▶Date of birth:   4 August 1867       Place of birth: Clogher, Tyrone, Ireland

▶Father:  James Glass     Mother: Susan Vance

▶Spouse(s): Frances Edith Shirer     Date(s) of marriage:  12 October 1898     Place(s) of marriage: Holy Trinity Church, Cheltenham

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican); earlier Grocer’s Assistant; Author

▶Lifestory: After receiving his training in London, the Revd. James Mervyn Glass’s first post as a curate was at St Paul’s, Cheltenham; he returned to Cheltenham, an evangelical in an evangelical town, to serve as Perpetual Curate of Holy Trinity in the 1930s. Glass was born in 1867 in Clogher, Co. Tyrone in Ireland, the son of James Glass, a manufacturer, and his wife Susan (née Vance). At the time of the 1891 census he was boarding in Everton, Liverpool, at the age of twenty-two, and was employed as a Grocer’s Assistant.

Glass trained for the priesthood from 1892 at the London College of Divinity, St John’s Hall, Highbury. He was ordained Deacon in 1895, and Priest (both Gloucester) in 1896. In 1895 he was licensed Curate of St Paul’s Church, Cheltenham, where he remained until 1897, when he became Curate of Holy Trinity, Cheltenham. In 1898 he moved to Bristol as Curate of St Andrew’s, Clifton, and soon afterwards married Frances Edith, younger daughter of John Frederick Shirer, mercer, a long-standing resident of Pittville and a well-known Cheltenham businessman, as well as being a Churchwarden at St Paul’s in Cheltenham; they had no surviving children.

In 1900 he was presented as Perpetual Curate to the living of St Luke, Nottingham, where he remained for four years, until he became Vicar of Normanton-by-Derby, Derbyshire 1904-10; at the same time he also served as Chaplain to the Forces at Normanton Barracks. He was known as “an eloquent and forceful preacher, with a very fine delivery”. In 1910 he moved to Leamington in Warwickshire to become Vicar of St Paul, and served as Chaplain to the South Warwickshire Hospital 1914-19. He stayed in Leamington until 1919, when he moved again to be Vicar and Rural Dean of Leyton in Essex until 1928; at the same time he was appointed St Antholin Lecturer at St Mary Aldermary in London 1920-8.

A convinced evangelical, while at Leyton he published a pamphlet, Gambling and religion (1924), with an introduction by Lord Parmoor, and was known as a reviewer of theological and other books; also, in 1928, he and his sexton were each fined £5 for burying on unauthorised ground. Another change brought him to Winchester, Hampshire in 1928, as Vicar of Christ Church 1928-36, where he was appointed by Simeon’s Trustees (as he had been at Leyton).

In 1932 he was elected FRGS, and also became a Member of the Palestine Exploration Society. In Winchester he was Chaplain to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Deputy Chaplain to HM Prison, Chaplain to the Hampshire County Constabulary, and Chaplain to the County High School.

He would typically spend his summer holiday in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, and in 1935 served there temporarily as English Chaplain of Grindelwald, where he indulged his passion for walking. After his stay in Winchester he returned to Cheltenham after thirty-eight years as Perpetual Curate of Holy Trinity 1936-50; between 1937 and 1943 the Revd. Glass lived at the Holy Trinity Vicarage (now Camden House), Clarence Square, Pittville; his wife died in late 1942. Towards the end of his duties in Cheltenham he was awarded an Honorary DD in 1943 by the University of Saskatoon, Canada, and was installed as an Honorary Canon of St John’s Cathedral, Saskatoon from 1949. In 1950 he retired to Leamington Spa, with his constant friend of many years and fellow Church worker Elsie Fawcett. From 1950 until 1952 he was granted Permission to Officiate in the diocese of Coventry.

The Revd. Glass latterly lived at 76 Lillington Road, Leamington Spa, and died in the town in January 1966, at the age of eighty-eight; his estate at death was valued at £57,485.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  (1) Highbury, London; (2)  Winchester    Moved from Pittville to: (1) Clifton; (2) Leamington Spa

▶Date of death:  25 January 1966      Place of death: Leamington Spa

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:  Leamington Spa courier 28 January 1910      ID: 17672

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden