The Revd Hugh Cowell Kinred was a former curate at Frenchay Church, and in early March 2015 a reporter from the Daily Mirror contacted us at Frenchay Village Museum, to see what we knew about him as he became a war hero. They were planning to run a story about him, as artefacts relating to his activities in World War One were coming up for auction in London.

We said we’d do a little digging, and this is what we found.

We assumed that finding out what happened to a clergyman would be quite straightforward, but we were wrong. Behind the obvious courage he exhibited, there lay a strange story, for he led a very unconventional life.

The obvious place to look at the career of an Anglican clergyman is Crockford’s Clerical Directory, and Bristol Central Library was able to supply the 1947 edition, which has the following entry for him,

This simple entry has some gaps that we have endeavoured to fill in, and what emerges is a picture of a very colourful man.

However, he was then raised on the Isle of Man, and went to school there.

As Crockford’s says, he was trained for the priesthood at Bishop Wilson’s College on the Isle of Man, leaving in 1904. This college opened in 1889 and closed in 1943. However, when he arrives in Frenchay he states in the Parish Magazine of November 1914 that he went to Durham University – but they have no record of him...

There is no reason to doubt that, as Crockford’s said, he was made a deacon in 1905, then a priest in 1906, serving in the Diocese of Sodor and Man as a curate in Malew between 1905-09. In 1909 he became a curate of St Mary’s, Ealing, London, but left after a year to become an assistant chaplain at Dolny, Manchuria. Dolny, near Port Arthur, had been the scene of a major battle between the Russians and Japanese in their war of 1904-5, and is now in modern day China. He came back to the UK after a year, and was appointed curate of St Andrew’s Walpole, Norfolk, from 1912-13.

His next appointment is as curate of Frenchay in 1915, but what happened in the time between Walpole in 1913 and Frenchay in 1915?

The report goes on to give the same details of his action in saving his companions.

So was he travelling in Siberia for his health, or trying his hand as a planter in present day Malaysia? His army record may help to decide the issue, as it shows that before he joined the Glos’ters in 1915, he had served previously in the British Malay States Rifles (Volunteer) s a corporal.

He first appears in the Frenchay parish Magazine in October 1914, where it states he’s lodging in Hambrook House. As curate he becomes Treasurer of the Frenchay Scouts in 1915, but he doesn’t make too much of an impression in the registers, being involved in just one baptism, and he’s recorded as having taken one class in the school on the Old Testament.

In July 1916 he was involved in an incident on the front line, where he saved the lives of seven of his comrades. In September the Frenchay Parish Magazine ran the story, Next must be reported the gladdest ... event which have befallen Frenchay war history of late. First, Captain Hugh Kinred, of the 14th Glo'sters ("Bristol Bantams"), who enlisted when curate of this parish, has won the Military Cross. The Daily Mirror of August 22nd gives the following account of his exploit, together with capital photographs of himself and the few poor remnants of his tunic both donned and doffed...

The Parish Magazine then goes on the reprint the Daily Mirror article quoted earlier.

The London Gazette reported the award of the Military Cross for his selfless action, Temp Lt Hugh Cowell Kinred 14th Bn Glouc R. For conspicuous gallantry. When a bomb thrown by the enemy fell at his feet in the trench he at once threw himself on it and was blown into the air and much bruised and cut by the explosion, his life being saved by his steel waistcoat. His plucky action saved many casualties.

He transferred to the RAF in 1918, and served in the Aeronautical Commission of Control, Germany, until his formal discharge in February 1920.

But he appears to have actually returned to civilian life earlier, as Crockford’s show that he is the vicar of Misson, South Yorkshire, between 1919-21.

There then follows an unusual occupation, as in 1921 he is appointed to the full-time post of secretary of the NSPCC.

In 1923 he becomes vicar of Crowfield, a small village in Suffolk with a chocolate box pretty church. A quiet life in the country you might think, but he again hit the headlines in 1926 when his wife divorced him.

In September 1917 he had married an English actress, Lillian Elsie Ogden, in Norwich, although the wedding took place in a Registry Office, which seems odd for a clergyman. They had a daughter, Joy, towards the end of 1918, but in 1917 when he was back in France he apparently started an affair with a French girl, and after the war brought her to England to act as nanny for the baby.

There follows a retelling of his heroic action in 1916, and of his marriage to Lillian Ogden, and the birth of their daughter Joy. It continues,

Incidentally, his divorced wife remarried in Manchester in 1938, her new husband was Alfred Turner - he was not a clergyman.

During his inhibition there is evidence that he lived in London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1928, and gave an address in London for correspondence. Unfortunately the RSA’s records are incomplete, and although they have evidence of his fellowship, they have no further information on him.

According to Crockford’s Clerical Directory, he was reinstated at Crowfield in 1929, so he had been suspended for two years. He continued as vicar there until 1936, when he appears to have retired to the Isle of Man as no further appointments are listed.

Mrs Kinred had been Marjorie May Bampton, and they had married in the Registry Office in Douglas in 1940 – he was almost 60 years old, she was 29 years old.

The result of his legal action against Lynn Carlyle isn’t recorded. His wife, Marjorie May Kinred, died in Chichester in 1982. However, she was predeceased by the Revd Hugh Cowell Kinred, who died in Douglas, Isle of Man, in 1956. He was 75 years old.

He led an amazingly complex life, and though he may have been guilty of giving misleading accounts about some aspects of his life, one thing is certain: he was a brave man, who stepped out from behind the protection of his dog-collar in 1915, and joined a fighting regiment. Then, when faced with imminent danger, he acted in a brave and selfless way, thus saving the lives of seven of his comrades.

It sold to a museum (not us) for £200.