An editedextract from Robert Caldwell: A scholar-missionary incolonial South India by Y. Vincent Kumaradoss (ISPCK,2007). www.ispck.org.in
Church Times, 26 October 2007
Robert Caldwell was revered by hispeople - but a victim of party spirit, VincentKumaradoss says in a new biography.
Caldwell was soon beset with a series ofproblems that began to hamper his work. His tenure asBishop was the most trying period of his time inTirunelveli. It was tragic that so outstanding a career asCaldwell's should have been blighted at the end by hisrupture with the Society for the Propagation of theGospel's (SPG's) Madras Diocesan Committee (MDC).
Feeling his age, he was not physically thesame person he had been, and he complained of his healthoften. The theme of weariness began to recur constantly inhis correspondence. He was now, despite this, a man in ahurry. Even though he had not been keeping good health, anda hostile campaign was launched against him and his wife,Eliza, he was driven by his sense of duty. The routinecontinued, in spite of illness, and in spite of setbacksand disappointments. The missionary task of evangelismproceeded as Caldwell stood his ground.
It is difficult to avoid the impressionthat the conflict arose to a considerable extent becausethe MDC seemed deliberately to assert itself in order toprovoke and frustrate the new Assistant Bishop. A carefulreading of the records makes it almost impossible to arguethat Caldwell was not the entirely innocent victim ofalmost unrelieved malice on the part of the MDC throughouthis episcopate.
Gratefully remembered: a bronze statue ofBishop Caldwell erected in 1968 on the Marina beach,Chennai. There it is one of eight statues of distinguishedTamil scholars commissioned by the organisation DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam. Caldwell is described as "the pioneerDravadian linguist" His own occasional references to"party" indicate the main source of this, and that hisopponents brought to the issues between him and them theoften virulent internal disputes of the Church of Englandin England at that time. This was something that the SPG'sfoundation documents, back at the beginning of the 18thcentury, had required its members to eschew, and at itsbest successfully. But the Society and its members were notalways at their best, the later decades of the 19th centurybeing a case in point. 'The bier was met by a crowd with"all the marks of loyalty and love" '
The reason for the antipathy shown to himby the MDC in his last years, by comparison with earliertimes, is difficult to assess. Much of it must be due tothe calibre and experience of the men who by chance thencomposed the committee, and the influence of theirsecretary. Clearly, there was between them a lack ofunderstanding of the situation of SPG missionaries and thenative Church far away in the field.
To add to these shortcomings, there mayhave been some jealousy over Caldwell's high reputation andinfluence in England, and the financial support heattracted direct from there, much of it going into Eliza'sschools.
Tension on ideological grounds had been exacerbated afterCaldwell was appointed Assistant Bishop, as the MDC wascoming to be dominated by people sympathetic to the OxfordMovement. When they learned that Caldwell was, as they sawit, an Evangelical, they began to look down on him.
He decided on a course to put the MDC inits place. His immediate task was to restore his prestigeand inspire respect for the sacred office of bishop. Facedwith a chain of unpleasant events, the struggle was toconsume much of his time.
Gothic in India: the newly refurbished bungalow for thepastor and its attached chapel at Idaiyangudi today - anenhancement of the single room, 17 by 11 feet, thatCaldwell occupied on his arrival in 1841
Caldwell felt strongly the need to discontinue the MDC'sconnection with the mission. While making his appeal inEngland at this time, and expressing his hope of returningto Tirunelveli with a fresh mandate in a fresh atmosphere,he seized the opportunity to add a personal, almostpleading note on his declining health:
"Though my health is only partiallyrestored, I should be delighted to return again to a fieldof labour I love so well, if I could do so with advantage.It would give me the greatest possible pleasure to devotethe last days of my life to the work of reorganising theTinnevelly Church and Mission on the lines I haveindicated, with the Society's approval; but I hope I may,without impropriety, be permitted to say that, at myadvanced period of my life, with my nervous and sensitiveconstitution, I should not feel myself justified inreturning to India to be placed in the same trying positionas before, and to encounter again those troubles andworries which brought on the illness from which I havesuffered for the last two or three years."
