Cycling Canon was a great man of the city

March 23, 2004

LANCHESTER COURT
(Old Palace Road)

HE was one of the truly great Norwich characters. A man who touched so many hearts during his long and wonderful life.

Do you remember Canon Charles Compton Lanchester flying around Norwich on his autocycle?.

There was no other churchman better known or loved more than Canon Charles Compton Lanchester — vicar of St Barnabas for more than 60 years.

Thousands mourned him when he died in February 1970 at the age of 93. His death marked the end of an era.

And there are those who can still remember him flying around Norwich on the autocycle that his parishioners gave him to mark half a century in the ministry in 1956.

After being educated at Cambridge University he first came to Norwich in 1902 as curate of St Bartholomew. He saw the foundation stone of the new church and became the first vicar of the parish back in 1906.

“I am inexperienced, but I will try for a little while anyway,” he said at the time. He later described St Barnabas as a “happy parish” and he became the father figure of that community, looking after generations of parishioners. Many had little money and lived in humble homes.

At the height of the terrible 1912 floods he was rowing from house to house, passing food to people stranded upstairs.

In the grim 1930s he worked tirelessly for the Norwich Unemployed Welfare Association which helped victims of mass unemployment to keep themselves by making their own clothes and furniture and growing food on allotments.

During the Second World War bombing, which devastated the area and damaged the church, he led his people.

Canon Lanchester, known as CC, helped to form the Norwich Housing Society and many of their flats and housing were built in his parish.

He sat on the old Board of Guardians which did what it could to help the poor. He was chairman

of the Norwich Employment Committee and was awarded the MBE in 1955.
CC worked in many schools and was chairman of governors at Norwich High School for Girls.

The only length of time he spent away from his parish was back in 1910 when he accompanied Bishop Montgomery, father of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, on a seven-month tour of mission stations throughout the Far East.

CC also loved cars and motorbikes. He was one of the city’s pioneer drivers and cut a dash on the Edwardian streets in 1906 in his two-cylinder Swift.

When he died he had been vicar of St Barnabas for more than 60 years, Rural Dean of Norwich for 30 years and an honorary Canon of Norwich Cathedral for more than 40 years.

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