by Peter Vousden*

On 5 February 1922 two young men held a public meeting on the North Quay in Plymouth in order to proclaim their religion.  Harvey D Hansen and Ernest G Joseph were Mormon missionaries and their boldness drew a crowd of listening men. The Times reported the al fresco meeting “Their speeches were listened to quietly but afterwards considerable resentment was shown by some members of the audience. The elders left followed by a shouting group of men. A soldier knocked the hat off the head of a missionary”[1] The shout had gone up that the missionaries were polygamists only interested in recruiting women. Their presence in Plymouth was covered in depth for several weeks by the Western Evening Herald who sent a reporter to interview their landlady at their lodgings at 14 Morley Street, Prince Rock. She said that they were “two quiet, well behaved and respectable young men. She had nothing but praise for their sincerity and she greatly regretted the hostility which had been shown them.”[2] The Herald, reporting on the incident at the North Quay, declared in its front page headline “Mormons Will Not Go!” and published a photograph of the elders preaching shortly before the meeting broke up and the missionaries fled.[3] A police officer offered them protection and suggested they leave Plymouth for their own safety. Elder Hansen, who was the senior of the pair, declined stating that neither he nor his companion had broken the law and that they intended to exercise their right to act as ministers of their religion. Such were the beginnings of Mormon congregations in Devon.

Prior to the First World War certain sections of the British press had waged a war of invective against the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, best known by the nickname “Mormon.” Foremost in the campaign was the Daily Express which printed story after story of Mormon missionaries alleged abductions of English girls for Utah based polygamous harems.[4] The stories excited a lot of interest not only from outraged readers of the Express and other publications but also from the more considered sections of the media. For example WT Stead, the most famous and respected editor in Fleet Street reacted against the outbreak of intolerance. In a letter to the Daily Express he lodged his “emphatic protest against the mischievous and wicked nonsense that is being written and spoken in furtherance of what is known as the anti-Mormon crusade.”[5] Stead went on to decry the intolerance of Church of England and Catholic clergy who were calling at best for Parliament to intervene and at worst for the Mormon agents of polygamy “to be taken by the scruff of the neck, rushed across the land and dropped into the sea.”[6]  The Church Times advocated the deportation of all Mormons.[7]  The atmosphere became highly charged and Mormons were violently attacked with a sixty four year old man in Nuneaton being tarred and feathered and attacks reported in Birmingham, London, Bristol, Ipswich and Sunderland. [8] The Home Office did conduct an enquiry into the activities of Mormons. The Archbishop of Canterbury admitted in his submission to the enquiry that “we cannot at present get all the clear evidence that we want about individual cases, but this propaganda is an evil thing.”[9]Winston Churchill, Home Secretary agreed with the Archbishop that there was no evidence and therefore no official action against the Mormons was justified. They were to be left to pursue their preaching.

In January 1922, just a few weeks before the elders preached for the first time in Plymouth, The Daily Express resumed its attack upon “these apostles of a pestilent gospel.”[10] “Mormons Must Be Banned”[11] ran one Express headline, “Deport the Mormons” [12] screamed another. “No woman who gets to Utah can ever escape. She is lost to decency and dead to her friends. Yet the nauseous hypocrites who lure girls in the name of a God they provoke are allowed to run free in this country. The peril is shocking. The scandal is intolerable.”[13]

It was against this background that elders Hansen and Joseph stood by the docks on the North Quay and addressed a crowd of Devonian men. It was not an auspicious beginning but the public debate the disturbance inspired brought out the best in the residents of Plymouth. “How dare these people corrupt the morals of the country and of Plymouth” wrote one disgruntled correspondent to the Western Evening Herald.[14] “These people” who so disgusted him were not the Mormon elders but the men who chased them off the quayside. How dare residents of Plymouth, of all places, forget religious tolerance?  In an editorial the Herald articulated the argument. “ A Britisher believes in liberty. Particularly does he believe in religious liberty…It behoves British people safeguarded by their laws against the abuse of liberty to be tolerant.”[15]

