HUDSON, JAMES (1811-1871)

HUDSON, JAMES, Anglican assistant and visiting missionary from 1834; rector of Newcastle, 1850-71; b. Dublin, Ireland, c1811, s/o Dr William Hudson; unmarried; d. Newcastle, 26 Apr 1871.

The son of a dentist, James Hudson registered at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1827 but left without graduating. He later made his way to Nova Scotia, where he enrolled at King's College, Windsor, in 1832 and was granted a BA in 1834. He was ordained a deacon of the Anglican church at Liverpool, N.S., in November 1834 and was then assigned to the Miramichi as assistant to the Rev. Samuel Bacon. He was ordained a priest in 1836 and appointed visiting missionary on the Miramichi in 1839. This appointment, which he took up in 1840 after a year-long trip to England, entailed pastoral responsibility for all parts of Northumberland County other than Chatham, and for much of St Mary's parish in York County. From Escuminac on the east to Stanley on the west his field was over 100 miles in length. Typically he would preach at Bay du Vin every third week and use the rest of his time to travel and conduct missions in the various settlements. In the winter he often risked his life by trekking on the ice. He was tireless in his labors, which were comparable in their rigor with those of Father Michael Egan of the Catholic church at Nelson.

During the earlier years of his priesthood especially, Hudson showed himself to be "argumentative, opinionated, aggressive, and bigoted" on theological questions, and he was a highly controversial figure in both the church and the community. He was an ardent follower of the Oxford movement, and in the 1840s an uproar erupted over his Anglo-Catholicism which almost split the Miramichi church apart. The dispute was characterized by stern resolutions being endorsed at meetings of wardens and vestrymen and quarrelsome letters being written for publication in the Chatham Gleaner and other newspapers. Fortunately for Hudson, his superiors, the Rev. Samuel Bacon and Bishop John Medley, were sympathetic towards his theology and stood firmly at his side. The outcome, after many months of acrimony, was an uneasy truce whereby he was not removed from his position, as his detractors had demanded, but was essentially banned from St Paul's Church, Chatham Head, and St Mary's Chapel, Chatham, where the hostility towards him had originated.

Bishop Medley described Hudson as "the chief promoter of true Church Architecture" among the rural churches of the Fredericton diocese. He played an important role in the construction of St Mary's Chapel in Chatham in 1837, and he had the main responsibility for the remodeling of the Church of St John the Evangelist at Bay du Vin in 1841 ("into the tower of which he placed three bells"). Between 1842 and 1850 he was the inspiration and guiding hand behind the building of Trinity Church, Blackville; St Peter's, Derby; and St Andrew's, Newcastle, the architecture of which convinced Bishop Medley that he was "greatly in advance of the knowledge and taste of those around him." The neo-Gothic St Andrew's Church was described by Medley as "the completest model of a wooden church we have," and as "not inferior in beauty to any design of similar size I have seen."

After its consecration on 25 July 1850, St Andrew's was the anchor of Hudson's ministry. In 1856 Charles F. Street, who had been ordained a deacon, was appointed curate in charge of Derby and Blackville. These churches became a separate mission at this time, but Hudson retained the missions of Hardwicke and Ludlow-Blissfield, as well as the Newcastle rectorship. In contrast with the controversy which greeted his theological pronouncements, his pastoral and building activity enjoyed wide acceptance. He was "beloved by the people of Bay du Vin" and revered in Ludlow, where St James the Greater Church was consecrated in his memory in 1888, seventeen years after his death.

Because Hudson was often quite ill during the final year of his life, an assistant, George H. Sterling, was assigned to relieve him. On the day he died Bishop Medley stated in his diary that he had been "a most faithful, earnest, self-sacrificing Priest & Missionary," and that his death represented "a great loss" to the diocese. Three stained glass windows in St Andrew's Church derive from his rectorship. One is in memory of him; another is in tribute to his father, Dr William Hudson; and the third honors John Keble, the poet of the Oxford movement.