Clergyman

76

Married

The Palace, Hereford

CLWS

Complies

John Percival (1834-1918) hailed from Westmorland. He studied theology at Queen’s College Oxford and spent many years in education, including as the first Head Teacher of Clifton College, Bristol, and Headmaster of Rugby School. Married in 1862, he and his first wife Louisa had eight children. Percival championed the cause of women’s rights throughout his teaching career. He was involved in the foundation of Somerville Hall (now Somerville College, Oxford) in 1879. In 1888 he appointed Marie Beauclerc to teach shorthand to boys at Rugby School, the first woman to hold such a teaching post. He became Bishop of Hereford in 1895 and was widowed the following year. He found working in a large rural diocese with very conservative views a struggle. However, together with other liberal clergymen, Bishop Percival expressed support for women’s suffrage in print and at meetings. He remarried in 1899 to Mary Georgina Symonds from Oxford. As bishop of Hereford, his usual address was The Palace, Hereford where he is located on the map. However, in 1911 Bishop Percival was visiting Much Wenlock when the government census survey was taken, staying at the Vicarage with the Reverend Edwin Bartlett. Mrs Percival was visiting her sister in Oxford and also completed the census. Bishop Percival was active in condemning the forced feeding of women prisoners, and again spoke out for those detained under the so called ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act or The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act 1913. This allowed the authorities to release hunger strikers until they had regained their health, then re-arrest them in a continuous cycle. He was a member of the Church League for Womens Suffrage, named in the list of clergymen printed in the June 1912 CLWS newspaper. In February 1914 he added his name to the long list of clergymen who wrote in support of the women’s suffrage petition and voted in support of Lord Selborne’s Bill for the enfranchisement of women in June 1914. Bishop Percival later became a vice president of the CLWS, but the loss of his son Lt-Col. Arthur Jex-Blake Percival early in World War I was a severe blow. He became an ardent pacifist and found his views increasingly at odds with the established church. Bishop Percival retired in 1917, and moved to Oxford, where he died the following year. He was buried at Clifton College in Bristol. Source: Oxford DNB. Contributed by Herefordshire community fundraiser Clare Wichbold, MBE.