The Herald covered the Mormon story for several weeks giving over space in its letters page for both sides of the argument. For example on Valentines Day a correspondent simply signed “A Mother” wrote “I hope the people of Plymouth will show these soft voiced fellows that we are English men and women and that we will stand by the young girls of our town and protect them.”[16] But the paper also took the time to interview Elder Hansen and gave him space to rebuff the accusations made against him and his companion and the church they were licensed to represent. “People in Plymouth have been converted to Mormonism but have never been asked to go to Utah. One lady here has been a Mormon for 30 years.”[17] he claimed. The Western Evening Herald was a liberal organ accustomed to showing both sides of a debate for example allowing both Catholics and Protestants to debate issues back and forth in their letters page. They followed a similar pattern in dealing with the Mormon issue.

In maintaining a stance of impartial tolerance the Herald gave space for a serialisation of a rather sensational account of living with Mormons in Utah by an Englishwoman called Agnes Lister who said she was unfairly punished by church leaders for not being obedient enough. The serialisation lasted for several editions but the paper then gave Harvey D Hansen a whole column of space to answer the critical points made.[18]

The Herald also published an impressive photograph of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, Utah.[19]The immediate furore passed and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintained a small and weak presence in Plymouth. For example, The Latter day Saints Millennial Star the church’s British magazine from 1840 to 1970, featured in an August 1934 edition a profile of Walter Shortle, the president of the Plymouth branch. He had been baptised a Mormon in July 1918 as a 12 year old in Bolton, Lancashire, the county with a Mormon congregation stretching as far back as 1837.Shortle wrote in the Star, “Mormonism embraces all truth, wherever it may be found. It has no quarrel with the truths of traditional Christianity or the truth of paganism, or the findings of science. It is not a sect or merely a church. Mormonism is a religion in its broadest sense.”[20]  Shortle baptised Elsie Yates, a Plymouth girl who became his wife, and their efforts kept the small branch alive during the 1930s. Others took the reigns during the Second World War and into the 1950s but it was not until the 1960s when interest in the message of Mormonism became more popular and waves of new converts were baptised that the church became once more the focus of attention of the Western Evening Herald. From 1954 to 1963 the Plymouth branch of the church met in a house in Seymour Street with a maximum capacity for eighty worshipers.

Their local leader, Mr Geoffrey Reeson, explained the house was too small for a growing congregation. The Herald  reported on the plans for a new purpose built chapel of modern design. “The new chapel at Hartley will seat about 400 people, but with an adjoining hall the total capacity will be about 1,000. There will also be classrooms, offices and a reception lounge.”[21] The Western Morning News reported further on the building on Manamead Road in 1965 “Mormons Build Own Chapel - £100,000 Plymouth Work Started” There followed an article about who was building the church, how it was to be built, and details of the interior design.[22] The impression given that it was to be a welcome addition to the locality. The Plymouth building has since hosted many important acts of worship, conferences of instruction, weddings, funerals and social and sporting events over the years. It is also home to a genealogical library open to members of the public. Since 1977 it has stood as the head quarters of the church in Devon and Cornwall.

But the Herald deserves the last word in the changing fortunes of the Mormons in Plymouth with a 1963 headline “Friendly Ways of Mormons Succeed in City”  They printed a photograph of two beautiful British lady missionaries called Deidre Lewis and Leslie Gardner. No longer American men fighting accusations of female abduction but lovely young English women sharing their honest testimony. The article noted the charm of the lady missionaries and then proceeded to examine numerical growth through baptism in Plymouth and the need for a new building in which to worship. [23] Such a story from the Herald contrasts markedly with the one forty one years earlier which proclaimed “Mormons Will Not Go!” and reported on missionaries being chased through the streets of Plymouth by angry men. From “Mormons Will Not Go!” to “Friendly Ways of Mormons succeed in City” provides a succinct and apposite summary of the fortunes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Plymouth between 1922 and 1963.

[23] Western Evening Herald 20 September 1963

*Peter Vousden has been awarded a BSc in Social Sciences (History and Politics) from Bradford University and an MA in History from University of London. Peter is currently engaged in research of British Mormonism through the eyes of the press and also has published articles in a number of academic journals.

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