Ernest Bradley, or "Dean" Bradley, as he was known in later years at St. Paul's, was all his life an adventurous soul blessed with a sense of humor and an abiding interest in all sorts and conditions of men. (At the time, "Dean" was a title given to the presiding priest of the convocation -- especially a rural convocation or deanery). Knowledge of the Dean's life in England is taken from a printed sermon he gave on Palm Sunday, March 30, 1947, on the very day he was eighty years old. This was during the rectorship of Noble Owings. In passing, one may note that the first service of St. Paul's in its present location, after moving from Fourth and "E" Streets in San Rafael, also occurred on a Palm Sunday, but in the year 1924. Bradley was rector in the old location, and was the first priest in the new -- at age fifty seven.
He was born in 1867 in Nottingham, England of a father who was both preacher and a teacher of natural sciences at the university. This father knew personally such scientists as Huxley and Tyndat and was a close friend of the philosopher, Herbert Spencer. Bradley's mother was a social worker in the slums of Nottingham. Bradley goes on to say that he was a normal boy getting into enough mischief:
so that the local policeman had to call at my school several times. Then in my teens I was convinced quite on my own . . . . [I]t came upon me like a flash of lightening. I caught for the first time. . . the awareness of God."
For six years he worked for the Salvation Army, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Y.M.C.A. and the Quakers. At age eighteen, he was working in the slums of London, "especially Whitechapel, Limehouse and Seven Dials -- often the victim of kicks and blows and blood and tears. . . . [P]ersonally, it gave me a feeling of tolerance and sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men and women."
This social aspect of Christianity, Bradley recalled, had been influenced not only by his mother's slum work, but the writings of Charles Kingsley, William Morris and William Booth, the latter of the Salvation Army.
When he was twenty years old he went as a missionary to India and Ceylon. This was at the height of the English Raj, when Christian missionaries were often as not "part the establishment." But Ernest was of quite a different category. The leader of the group of forty men going to India was an Englishman born in India and a former Commissioner of the Punjab in the Indian Civil Service -- "graduate of Cambridge and a member of the English gentry class." These new missionaries disappeared into jungle villages "dressed as natives, learned a native language, were called by a native name, walked barefoot, seldom taken for a white man, sometimes begging food from door to door." This was certainly all in the tradition of India's holy men and very unlike the missionary of the time in black clothes and boots.
After several years in India and Ceylon, Bradley returned to England and very soon entered another phase of his life's adventures by migrating to the United States.
He entered Rippon College, Wisconsin with forty-five dollars as his total wealth. He joined the Congregational Church and served as student pastor:
But unconsciously I was groping for an ecclesiastical expression of religion which was at once historical, catholic and liberal. In the end, I entered the Episcopal Church . . . a church which revealed to me a beauty of worship . . . and in whose pulpit I found a democratic sense of religious freedom.
Ernest Bradley, Ph.B., was ordained as an Episcopalian priest February 19, 1902.
He once remarked that when he first heard the English prayer book translation of the "Te Deum" sung he knew he had found his church home.
In later years, when Dean Bradley was an octogenarian, he wrote books of religious poetry which were privately published. As an old man, his eyesight diminishing and his once beautiful handwriting becoming more hesitant, he continued to have a keen interest in life and in those people around him.
Around the turn of the century, during Bishop William Ford Nichols' years as Bishop of California, Bradley came to the West Coast and served as rector at St. Stephen's Church, San Francisco. This was a "free parish;" no one had to pay pew rent. While at St. Stephen's, he gave a series of three lectures on Sunday evenings: "Jesus of Nazareth, Historical," "Son of Man, Sociological," and "Son of God, Theological." In these early decades of the 20th Century, one sees several articles in old copies of the Pacific Churchman which demonstrate the burning issues of the time. Subjects include "Labor versus Capital," "Crooked Politics in San Francisco," "Crooked Politics in the California Legislature," "Divorce," "The Position of Negroes in Society," and "Missionary Work in Foreign Lands." One may be sure that Ernest Bradley had an interest in all these sociological questions. The Diocesan reports of Bradley's stay in San Francisco mention him as heading boards on missionary work. One Pacific Churchman issue of these early days mentions him giving a lecture in an Oakland parish on his work in India and Ceylon.
