EARLY CLERICAL LIFE 25 



near East Retford, Nottinghamshire, occupying the 

 Rectory house. Here he spent four years and a half, 

 and, among other works, greatly interested himself 

 in the extension of the church accommodation of 

 his rapidly increasing parish. 



With the exception of the time he was at Ordsall 

 and the few months at Taxal, the whole of his 

 clerical life was spent in the county and diocese 

 of York. To that diocese he returned on leaving 

 Ordsall about May 1842, when he became curate in 

 charge of Crambe, a small and prettily situated parish 

 between York and Malton, where he remained, 

 living at the Vicarage, till nearly the end of 1844. 



On 22nd November in this year my father was 

 presented by Archbishop Harcourt to the living of 

 Nafferton, a large and scattered parish in the East 

 Riding. Although the parish was somewhat an 

 exacting one for a clergyman, it was here that his 

 literary work began in earnest, and his name as a 

 writer on natural history became by degrees more 

 widely known. 



At no period of his life could his time have been 

 more fully occupied, one would suppose, than it 

 was during the nine years he was vicar of this 

 place. The parish extended over six thousand 

 acres, being about six miles long and three wide ; 

 it contained a population of fourteen hundred, of 

 whom something like a thousand were in the 

 village itself, and the remainder in two hamlets 

 and scattered houses. Under the most favourable 

 circumstances this would have given any parish 



