From the Guardian, Feb. 29th, 1888. [3]

On Saturday, February 25th, the mortal remains of the Rev. Francis Storr, for thirty-four years Vicar of the parish, were buried in the beautiful churchyard of Brenchley. The snow lay thick upon the ground, but the sun shone bright in heaven, and the outward scene symbolised and reflected the feelings of the mourners—the blank sorrow of a bereaved parish, and the rejoicing that the last prayer of their beloved pastor had been granted, and that he had been summoned home before increasing years had necessitated that resignation of his work and ministry which would have been to him a living death.

His work was well described by Canon Hoare, who preached the funeral sermon:—“He was a true specimen of a devoted parish clergyman. He did not take much part in things outside his parish. Most thankful should we have often been if we had had more of his help and counsel in matters concerning the diocese and the Church. But the parish was his sphere, the parish was his home, and the parish was the one object for the benefit of which he spent his life.” The Bishop of Dover writes,—“No one could possibly be half-an-hour in his company without seeing a transparently Christian character, the chief features of which were personal humility and genial sociability.” And the Archbishop of Canterbury writes,—“My last day in Brenchley, and my walk and talk with him were one of the never-to-be-forgotten days. The labour and the love which turned an affliction so great [his blindness] into a gain, were indeed in the very spirit of St. Paul and of his Master.”

Born in 1808, and educated at Harrow and Queen’s College, Oxford, he entered the ministry in 1833 as curate of Up-Waltham, in Sussex, where he often exchanged pulpits with Archdeacon (now Cardinal) Manning. In 1837, he was appointed to the rectory of Otley in Suffolk, through the instrumentality of the present Bishop of Norwich, who, with a conscientiousness which was in those days rarer than now, refused himself to hold two livings. The parish had never before had a resident incumbent. A dilapidated and empty church was speedily restored and filled. The young preacher with his striking presence, clear voice, and impassioned delivery, attracted a congregation not only from his own parish, but from the neighbouring villages, where in those days such preaching was unknown, so that hearers from twenty-three different parishes have been counted at one Otley service.

In 1846, he was presented by Lord Tollemache, who as a near neighbour had seen and appreciated his work at Otley, to the living of Acton, in Cheshire. Acton is a large and straggling agricultural parish, but with the help of curates and district visitors, he soon got to know each household almost as intimately as in the village of Otley, and any one in trouble, whether of mind or body, instinctively turned to the Vicarage. Acton was one of the first parishes, if not the first parish, to give up generally the practice of Sunday cheese-making. Till, at his instigation, the experiment was tried, it had been pronounced by farmers an impossibility. After eight years of incessant labour (he was hardly absent as many Sundays from his parish), the declining health of his wife compelled him to move southward, and he was appointed to the living of Brenchley, vacant by the death of the Rev. R. Davies, Secretary of the C.M.S., whose widow some years later became his second wife. The special work of his predecessor was carried on by him with ever-increasing zeal and success, and, whereas in 1848 Brenchley had scarcely heard of the C.M.S., in 1887 the contribution from the parish amounted to over £300. Part of this sum came from outside friends who knew that the most acceptable birthday present they could make to the Vicar was a subscription to his favourite Society, but the larger proportion was given in sixpences and coppers. It must not be supposed that this preference made him overlook other claims, or ignore other charitable societies. In particular, the London City Mission, the Flower Mission, and the Bible Society were very near his heart. As for the wants of his own parishioners, he not only gave profusely himself, but he was indefatigable in urging their claims on all who could or would give. He was, I believe, the first incumbent in Kent to remit, without solicitation, a percentage of the tithe. Latterly, in hop-gardens where no hops were picked, the tithe was wholly remitted, and no farmer who was in real straits was ever pressed for payment. For labourers out of work, work was somehow made or found. Thus, during the last winter, as many as thirty at a time were employed by him in road-making. Endless similar charities might be recorded, and still more were done in secret and unknown; but these would wholly fail to represent “that best portion of a good man’s life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” His utter unselfishness and his quick power of sympathy endeared him to an ever-widening circle of friends. He never lost sight of any he had known, and all, whether rich or poor, knew that, if content with simple fare, they would be welcome visitors at the Vicarage.

During the last ten years of his life, the greatest of earthly privations was sent him. There was a gradual failure of sight, ending in total blindness. None who knew him even slightly can have failed to admire the serenity and cheerfulness with which this loss was borne. Like Milton, he “bated not a jot of heart or hope, but still bore up and steered right onward . . . content, though blind.” He never would admit that it was to him a heavy trial, though to a man of his independent character and restless energy it must have been a daily thorn in the flesh. Thanks to the guidance of loving hands, he was able to continue to the last his pastoral visits, and would fearlessly mount the narrowest and steepest stairs of cottages, wherever the sick or dying needed his ministrations. His sermons and lectures seemed almost to gain in power by his concentration of thought and abstraction from objects of sense. He would not rarely take (I had almost written “read”) the whole of the Morning Service, including the Psalms and the Holy Communion. Even in his eightieth year his memory was hardly impaired, and he would give chapter and verse for text after text quoted in his sermons. His knowledge of the Bible was wonderful; it was as if he had it photographed on his heart. The last sermon, preached only nine days before his death, was clear, stirring, and energetic, and bore no trace of flagging powers.

His life was one of the many golden threads that run through the variegated warp of England’s Church history, and show the continuity of her ministry. Though severed by five centuries, he is the direct lineal descendant of Chaucer’s “poure Persoun of a toun,” and there is scarce a word in that marvellous portraiture that might not have been written of Francis Storr, for

“Christes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve.”