On December 1, 1905, Ernest Bradley accepted a call to St. Paul's Parish, San Rafael, and entered into his rectorship on December 3 by officiating at Holy Communion at 8:00 A.M. Only five communicants attended, but at 11:00 A.M. Holy Communion, it was a different story -- "102 persons attended with 35 communicants. An offering of $13.55 was collected." "Assumed control on this date," Bradley wrote. (Parishioners, as well as other townspeople, came to view the new rector!) The next Sunday, he had 100 people at the 11:00 Holy Communion. On December 24, there were 80 at Morning Prayer with an offering of $9.05, but on December 31, it went up again to 105 at Morning Prayer and an offering of $10.65. No wonder the ladies of St. Paul's had to give teas and bazaars, musical and otherwise. Budget items marked "offerings" required it! By February 11 at 11:00 Morning Prayer, the congregation had simmered down to 35 with an offering of $4.75. The parish was $3,000 in debt, and the rector's salary was $1,500 annually. One has only to compare these figures and facts of 1905 with those of 1988 when this history of St. Paul's is written to find a vivid contrast.
A contemporary newspaper reported in January, 1906:
Mrs. E. Bradley and their three children have gone to Carmel-by-the-Sea for a few weeks. They return March 1st when the new rectory will be ready.
The new rectory was on Fourth Street, number 1024, just opposite the church.
On January 27th, St. Paul's Patron Saint Day was celebrated with Holy Communion at 10:00 A.M. with the ladies of the parish serving tea at 3:30 P.M. The ladies of St. Paul's during Bradley's and G.M. Cutting's rectorships worked very hard at giving fancy teas and fairs and bazaars to add to parish income. The John Boyd home and gardens were the site for very elaborate teas indeed for several years. Automobile rides and donkey rides to amuse the children were noted in one report. Another occasion for teas was a "musical tea" given by the teachers of St. Paul's in June 1906 from 2:00 -- 4:00 P.M. at the rectory -- admission 15 cents. (For years at St. Paul's, until the rectory was moved to Villa Real in 1957, the unfortunate rector's wife not infrequently had to suffer extracurricular activities in her rectory home!)
Another "musical tea" was given in 1906 to liquidate the debt of the Sunday School. This tea was on the lawn and the porch of the rectory. "Through the windows of the parlor, strains of music instrumental and vocal were heard. Young people served tea, coffee, ice cream, lemonade, candies, etc. Fifty-six dollars were raised." Thus the San Rafael paper, The Tocsin, reported.
During that same year in Lent, a "children's mission" was held every Thursday right after school. (This is quite a contrast to 1988, when it is doubted that children would ever consent to attend Sunday School on a weekday.) During this same Lent, Bradley gave a series of lectures on "Great Hymns."
It must now be mentioned that music evidently meant a great deal to the Dean. In 1905, while still in San Francisco, he had given the same series on hymns and even, the Pacific Churchman reported, took part with others in singing them. Remember, it was the liturgical "Te Deum" that convinced Bradley he was an Anglican at heart!
Skipping ahead to his second rectorship (1920 --1930), when the church was moved in 1924, his musical soul could have been shattered in May of that year. In the move, when the entire church building rolled down Fourth Street, the organ fell and was smashed beyond redemption. The foreman of the moving company came with some fear to apologize for the accident. The story goes that the Dean said, "Glory be to God! We needed a new organ anyway!" Thus it came about that a new Wurlitzer organ manufactured in San Francisco was first played and dedicated on June 1, 1924. This organ lasted some forty-four years until a new one was dedicated at St. Paul's in 1968. The news item reporting the 1924 dedication also stated that "an additional feature of the service was the church parade of the Hitchcock Military Academy. The choir was augmented by the whole school of one-hundred forty cadets singing Kipling's 'Recessional' and the organ opened up to its full power."
During Bradley's years as well as those of G.M. Cutting's, there were two military academies in San Rafael. The Hitchcock Military Academy was frequently mentioned in St. Paul's service book in graduation and pulpit sermons by the Reverend Hitchcock -- who was not only head of the academy but an Anglican divine. The other academy in San Rafael then was the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy and later the San Rafael Military Academy. Today, in 1988, it is the site of Marin Academy.
Going back to 1906, Bradley dedicated the new choir stalls, the present ones, given in memory of the Reverend John Mason Neale, D.D., by Mrs. Vincent Neale, his daughter-in-law. Neale was born in 1818 and died in 1866, and his son was a vestryman at St. Paul's. He was a great hymn writer and wrote 140 books listed in the British Museum. The choir sang some Neale hymns and Bradley preached on "The Songs of the Valley of Achor."
