Arthur Loftus came from a distinguished family. He was the second son of General William Loftus and his wife, the former Lady Elizabeth Townshend, daughter of the 1st Marquess Townshend. His father’s career had included a spell as lieutenant of the Tower of London. Educated at Clare College, Cambridge, Arthur was ordained in 1820 and in 1826 he became rector and vicar of the parish of Fincham. All seemed set for the familiar story of the second son - a career in either the church or the army. But Arthur was to prove far from ordinary.
For 10 years he seems to have kept a low profile – I have been unable to uncover any interesting material about those years, but, in 1836, at the age of 41, he followed another familiar pattern, by marrying the daughter of another parson, Mary Ann Ray Clayton, whose father was rector of Ryburgh. After a few years they had a son and daughter, the latter dying in 1855. Just a year later Mary Ann also died, but by that time she was no longer living with Arthur.
It seems that Arthur wasn’t just from noble stock but was also very aware of his standing, regarding himself as his wife’s social superior. Despite being the beneficiary of a number of legacies from her family, he seems to have held them in scant regard, repeatedly making allusions to their social inferiority. Eventually he went too far, telling Mary’s lady’s maid, in Mary’s hearing, that even she, servant as she was, had more class than his wife.
This was the last straw for Mary, who left him and went home to mother. It was probably not an easy decision; it is clear from subsequent correspondence that she still felt a strong affection for her husband but clearly the continual belittling of her family was too much for her. Additionally, she alleged violence while she had been pregnant, two years previously.
Arthur reacted forcefully to her departure, bringing an action for the restitution of conjugal rights. He won the case, but Mary refused to comply with the order of the court and continued to live separately from him.
Arthur did not take kindly to this, and clearly red blood flowed through his veins. He consulted his doctor on how to cope with the resulting lack of physical satisfaction. ‘Simple’ suggested the doctor ‘set up a liaison with another female. Just make sure you are discreet, that you avoid the local area, and under no circumstances disclose your occupation’. Arthur thought this seemed sound advice, but just to be on the safe side, he asked the doctor whether – if he were caught out – he would be willing to certify that such activity was an essential prerequisite to his continued health. Possibly thinking Arthur was joking, the doctor agreed.
Wasting no time, Arthur set out to follow the doctor’s suggestion, at least in part. He was in no mood to worry too much about discretion! He rapidly concluded that the simplest and quickest route would be to visit houses of assignation, or more bluntly, brothels. At the time he had a manservant by the name of Henry Twiddy, who was clearly of the same mind. Together they would frequent the brothels of King’s Lynn and Wisbech. Arthur was apparently quite relaxed about disclosing both his marital situation and his calling to the sympathetic ear of the brothel madams.
After a while, he felt that the new arrangements only met the case in a rather inconvenient, irregular and expensive way. Why not simplify things? Just employ two of the girls in a notionally domestic role. Arthur approached the ‘madam’ of a favourite Wisbech brothel, and she promptly despatched two of her best girls to Fincham, ostensibly as cook and housemaid. Henry Twiddy, as a fellow beneficiary was probably delighted.
As one of the girls later described in court, they were greeted by Twiddy on arrival, and in due course Arthur joined them with, said the girl, his prayer book in one and his lit chamberstick in the other. He looked them over, enquired which was the cook and which the housemaid and then pronounced judgement. ‘Henry’ he said, ‘I have the housemaid, you can have the cook’. Twiddy then retired with the cook but, Arthur having left without direct instruction, the housemaid slept alone. The next morning Arthur made it plain to her that the expectation was that she would join him at night. With a glimmering of understanding that the new regime at the Rectory might be the subject of gossip in the parish, he also instructed her to dispose of her more gaudy clothes and purchase something less likely to cause comment – the only concession to discretion he was to make.
Rumours did start to circulate – not least because the curate, a bachelor who had previously lived in the Rectory, rapidly moved elsewhere. Meanwhile the fun and games continued in the Rectory, though Twiddy upset his master by sleeping with the housemaid as well as the cook he had been allocated. Perhaps not surprisingly three of the parties became infected with venereal disease (Arthur was the exception), and one of the girls became pregnant, an abortion being achieved by the good offices of the other.
By this time rumour had spread beyond the village, and came to the ears of the Bishop, who summoned Loftus to explain himself. While Loftus claimed to be totally innocent he had already by this time sacked the girl who had become pregnant, and replaced her with another from the same source.
The Bishop was clearly unconvinced by what Loftus said and established an enquiry which, in short order, recommended that the matter should be referred to the Court of Arches, an ecclesiastical court. Delving through the records of the court was an entertaining part of my research – there were an amazing range of cases – my personal favourite was that of the Rev Day, who was found guilty of ‘habitual and excessive drunkenness in church’ if only because it begs the question as to what level of habitual drunkenness in church the court deemed not excessive!
The case of Loftus was heard before Sir Herbert Jenner-Fust whose gout had made him so infirm that he had to be carried into court in a chair by two footmen. Perhaps hoping to benefit from family solidarity, Loftus chose the son of the judge to represent him in court. If he did, he was to be disappointed.
No doubt to the disappointment of the 19th century ‘red top’ editors, the first decision by the judge was that the case should be heard in private. Apart from the two girls who had come to Fincham, other prostitutes were also called to give evidence, confirming that they had slept with Loftus, that he had often talked of both his wife and his profession, and at least one referred to Loftus’s claim that his doctor had ’told him to have women’. Also called was Mrs Foreman, the madam of the Wisbech brothel who had supplied the girls sent to the Rectory. She had, she averred, had some doubts as to whether Loftus was serious when he first made this request, but had received a confirmatory letter from Twiddy.
Other witnesses included the rather embarrassed doctor. Jenner junior, on behalf of Loftus, introduced a good deal of evidence as to Loftus’s good character, including a reference from the rural dean. The judge, his father, was dismissive of this evidence, saying that while he did not doubt the honest intent of the witnesses he ‘would be interested to know’ whether had they heard the evidence given by the other witnesses Lotus would still have retained their support.
Saying that, at the outset of the case, he had felt that the story was so improbable that the allegations could not be true, he had, as the case proceeded, become convinced that Loftus was indeed guilty, and he sentenced him to be deprived of his living and barred from any future preferment.
The red top editors made up for lost time, The Political Observer, reporting the verdict on December 20 1845 thundered: ‘The charges proved against this reverend gentleman were of the most coarsely profligate nature; intercourse with prostitutes, frequenting houses of bad fame, obtaining his domestic servants from a notorious procuress, and sharing them with his footman’.
His family at that point seemed to have disowned him – so successfully that The Peerage website appears to suggest that he died shortly after the case. In fact, he lived on to the age of 88 when he died, perhaps little lamented, in Croydon.
And, finally, for the benefit of any reader who shares my enthusiasm for Norfolk cricket, a little footnote. Jenner junior, who represented Loftus in court, was an Old Etonian and captained Cambridge University. He subsequently played for Norfolk, scoring a century against Essex in 1831 Two years later he was president of the MCC.
A fuller version of this extraordinary story can be found in Chris Armstrong’s book Scholars, Saints and Sinners (Poppyland, 2019)