In response to his suggestion, a resolutionwas passed by the standing committee on 14 February 1884,which ran as follows: "Agreed that the Bishop of Madras andthe Madras Diocesan Committee be requested to favour theStanding Committee with an expression of their opinion uponBishop Caldwell's statement: it being prima facie theopinion of the Standing Committee that there are noinsurmountable objections to the separate administration ofthe Diocese of Tinnevelly." The committee in Madras,however, took a different view.
In its detailed minute of 30 May 1884, theMDC concluded that Caldwell's proposal was inexpedient andimpractical at that time. That only 12 years later, in1896, it was possible for Tirunelveli to become, bycontemporary standards, a properly constituted Anglicandiocese is a measure of the reactionary, negative, andmisguided character of the opposition Caldwell faced, and ameasure, too, of the soundness of his own vision andaspirations.
THE MDC was desperate to stall anything that would diminish*ts domination. A long list of "animadversions" againstCaldwell was addressed to the SPG in London. The wholeexercise was clearly designed to present Caldwell as thedisrupter of peace in Tirunelveli, and to discredit him inthe eyes of the SPG in England, where, in fact, he wasrespected and had considerable influence.
The MDC pursued its game with undiminishedvigour, intent now on crippling the progress of CaldwellCollege. Pleading financial constraints, they drasticallycut the grant to the college.
In order finally to snuff out the college'sexistence, three reasons were advanced. First and foremostwas that the SPG could not afford to maintain the collegedue to its own financial crisis. Second, the results ofexaminations were unsatisfactory. Third, the number ofstudents who attended the college was small.
Whatever might have been the truth behind these claims, itwas clear that the MDC was unwilling to see the institutionsurvive. The MDC closed the college section in 1894 andreduced it to the level of a high school.
THE MDC had already characterised Eliza ashaving an undue influence over the decisions of the ailingCaldwell. Given its hostility towards Eliza, the MDC nowturned its attention to her pet project, the Girls NormalSchool at Tuticorin, where a "large, beautiful andsubstantial building", erected over two full years,"through the indefatigable exertions" of Bishop Caldwelland Eliza, had been opened by the Metropolitan ofIndia.
The School came under the scrutiny of thecommittee when, in order to reduce its long-term financialcommitments, the MDC refused to take any responsibility fornew schools that had not been sanctioned by it. The MDCquestioned the legitimacy of this "Female TrainingCollege", as the sanction of the committee had not beensought.
According to the MDC, this was done incontravention of the rules of the SPG, and it wrote toCaldwell asking for an explanation. Caldwell argued thatthey had not ignored the rules of the SPG, as the school inquestion was not a new institution at all - it was, infact, merely the "Tinnevelly portion" of the "S.P.G. FemaleNormal School" established in Trichy by his daughterIsabella Wyatt, and now transferred to Tuticorin.
This step was taken because of thepractical difficulty involved in sending the girls toTrichy. The MDC, bent upon frustrating Caldwell and Eliza'sefforts, passed a resolution that it was unable torecognise the institution or undertake its futureexpenditure.
The resolution came as a rude shock toEliza. Surprised and upset, she retorted that "it was quitegratuitous on their part to pass such an unfeeling anduncalled for Resolution." For Eliza, it was an insultheaped on her for "life-long voluntary labours of fortythree years in the cause of female education", and adeliberate measure intended to subvert the "crowningeffort" of her educational career.
The secretary of the MDC simply reiteratedthe committee's stand that it was not possible to acceptresponsibility for the school at Tuticorin. He argued thata large sum of money from home was entrusted to the MDCchiefly for the extension of "Christ's Church", and was"only partially indeed to be spent in old Missions and inthe training and helping forward in life of the childrenand grandchildren of Christians".
