Henry Michell Wagner (1792–1870) was a Church of England clergyman who was Vicar of Brighton between 1824 and 1870. He was a descendant of Melchior Wagner, hatmaker to the Royal Family, and married into a wealthy Sussex family who had a longstanding ecclesiastical connection with Brighton. Wagner paid for and oversaw the building of five churches in the rapidly growing seaside resort, and "dominated religious life in the town" with his forceful personality and sometimes controversial views and actions. His son Arthur Wagner (1824–1902) continued the family's close association with Brighton.
Wagner tutored the Duke of Wellington's sons for several years, and the Duke was responsible for appointing Wagner to the position of Vicar of Brighton—a role fulfilled by his grandfather Henry Michell in the 18th century. "This appointment was to have very considerable implications for the Anglican Church in Brighton" for the next century, as Wagner (and, later, his son) built new churches, founded and endowed charitable causes, imposed their strong characters on the town and became embroiled in regular disputes and controversies. The "Purchas affair", involving one of Wagner's curates and a proprietary chapel, was "the most extraordinary event" in Brighton's Victorian-era religious history and was reported nationally.
Early life Henry Michell Wagner was born on 16 November 1792 at 93 Pall Mall, London. His baptism took place on 15 December of that year at St James's Church, Piccadilly. He was the youngest of four children of Melchior Henry Wagner and Anne Elizabeth Michell. Melchior Henry Wagner was the grandson of Melchior Wagner, born in 1685 in Coburg, who moved to London, was naturalised in 1709 and became hatmaker to King George I in 1717. Anne Elizabeth Michell was the daughter of Rev. Henry Michell, who was Vicar of Brighton until his death in 1789. The Michells were a dynasty of wealthy yeomen from the West Sussex village of Shipley, and Rev. Henry Michell was a wealthy and influential figure in Brighton during the 18th century, when the town was growing in popularity and status. The Gentleman's Magazine commented that "the most distinguished personages that visited [Brighton] courted his acquaintance".
Henry Michell Wagner went to Eton College in 1805, attained King's Scholar status in 1808 and left for King's College, Cambridge in 1812, where he read classics. From 1815 until 1824 he was a fellow of the college. He attended his graduation ceremony in July 1819.
Starting in 1814, he combined his studies with extensive travelling in Europe, particularly with the aim of learning languages. A visit to France, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1814 nearly ended in disaster when the boat he was on capsized. He suffered another bad experience during his first ever visit to his future home town, Brighton, in February 1816. An armed robber accosted him in a twitten near Pool Valley and shot at his head when he refused to give up his money. Wagner put his hand in front of his face, which saved his life: the bullet lodged in the bone, causing an injury which took months to heal. Nevertheless, in March 1816 he started his version of the Grand Tour with a boat trip to Dieppe, from where he travelled to places such as Fontainebleau, Geneva, Milan, Florence, Rome and Messina.
Wagner was recalled from his tour in the autumn of 1817 to become tutor to the sons of the Duke of Wellington. The duke's brother the Marquis of Wellesley had asked the advice of his schoolfriend Joseph Goodall, Provost of Eton, and Goodall suggested Wagner. The Duke "seems to have accepted the recommendation without further enquiry", and Wagner returned to Brighton via Dieppe and travelled to Eton to meet Goodall. He was then sent back to France to meet the Duke, who was staying at Cambrai. His interview was successful, and after another visit to Paris Wagner returned to England to meet the Duke's sons—the ten-year-old Marquess of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley, who was a year younger. In 1820, he took on a third pupil. Gerald Wellesley, 11-year-old son of the Duke's brother Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley and his estranged wife Lady Charlotte Cadogan. He had been adopted by the Duchess of Wellington and lived with the rest of the family at Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire. Wagner lived there as well until the boys went to Eton College, at which time he took a house there. He was "for the most part satisfied" with the ability and behaviour of his pupils, and remained in contact with them until 1827 or later.
Ordination
Soon after meeting his future wife Elizabeth, Wagner was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. He undertook preparation with his uncle Rev. John Henry Michell, rector of St Andrew's Church, Buckland, Hertfordshire, during September and October 1821. His ordination ceremony took place at Ely Cathedral on 28 October 1821 and was undertaken by the Bishop of Ely Bowyer Sparke, who knew his mother. The following Sunday, at St Andrew's Church, Clewer (near his Eton home), he conducted his first service.
Soon afterwards, Dr Robert James Carr became Bishop of Chichester and the position of Vicar of Brighton became vacant. Normally, the living would be presented by the Bishop, but on this occasion the responsibility passed to The Crown. The Duke of Wellington had the authority to present the living to a priest of his choice, and on 12 May 1824 he offered it to Wagner. "His choice of this living ... showed that he was most anxious to be of service to his protégé": Wagner would have had an emotional connection to Brighton because his grandfather had served forty-five years as Vicar of Brighton. Wagner accepted the position, and immediately asked for the Bishop of Ely to ordain him as a priest so he could take up the position (as he was still only a deacon). The ceremony took place on 16 May 1824 at St James's Church, Piccadilly. He took up the living on 30 July of that year, and on 1 August 1824 he took his first services at St Nicholas' Church, Brighton's parish church. At the time, the vicarage was a medieval house in The Lanes which had been rebuilt for Wagner's grandfather Rev. Henry Michell in 1790. Henry Michell Wagner occupied it until 1835, when the firm of Cheesman & Son designed and built a new vicarage in the Montpelier district.