During Bradley's first term at St. Paul's, he frequently invited the Reverend Charles Hitchcock to fill the pulpit at 11 o'clock. Otherwise, the Dean probably preached three times of a Sunday, for the service schedule was:
8:00 Holy Communion
11:00 Morning Prayer or Holy Communion
4:30 Evening Prayer.History steps into the service book on April 22, 1906 with Dean Bradley's written remarks, "mission service at 3:00 P.M. at the camp for refugees. Attendance estimated at four hundred persons. Sunday after destruction of San Francisco by earthquake and fire."
During these early years at St. Paul's, certain offerings were listed as "special offerings" and were collected for such causes as "Diocesan Missions," "Widows and Orphans Fund," "Disabled Clergy," "Old Ladies' Home," "St. Luke's Hospital," or "Rector's Fund." Was that last fund a discretionary one for the rector to use for charity or was it, God help us, something to augment a yearly salary of the rector? For in 1905, the year Bradley began his first rectorship, the 55th Convention Report of the Diocese of California, under the heading "Parochial Reports," listed the following items:
List of vestrymen -- William Babcock, Senior Warden; Thomas Menzies, Treasurer and Clerk; S.P. Moorhead and John Boyd.
Value of church property, $8,000; Parsonage, $5,000; Insured, $11,000. Debt funded, $3,000. Rector's salary, $1,500.
In December of 1906, the Ladies Aid Society gave a fair at the "Opera House" in San Rafael (Gordon's Opera House still stands on Fourth Street), an afternoon and evening affair with a special feature, "Living Tableaux of English Portraits." Tableaux were very popular in the first decade of our century.
Also in this December, the children of St. Paul's held their annual Christmas tree gathering at 3:30 P.M., in which they brought toys for the "poor and needy," while they themselves received a bag of candy.
The service book indicates that baptisms were held in private services either in the church or in the home and not as part of the public worship of the parish as they are today.
Bradley conscientiously celebrated all the saints' days in the old prayer book, usually on a weekday. The attendance was pretty good also. Bradley lists attendance: St. Mark's Day 32, Ascension Day 33, All Saints' Day 62.
The Dean had his triumphs and his failures, as do all priests and other leaders. On December 1, 1907, for 7:45 Evensong, "a musical service," he notes 200 persons attended. But on Christmas of that year, the notes in the service book read, "8:00 A.M. seven in attendance; at 12:00 eight in attendance."
As in all parish records of whatever date and in whatever parish, the notations for St. Paul's in 1906 read, "Bishop's sermon & parish confirmation[;] attendance 'packed.'" Easter Sunday attendance likewise had "full" after it. On June 9, 1906, a sad note appears in the book: "Holy Communion 8:00 A.M. None present, no celebration." The service book lists the usual Sunday morning service with such attendance records as 20, 40, 50, 60.
In 1908, Good Friday, with its three hour service, was attended by 175 persons -- not a bad record for a small church.
Sunday morning offerings were, for example, on respective Sundays, $12.50 , $8.30, $13.60, $14.70, and $16.20. (Remember the rector's salary was not much over $1,000 in these decades.)
If a notation is correct in 1908, Bradley had his first vacation of three weeks in September.
On December 27, 1908, the service book notes in Bradley's hand, "Close of E. Bradley's rectorship at Even Song, 7:30." Thus ended his first term at St. Paul's from 1905 -- 1908.
On February 8, 1920, the service record book noted in the Dean's hand, "Sexagesima Sunday. 8:00 A.M. Holy Communion. Ernest Bradley became rector again on this date." He began a heavy schedule for his preaching:
8:00 Holy Communion
9:45 Sunday School
11:00 Morning Prayer or (once a month) Communion
5:00P.M. or 8:00 P.M. Vespers
3:30 weekdays, Bible class "Introduction to the Old Testament."On February 18, 1920, he began an interesting service that lasted for some 2 months. He called it the "Fellowship of Silence." It began on Ash Wednesday at 8:00 P.M. There is no way of knowing what this title encompassed. But it could be conjectured that his years in India had introduced him to the spiritual value of silent meditation.
A Burial Service for John F. Boyd on May 4, 1920 is mentioned "at residence." As today, burials were sometimes in "parlors," often in church, and unlike today, sometimes at home.
On May 8, 1921, our musical rector sang a solo "Better Land" at the 11:00 Morning Prayer.
