John Groser

St John Beverley Groser MC (23 June 1890 – 19 March 1966) was an English Anglican priest and prominent Christian socialist.

Hannen Swaffer described him as "the best-known priest in the East End [of London]" and Kenneth Leech wrote that he was "one of the most significant Christian socialist figures in twentieth-century Britain".

[3][6] He spent the summers on the estate of two women in Hertfordshire, where, as Kenneth Brill and Margaret 'Espinasse wrote, "His love of Britain and his acceptance of her imperial role were reinforced by the charm of upper-class life in a traditional style".

[5] Lacking any worldliness, having led a fairly secluded life in rural Australia,[7] he "just took Imperialism for granted", as he would write in his memoir four decades later.

[8] He wrote: The family boasted themselves of old yeoman stock, with a stake in that country since the Norman Conquest; with a rich culture and old world courtesy against which I find it even now difficult to write one word of criticism ... they were really a survival of feudalism.

It demanded recognition by each one of a set station in life, an obedience to it with all that that involved and, on top of that, a resolute determination by all to keep at arm's length the outside world, gradually encroaching on their privacy.

The rules were known, and the basis kept before the minds of both master and servant by the reading at least once a week in chapel of one or the other of the passages in St. Paul's Epistles relating to the subject.

[1] Groser briefly served in the British Expeditionary Force and was sent to France as a chaplain to an infantry regiment during the First World War in 1915.

[12] Despite being a chaplain, he reluctantly agreed to lead combat troops during the war under pressure from his commanding officer Alan Hanbury-Sparrow, provided that he could remain unarmed.

[13] Years later, reflecting on Groser's initial refusal on the basis that it was wrong for a chaplain to have any role in the killing,[14] Hanbury-Sparrow wrote: I reminded him that scores of men he knew had fallen that day after having done their utmost; and I was conveying to him – in what words I cannot remember – my despair of a religion that could teach that such a patronizing stand-offish attitude was the right one, when my words were drowned by a terrific outburst of fire from our own guns, who had spotted a counter-attack forming up.

[20] After the war, Groser served as a messenger for the Church of England Men's Society to the dioceses of Carlisle, Durham, and Newcastle.

[3][24] Groser and Bucknall lived next door to one another on Teviot Street and were actively involved in the Anglo-Catholic and revolutionary leftist organization Catholic Crusade with Conrad Noel.

[28] Groser was dismissed in 1927 due to his left-wing activism, but his licence to officiate was restored the following year when he was made priest-in-charge of Christ Church, Watney Street, Stepney.

The Jewish People's Council organised a petition, calling for the march to be banned, and gathered the signature of 100,000 East Londoners in two days.

Groser advocated a return to the festivals, music, dancing, and processions of the medieval English church, and implemented that to some extent with his own congregations.