In the magazine for May 1905 I came across this intriguing item. Does anyone have any idea what a Lantern Service is? Or why it was so controversial?
“The Lantern Service announced for the Parish Church, at 8pm on Good Friday was, for this year, transferred to the Mission Hall, owing to the discovery that some, for whose opinion the Vicar felt the greatest deference, regarded with much distaste the idea of such a service in the Church. He would have been pained to give them pain, and there was not time to change distaste into welcome by showing how entirely reverent and suitable to its sacred surroundings is the service which it was proposed to hold. In the more secular atmosphere of the Mission Hall, used for so many entertainments, much of the solemnity and consequently of the helpfulness is wanting, and it was with very great regret that the Vicar decided to postpone what has been found in so many parishes to be a great teaching opportunity.”