On Whitsunday, May 15th, he noted one of his failures: "5:30 P.M. Evening Prayer, no service. People do not respond to E.P." And on May 29, 1921, he wrote, "Sunday 8:00 Holy Communion, attendance, one." He made note in the service book (as he often did) regarding the weather of a particular Sunday. This date it was "raining hard" after attendance,"one." For both Bradley's and Cutting's terms, winter weather many Sundays is recorded as "very rainy" or "heavy storms." The weather records over these decades show a decided difference to any weather records in Marin County of more modern times in regard to precipitation.
In 1921, the Dean gave a series of lecture-sermons at 11:00 on the Old Testament. These sessions lasted through June and July. The Dean, as the service book clearly shows, was not afraid of innovation. He juggled evening services at different hours--sometimes 4:30 P.M., or anytime from 5:30 to 8:00 P.M.
In June, July and August of 1921, as with all priests and pastors anywhere of any decade in the United States, many weddings were performed.
Another important dedication took place at St. Paul's on September 4, 1921. This was for the "blessing of the Standard Lights near the altar."
Reading newspaper reports and noting observations in the service book from 1905 through 1930, one learns of bygone parish customs -- then, very common, now replaced by other customs. For example, young people of St. Paul's met for their monthly social hour in the afternoon for "a jolly time spent in games and music -- ice cream was partaken of." In the early decades of the 20th Century, the social life of young people, of any denomination, was very likely to center around the church.
In October of 1908, the Girls' Athletic Club of St. Paul's had a Halloween Party on All Hallow's Eve. "50 young people enjoyed the merry games suitable for the occasion and delicious refreshments were served." It may be guessed that the Girls' Athletic Club had a basketball team, as that was a popular sport for both boys and girls.
As today, the older young people were taken on outdoor trips by the priest. In June of 1908 Bradley took 20 boys for 2 weeks camping in Bolinas -- "2 weeks of boating, fishing, swimming, clam-bakes and picnics." Ernest Bradley must have been exhausted at the end of two weeks.
In April of 1908, Maundy Thursday had an ecumenical character "to which members of other churches were invited."
On May 22, 1909, one of St. Paul's many fundraisers was given: "[A]t the Garden Theater Wed. night was a success socially, artistically and financially . . . the star attraction was Spanish and fancy dancing by Miss Inez Dibble. Among those who attended were Mrs. Gertrude Atherton (the authoress), Mrs. Albert Dibble, Mr. and Mrs. Babcock, Dr. and Mrs. Hitchcock, Mr. and Mrs. Seward McNear and Henry Bothin." The reader of this history will note, again, that St. Paul's Parish in its earlier days included many of Marin's "financially sound" people, important as county leaders.
Before Ernest Bradley resigned in 1908, he evidently had been approached for a new job, this time as a lay person. The Marin Tocsin announced on June 12, 1909 that Ernest Bradley of Trinity Church, San Francisco, was to be executive head of Tamalpais Center in Kentfield. The Tamalpais was a community center founded by William Kent on land given for a community park by his mother, Adaline Kent. The center, according to its founder, "was to cut down on local hoodlumism." Who better than Dean Bradley to be its first executive head? The Dean had a horrendous list of duties as head of the center. They included charge of ". . . the library, clubs, lectures, manual training, domestic science and natural history." The trustees tendered the position to Mr. Bradley as a layman and not a clergyman, and his acceptance was given in the same spirit.
On July 3, 1909, the Tocsin announced that Mrs. Bradley and the children would be in Bolinas for the summer. Ernest was "back East," looking "into the question of recreational grounds before he takes up his work in Kentfield." Meanwhile, Mrs. Bradley and children and Huldah and Grace Moorhead were enjoying sun and water in Bolinas.
Dean Bradley, among other activities during his interim as pastor at St. Paul's, pursued his ecumenical activities by lecturing at the First Congregational Church on "The Christ Child -- A Plea for Normal Childhood." The concept in the lecture title is intriguing. Another ecumenical note was contained in an earlier news item of 1906, when Bradley was rector in his first term. The local paper reported on January 13, 1906 that "St. Paul's Choral and Dramatic Society netted a goodly sum towards the expense of St. Raphael's Church." It was one thing in those days to be brotherly and ecumenical to fellow Protestants -- but to contribute "a goodly sum towards the expenses" of that arch rival, "the Roman Church," was unusual and commendable.