Wagner was appointed Treasurer of the Chichester Cathedral in April 1834. The position had been created in the 12th century by Bishop Hilary and came with its own house on the cathedral close near the Bishop's Palace. Wagner had the house demolished and a replacement built on its site.
Early years as Vicar of Brighton
Wagner was now in ecclesiastical control of a town which was growing rapidly but which had only three public places of Anglican worship: St Nicholas' Church, the Chapel Royal (1795) near the Royal Pavilion, and St James's Chapel east of the town centre (1810–13). Nonconformist places of worship, meanwhile, were numerous: Brighton Friends Meeting House, Brighton Unitarian Church, Dorset Gardens Methodist Church, Union Chapel and chapels for Particular Baptists and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion all existed by 1824, as did a Roman Catholic church and a synagogue. Several churches were being built or were planned to provide more capacity—but Wagner soon became embroiled in conflicts with some of the people involved.
St Margaret's Chapel was built in 1824 to serve the fashionable Regency Square. Founded solely as a property speculation, it was paid for by Barnard Gregory—a man who would have "upset a much less difficult character than Wagner". His activities included banking, acting and journalism, and he owned several newspapers including one so scandalous that he was regularly sued and jailed. Wagner was involved in lengthy and tiresome correspondence over Gregory's choice of perpetual curate for the church, Edward Everard (one of the curates of St Nicholas' Church). Wagner refused to permit his appointment—he had a right of veto—and eventually the Bishop of Chichester had to get involved. Wagner did eventually allow Everard to be appointed, but he bought the right to the patronage from Gregory for £500 so that the appointment of curates to the church was formally under his (Wagner's) control.
Within three years, three more Anglican churches—all proprietary chapels—had been opened in Brighton. St George's Church near the Kemp Town estate was sponsored by the estate's developer Thomas Read Kemp and opened on 1 January 1826. Rev. J.S.M. Anderson, a friend of Wagner's, became its Perpetual curate in 1829. Holy Trinity Church in The Lanes was built in 1817 for Kemp when he briefly seceded from the Church of England to form his own sect; he returned to Anglicanism in 1823 and the church was reconsecrated for Anglican worship after an act of parliament in 1826, which also dealt with the status within the parish of St James's Chapel. Next came St Mary's Church on the road between St James's and St George's. Barnard Gregory had the authority to build a proprietary chapel there, but in 1826 he sold the site to furniture firm proprietor Charles Elliott. He asked Wagner's permission to build a church there for his son, Rev. Henry Venn Elliott, who was about to be ordained. Amon Henry Wilds designed the church in the Classical style, and it opened for worship in 1827.
From 1824, Wagner oversaw the design and building of St Peter's Church, a landmark chapel of ease "at the entrance to the town". Its construction had been sanctioned in 1818, and the Commissioners for Building New Churches had lent £15,000 interest-free. In Wagner's first year as Vicar of Brighton, the competition to select an architect was held, Charles Barry was selected, and the church was founded in 1824 and opened in 1828. "The building of St Peter's proved to be a stormy passage for all concerned". Amon Henry Wilds and Charles Busby had been favourites to design the church but were runners-up in the competition. Also, the work ended up costing more than £20,000 instead of Barry's estimated £14,700. Wagner had difficult work to do in balancing the demands for more money with efforts to keep the debt down. There were disputes with the Vestry; and pew rental—a practice Wagner was opposed to, and which caused him much trouble throughout his time in Brighton—then became an issue. The Vestry demanded a lower proportion of free pews to bring in more income and reduce the building debt more quickly; Wagner, who authorised 1,100 free pews in the 1,800-capacity church, opposed this. The Commissioners for Building New Churches eventually agreed to change the balance to 900 free and 900 rented pews. Problems also arose over the internal fittings, the illuminated clock tower and Charles Barry's insistence on retaining the architectural plan.
Wagner was connected with a curious incident in 1837 which "so upset the Duchess of St Albans that she vowed she would never set foot in Brighton again". An unknown blackmailer sent an anonymous letter to her husband William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans, fraudulently using the name of a prominent firm of Brighton solicitors and claiming to have been written on behalf of Wagner and Thomas Read Kemp. Kemp, a friend of the Duke and Duchess, knew nothing of the letter, and Wagner and the solicitors confirmed it was a forgery. The mystery was never solved, but it was apparently connected with an incident where the Duke went hunting with hawks at Devil's Dyke and forced a farmer to move his sheep elsewhere.
Wagner's churches