William Purcell Witcutt (1908–1972) was a notable British religious minister, folklorist and author. He was born into the Anglican church, converted to Catholicism in the early 1930s, and returned to the Church of England in the mid-1950s. He is the author of "Blake: a Psychological Study."

Biography

Witcutt was the son of a

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

merchant

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

. He studied law at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, England, and around 1928 his interest in G. K. Chesterton's anti-industrial theory of

Distributism Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world's productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching prin ...

led him to become a prominent contributor to Chesterton's ''

G. K.'s Weekly ''G.K.'s Weekly'' was a British publication founded in 1925 (with its pilot edition surfacing in late 1924) by writer G. K. Chesterton, continuing until his death in 1936. Its articles typically discussed topical cultural, political, and socio-e ...

'' publication, where he was a strong critic of the theory of the Leisure State. His interest in Distributism continued into the 1930s, as evidence by his article "William Morris: distributist" in ''American Review'' in 1934 (II, pp. 311–15), and he appears to have been a Distributist at least until around the outbreak of war in 1939. His 46-page pamphlet ''The Dying Lands: a fifty years' plan for the distressed areas'' appeared under the imprint of the Distributist League of London in 1937, and offered a radical agrarian solution to the problem of mass unemployment. This line of thought eventually led him into the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church, and to convert to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in the early 1930s. He obtained a dispensation to void the usual two-year probationary period, immediately undertaking a seven-year seminary training at

New Oscott New Oscott is an area of Birmingham, England. It was named after the Oscott area of Birmingham, when St. Mary's College, the Roman Catholic seminary, moved from that site to the new one. The original then became known as Old Oscott. The only p ...

to become a Catholic priest. On graduating he was sent to serve in a

slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...

parish in nearby Birmingham. He told in his spiritual autobiography, ''Return to Reality'' (1954), of how his lecture on

The Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and the corrupt nature of many

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

Catholic priests inadvertently led to his being 'banished' to serve in the most remote parts of the diocese. He became a parish priest in Leek,

North Staffordshire The federation of Stoke-on-Trent was the 1910 amalgamation of the six Staffordshire Potteries towns of Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke-upon-Trent, Hanley, Fenton and Longton into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. An anomaly in the history ...

, and, during the Second World War he also served at St. Anne's, Wappenbury, Warwickshire. He eventually converted back to the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

. His re-conversion merited an article in ''Time'' magazine ("To Rome & Return", 4 July 1955). He became a high-church

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

curate in the working class area of

East Ham East Ham is a district of the London Borough of Newham, England, 8 miles (12.8 km) east of Charing Cross. East Ham is identified in the London Plan as a Major Centre. The population is 76,186. It was originally part of the Becontree Hun ...

, London, and later on served as the Rector of

Foulness Island Foulness Island () is a closed island on the east coast of Essex in England, which is separated from the mainland by narrow creeks. In the 2001 census, the usually resident population of the civil parish was 212, living in the settlements of C ...

a short while after it had been badly affected by the great North Sea Flood.

Works

During the war Witcutt wrote up and published his notes on folklore in the fringe areas of the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, including: *"Notes on Staffordshire Folklore" (''Folklore'', Vol. 53, No. 2, June 1942, pp. 126–27); *"The Horsley Legend" (''Folklore'', Vol. 55, No. 2, June 1944, pp. 73–75); *"The Black Dog" (''Folklore'', Vol. 53, 1942, p. 167) During the war he encountered

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

refugees, and this resulted in the scholarly article "Mortuary Beliefs and Practices Among the Galician Ukrainians", published in ''Folklore'' (Vol.57. No. 2., June 1946). Witcutt undertook one of the first applications of the theories of

Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

to visionary English literature. His book ''Blake, a psychological study'' examined the works of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

via the theory of

Jungian archetypes Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings. The psychic counterpart of instinct, archetypes are thoug ...

. Witcutt corresponded with Jung on the matter. Other works by Witcutt include: *''Catholic Thought And Modern Psychology''; *''Child in Paradise'' (a study of the role of fantasy in childhood); *an early critical study of

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

, ''The Cult of D.H. Lawrence''.

References

External links

* W. P. Witcutt's boo
''Blake : a Psychological Study''
is available on Archive.org

This is Witcutt's short personal account of discovering the folklore of North Staffordshire.

''Time'' magazine article on Witcutt, 4 July 1955. {{DEFAULTSORT:Witcutt, William Purcell 1908 births 1972 deaths 20th-century English Roman Catholic priests English folklorists Alumni of St Mary's College, Oscott Alumni of the University of Birmingham Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism Former Roman Catholics Clergy from Staffordshire