Austin Lee (1904-65)

Austin Lee was a restless soul - a socialist and pacifist who fitted uneasily into the Church of England, but was by all accounts a stirring preacher who aroused affection, even though he was as rude about his congregations as he was about bishops and other senior clergy! The press dubbed him a cleric with a broom.

Son of a notable incumbent of the family living in Claxby, Lincolnshire (though Austin was actually born in Keighley), he read English at Trinity College Cambridge and then trained for ordination, first at Wells Theological College and then at Ripon Hall, Oxford (more liberal - perhaps he fell out with them at Wells?) He lasted a year as curate of Kew in 1928, courting controversy with articles for the Sunday and popular papers as well as doing some serious reviewing - his name is among the acknowledgements in Frederick Brittain's Arthur Quiller Couch: a biographical study of Q (CUP 1947). His equally brief spell at Christ Church Watney Street (1930-31) followed, and only during this time was he priested. He was no doubt on Fr Groser's wavelength but an uneasy colleague. Despite his views, for the next two years he became a naval chaplain, serving with HMS Pembroke, HMS Royal Oak, the Mediterranean destroyer fleet, and HMS Cumberland (sailing to China), denying allegations of communism.

He corresponded with George Lansbury (local MP and leader of the Labour Party) and other left-wing leaders about the state of the nation.

There followed a period of other brief posts - vicar of Pampisford (1935-37), a chaplain at the Middlesex Hospital (1939-40), rector of Layer Marney (1941-44) - before he returned to the family parish of Claxby with Normanby-le-Wold as Rector from 1944-48: this was a relatively rich living, with a net income of £712 plus house (though he said publicly it was hard to live on the stipend) and an appointment for which he did not need the congregation's consent. His time there was lively. Unmarried, in 1945 he moved out of the rectory into the gardener's cottage to give rent-free accommodation to an ex-serviceman with six children: the Diocesan Board forbade it, but in a press report he said It is pure nonsense to have 22 rooms to one's self. But the board are laity who believe that the village parson should be gentry, letting people see that he is a cut above them by living in a big house. Pure rubbish, I call it, so I have taken matters into my own hands. If the Church will not let me do good, I will do it off my own bat.

(source: http://www.stgite.org.uk/media/austin...)