With grateful thanks to Bob Little, Gordon Neal, Jane Platt, Vaughan Whibley and Keith Wood