Frederick William Shannon, Rector of Quarrington 1861-1910

Frederick William Shannon was born in Torpoint, Cornwall, on 3rd April 1831,son of Rodney (1790-1844) an Irish naval captain and Frances Elizabeth Nash, of naval Cornish family (1796-1876) who was buried at Quarrington. He was named after his godfather, the second Marquis of Bristol, whose family had Irish connexions. Frederick was the second of eight children, most of whom died in infancy.

Two of his sisters married. Elizabeth Albina Shannon 1829-1920) married one of his college friends, the Rev. Charles Haslewood, (1830-1863) who became a naval chaplain and sadly drowned when HMS Orpheus sank, off the coast of New Zealand. His widow never re-married, nor is there evidence she had children. Julia Jane Furnaux Shannon (b.1836) married in 1868 Charles Grindrod Nash, a naval paymaster. They had one child, Frances Marie, who happened to be born at Quarrington Rectory in 1869. She married a banker, William Keith Sharp, in 1896 and lived in Sussex but she ended her widowhood living with her spinster cousin, Catherine Shannon on London Road, Sleaford (Quarrington parish) and dying a week after Catherine in 1958, with no issue. She left money to St Botolph's church and is buried in the graveyard with several other Shannons.

Frederick was educated at Marlborough College (sponsored by Lord Bristol) and Hatfield Hall, University of Durham. He served curacies art St John the Evangelist, Forton (now part of Gosport) and Holy Trinity, Portsea (now demolished) and was Rector of St Mary, Wendens Ambo, Essex till he came to St Botolph's, the last two livings being in the gift of Lord Bristol. In 1861 at St Michael's Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, he married Catherine Emma Manthorp, daughter of the local doctor/surgeon who had been licensed as an apothecary in Colchester in 1824. She bore him eight children, Frederick, Charles, Helen, Mary, Arthur, Frances and Levett and died during the childbirth of Catherine in 1871. For a while her sisters moved to Quarrington to help bring up the large family. In 1883 Frederick married Henrietta Jane Elliott, a northerner, daughter of the manager of Ancaster Quarry, at All Saints, Ruskington. He courted her while she was governess to Ethel Myers, daughter of the vicar of Ruskington. She became organist at Quarrington church and bore her husband one more son, Augustine, who became a missionary. She died in 1911,eight years before her husband.

Frederick was greatly influenced by the Tractarian movement and was the pioneer of the revival of catholic teaching in the Sleaford district, meeting with continual opposition. He was of the old High Church tradition and not a ritualist or Romanist, yet critics nicknamed him the "Pope of Kesteven". Bishop Wordsworth's visitation to Quarrington in 1873 revealed the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was celebrated every Sunday, every Holy Day, every Thursday in Advent and Lent and late on Christmas Eve, perhaps the only Midnight Mass in Lincoln Diocese at that time.

Frederick wrote confirmation tracts, published sermons, wrote articles and engaged in lengthy correspondence on matters of theology, scripture, liturgy and church history in the local press. He keenly promoted the work of the church overseas and at least two of his children served the church in Africa. He took part in Missions in Reading and Bristol. His zeal, spirituality, preaching and counselling endeared him to many as a priest of uncompromising love, dedication and integrity. A full set of festal Eucharistic vestments was presented to him by his congregation, a few of whom designed and worked the embroidery.

He systematically visited every parishioner as well as those in need, generously entertained his flock at Harvest time and during the village Ram Sales, supported Sleaford Art School and the town's Literary and Philosophical Society. He founded Quarrington's first Primary School, built in 1867,designed and paid for by his churchwarden, Charles Kirk II. This stone building would have been a landmark in its early years and was of pioneer design, being a "School Church" with classrooms in the nave, a chancel and sanctuary at one end and a baptistery at the other. This was licensed for all Anglican services and was used regularly on Sundays. The population of New Quarrington around London and Grantham Roads steadily increased and by Edwardian times a new church was needed. The Bishop of Lincoln supported venture and if the Great War had not intervened Frederick would have been Rector of the old church in the village and of the new All Saints Church on the edge of the cricket ground. The school was enlarged in 1898 and several years later, the Kesteven Mental Hospital was built, mainly on glebe land sold by Frederick Shannon who was due to be its first chaplain but in fact this work was largely undertaken by the curate, the Revd. Benjamin Shaul, who later succeeded Shannon as Rector.

Kirk was a great benefactor, involved in his father's design of a fine new rectory in 1846/7, restorer of St Botolphs Church in the 1860s including a splendid new East End with a quinquangular apse with unusual ceramic tiles and stained glass windows and the church's first organ. The church became renowned for fine worship and preaching, the school for first class instruction.

Frederick entered very much into the life of Quarrington and Sleaford and was a tireless Guardian of the Poor. He was widely esteemed as a priest and pastor, giving equal weight to faith and works.

Frederick was known for his keen sense of humour yet he would not swerve from high principles, once confiscating a football from being used in a Good Friday match and another time reprimanding those who came to the churchyard to gawp at wreaths instead of entering the church to pray during and after the funeral of a revered local doctor. Perhaps he scorned to use the horse and carriage of his predecessor yet he was proud of his athletic prowess and traversed his large but then much less populated parish on foot, carrying a lantern in the dark hours. He later took to a tricycle and an accident on the riverbanks was recorded.

Failing eyesight compelled him to retire in 1910, first to Saxilby, then to Lincoln and finally to his eldest son's in Leicester where he died on 24th July 1919. Four days later, an early morning Requiem Mass was celebrated for him at the School Church and later a funeral service at St Botolph's, at which the privilege of a priest was observed by placing the coffin in St Botolph's chancel and he was buried facing West so he could greet his people and lead them to Christ at the general resurrection to eternal life. Soon afterwards a Memorial Service was held at St Denys' Church, Sleaford. He shunned personal news in the local press and no photographs were reproduced. A plaque under his memorial cross by the font in the church states, "This cross is in memory of a rector who desired his name should be unrecorded." This cross and the one marking his grave bear a simple scriptural reference.

Christopher Micklethwaite