Eliza issued an appeal for money toestablish more girls' schools, and a female trainingcollege for teachers, at Tuticorin. The appeal contained ahistory of her 44 years of work in Tirunelveli in the causeof female education.
Despite her attempts to get grants to keepthe institution going, the school had to give up thetraining section in 1893. In 1894, however, after herhusband's death, while the training institution was shiftedto Nazareth, the school was upgraded as a high school.
AFTER 1888, Caldwell's "powers were slowlyebbing out". Yearning for a cooler climate, he frequentedKodaikanal, which was congenial to his health. He began tospend much of his time there, and managed the affairs ofhis office, shuttling between Kodaikanal and Tuticorin. Hebegan to suffer from physical exhaustion.
In July 1890, he requested the Bishop ofMadras to relieve him of miscellaneous work connected withhis district, so that he could continue purely with theepiscopal part of his work, such as confirmations andordinations.
Seeking a retirement allowance, Caldwellwrote: "In taking this step, however, I feel under thenecessity of stating that I can only do so on the conditionthat the Society will continue to [pay] me my presentstipend for the remaining years of my life. In my old age Inaturally require comfort and attention which as a youngerman I could dispense with."
The standing committee took strongexception, and pronounced its displeasure over his seekingto fix his retirement allowance as a "condition", anddisallowed his pension claim. The Bishop of Madrassolicited Tucker, the secretary of the SPG in London, forrelease of pension as per Caldwell's wish. The SPG finallyreleased the pension on his terms in January 1891.
During his last visit to Tuticorin inJanuary 1891, he wrote a letter to Bishop Gell, resigninghis office from 31 January 1891. The very next day, alongwith his family, he embarked on his last journey toKodaikanal.
THE STRAIN of a continuously busy life, thehot climate of Tirunelveli, and the prolonged andpersistent attempt to derail his initiatives during thelater period of his bishopric had exacted a toll uponCaldwell's frail body. In feeble health and beyondrecuperation, he spent the next seven months at Roslyn, hisbungalow in Kodaikanal, a hill station in the Nilgiris.
On Wednesday 19 August 1891, whilereturning from his usual walk, he contracted a chill. Thefollowing day, medical attention was sought. He wasconfined to his room, where, undisturbed, he pulled throughfor the next three days.
On Monday, he took a short stroll withEliza, but in the evening he was seized with fever. Heslowly slipped into a coma on the Thursday night. Though herevived on seeing his son, Dr Addington Caldwell, who cameto see him from Australia, his condition was fastdeteriorating. He slowly slipped into a coma on theThursday night.
Next morning, at 9 a.m. on 28 August 1891,Eliza and his children watched as Caldwell entered intoeternal rest at the age of 77.
The coffin carrying his body, dressed inhis episcopal robes, was conveyed down from the hills, ajourney of some 200 miles, by way of Palayamkottai, toIdaiyangudi, to be with the people among whom he hadlaboured for half a century. At Palayamkottai, a solemn andimpressive service was held on the Sunday, honoured by thepresence of "a large crowd of natives" and severalmissionaries and Indian clergy.
The final journey from Palayamkottaiculminated on Tuesday morning, 1 September 1891, at 7 a.mat Idaiyangudi, where the bier was met by a large crowdwith "all the marks of loyalty and love". After the funeralservice, the mortal remains of Robert Caldwell found anappropriate resting-place below the altar of Holy Trinity,the church that had been built by his own exertions, andconsecrated by him.
Heart-rending sobs and praise filled theair as crowds of Christians, Hindus, and Muslims throngedto have a last glimpse of the revered face, and to paytheir last homage to the priest and bishop who had for solong been their "father and friend".
As his body came to rest in the motherchurch of Tirunelveli, in many ways one of Bishop RobertCaldwell's cherished desires had perhaps been fulfilled.During his last visit to England in 1883, his parting wordsat a special service held in the SPG's chapel, just beforehis return to India, had been: "For Tinnevelly I havelived, and for Tinnevelly I am prepared to die."
The Caldwell saga remained to be assessedand justly honoured.
