1.
Schooling: I don't know in
detail about John and George's schooling, but Father passed on to me two prizes
he received in December 1912...A Hebrew Bible and an Septuagent Bible. (The
latter I discarded when I had to make some space) but use the Hebrew Bible.
It was for the Cambridge Local Examination 1912, Ealing Centre, Presented
to JWH on account of the Senior Evelina Scholarship
Given by Lord Rothschild and Mr Alfred & Mr Leopold de Rothschild.
I take it they in school in Ealing.
As to other matters of their childhood it is of course mentioned a great deal in
Frances’ writing. (which incidentally I'm at last reading...most interesting
indeed.) Clearly from that,
grandmother wanted all 3 to be missionaries, so maybe the ordination idea was in
fact very early on waiting for the right time.
2. John knows much more that I do
about WW1 and Father's exploits, though the local Museum of the Gloucester
Regiment here told me he was commissioned March 1915 but not to which Battalion.
He was stationed in a Park in Birmingham, his platoon were all Brummies
he said. (Alas they discarded all the old photos of that period when leaving S.
Walsham but there was one of the Army tents there and him in officer's uniform.)
He was invalided out next year.
John knows the rest. He always amused our boys talking about double-declutching
the lorries in Greece.
Your father told me he was in the Royal Artillery in France and spoke of
climbing trees to see where their shells were landing and taking observations
and angles of fire.
3. As to ordination, I think it was
the India experience which, as John says confirmed in his mind ordination.
When he was interviewed for ordination I don't know, but he was sent to
Salisbury Theo Coll. He said they
wore cassocks all the time. But the
viewpoint of the college did not suit him and he moved to Ridley, 1927.
(His year of Theology 1913-4 was most beneficial as he was proficient in
Hebrew and was impressed I gather by Professor Swete the Regius Professor....the
only other books he left me are 2 by him.)
He was ordained on Advent Sunday 1928, Dec 2nd??
and knelt next to Hugh Gough who later became Archbishop of Sydney.
Margaret wrote in her journal.(I made a copy before sending it to CMS
Archives) But she knew along with
the few other missionaries in the Isoko area from a meeting with Dr Garrard
autumn 1928 that "A Mr Hubbard is coming out soon to help".
She would have met him in 1929 early on, as he lived in (now) the
Archdeacon's house in Oleh, which is about 2 miles from Bethel, the mission
village and hostel she ran for young girls who had been thrown out by their
fathers on conversion to Xty.
Yes and ordained Priest by Bishop Lasbury 1929 in the Bishop's chapel on the
Bishop's compound Onitsha.
The chapel is now just a grass space as it was pulled down and another built,
but also destroyed I think in the Biafran war,
but another, Bishop Ken Okeke's house is nearby now!
4. As John says Uncle Jack mapped the whole area by the end of his time..i.e.
about the size on the ground of an English county.
A small copy is in the back of his book.
I sent the original signed one to the Bishop of Benin (whom I met in
1987), about 8 years ago, as that was an obvious thing to do rather than holding
on to it. There are now 2 dioceses
in what was split off from Benin Diocese,
Warri and Oleh dioceses.
5. As I let John, know Margaret trained for the Church Army as she was too inexperienced for CMS and was a Sister for about 2 years, before training for CMS. (As I mention all her Nigerian experiences went into her journal, which is not too long, as she only wrote of the interesting things, not a day to day diary). But it ends March 1934 at Warri, to which they both had been posted late 1933 on return after their wedding. She had to come home as she was not only pregnant but had yellow fever/jaundice.