In Bradley's second term at St. Paul's (1920 --1930), he continued experimenting with innovations. Instead of Evening Prayer at 8:00 P.M. Sunday, he conducts a Bible Class at that hour.
Sunday School had a notable attendance -- 45 children -- on November 7, 1920.
On December 12, 1920, a sociological and charitable note was struck when the Advent Collection for Sunday at 11:00 was taken for "Near East Relief." Anyone over the age of 60 or 70 in 1988 remembers the slogan, "Feed the starving Armenians! --" for it was during the '20's that the Turkish nation was "displacing" Armenians from their homeland.
In December of 1920, Bradley noted in the service book the many home visits (home, not hospital as today) of several very sick persons. One of them, a Mrs. Howell, was visited at 11:30 A.M. on December 22 and died at 5:00 P.M. that same day after the Dean had given her Holy Communion. One could imagine that December visits to the sick and dying are common occurrences for any priest of any decade.
In 1920, the Dean, who had no assistant rector, continued his exhausting preaching schedule. At each service, he preached -- at 8:00 A.M. Holy Communion, 10:00 Sunday School, 11:00 Morning Prayer or Holy Communion, and 8:00 Evening Prayer.
In April of that year, he began another of his "experiments." On Wednesday weekday at 8:00 P.M. he conducted sessions of the "Society of the Nazarene" with Holy Communion following. From April 28 to June 9, the "Society of the Nazarene" met on Wednesday and then stopped. What was the Society and who founded it? There are no remarks to explain it -- one could conjecture that it was entirely Dean's idea!
On June 20 for Evening Prayer at 8:00 P.M., he noted in the service book "no one came. Too hot. 100 degrees in the shade."
The times of day for parishioner personal events continued in the 20's to be somewhat different than the 80's. Examples: One wedding was celebrated "in residence." Weddings were often at home, sometimes in the church or in the rectory. Burial services, as already noted, were in church, in the residence, in funeral "parlors," or at Lodge (fraternal organizations) meeting rooms. Baptisms were any day, including Sunday, but never at a regular Sunday service. One example of a baptism was noted at taking place at 6:30 on a weekday; A.M. or P.M. was not noted.
In 1921, on January 5, a wedding was celebrated at St. Paul's with 300 attending and with both the Dean Bradley and Dr. White, of the Presbyterian Seminary in San Anselmo, officiating. It was the Borda-Waterman wedding. The historical note creeps in when one remembers that Mr. Borda was a descendent of the famous Mexican family, Borda, that developed the big silver mines in Taxco during Colonial times. His bride and her sister, Ruthven, had been longtime parishioners of St. Paul's. Ruthven married Robert Allison, and both couples remained loyal parishioners for many years to come.
In February and March of 1921, Dean Bradley reinstituted the meditative service of "The Fellowship of Silence" on Wednesday at 8:00 P.M. The first session he had an attendance of 26, the next Wednesday 60 people came, and the following Wednesday, 65 persons were present.
On Sunday, April 17,1921, the third or fourth consecration of ecclesiastical objects occurred; this time it was consecration of the altar. On this same Sunday, Bishop Parsons of our diocese confirmed some parishioners. The service book, noting attendance, succinctly states "Packed."
On April 24, 1921, another world event was the cause of a special collection at St. Paul's, this time for "Chinese Famine Relief," with a sum of $41.55 contributed. During the 1920's great floods devastated crops and caused severe suffering to the people of China.
In Bradley's second term, an innovative form of "lesson for instruction" (amusement?) of the Sunday School at 9:45 was adopted. On two Sundays, "movies" (a relatively new teaching medium) were shown. One was on Hawaii, probably an exotic subject since Hawaii remained a dependent territory, the Spanish-American War of 1898 having occurred only some 23 years previously. The next Sunday a movie on "Birds" was projected. It must have pleased the Dean, who had been born to a father who taught botany and geology at Nottingham University in Victorian England.
The nine years following 1921 until the Dean retired in 1930 were years of rectorship in a world rapidly changing scientifically, sociologically and certainly economically. Just before the Dean retired, the Great Depression struck down the pocketbooks and spirits of America's citizens with the Stock Market Crash of October 1929. But Ernest Bradley, a charitable, deeply religious and innovative man, who at age 20 went as a barefoot missionary to India under the British Empire, began his retirement years, at age 70, with a brave spirit and gentle humor to write poetry which he gave to his friends as gifts. His spirit still walks St. Paul's chancel in front of the present altar which he helped to dedicate and bless.
