Peter Webster

@[email protected]
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591 Posts

Historian of modern/contemporary Christianity, mostly Britain and Ireland: theology, ecumenism, church/state/law; religious arts; publishing/media/technology; Anglicanism; evangelicalism; Anglo-Catholicism.

By day, a librarian now, slightly to my surprise.

(For digital things - libraries, archives, methods, policy, consultancy - see my other account @peterwebster )

Websitehttps://peterwebster.me
Publicationshttps://peterwebster.me/publications
Peter WebsterSep 9, 2024

Arrived at the weekend, the printed copy of this. Among all my publications, I'm particularly pleased somehow by this one.

It's on Iris Murdoch and her Anglican clergy.

https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2024.20

Vocation, Hypocrisy and Secularization: Iris Murdoch and the Clergy of the Church of England | Studies in Church History | Cambridge Core

Vocation, Hypocrisy and Secularization: Iris Murdoch and the Clergy of the Church of England - Volume 60

Cambridge Core
Peter WebsterJul 28, 2024
#reading Much here to ponder for a child of the Reformation such as me.
#oxfam #holidays
Peter WebsterMar 3, 2024

A treat to myself yesterday from the inestimable Foyles of London: Bernard Haitink's complete Vaughan Williams symphonies, with the London Philharmonic.

There's so much more to Vaughan Williams than 'The Lark Ascending', (wonderful though it undoubtedly is).

Peter WebsterMar 3, 2024

Last night, to the Royal Festival Hall, for Haydn's 'Creation'.

Therein lies a tale.

Many years ago, I was booked as a young singer to take the bass solo part in 'Creation'. I was very nervous. It was just a small country church, with an enthusiastic but limited amateur choir. The fee was small. But it was my biggest gig to date, and one aria in particular was a challenge.

During the rehearsal, just before that big aria, the organist (a very experienced local musician who I knew quite well) turned to me and said "Are you sure you're up to this?"

I don't recall how I replied, but 25 years on, I still remember how it felt.

Don't be that guy.

(As it turned out, I did OK.)

Peter WebsterFeb 27, 2024
Not a bad venue at which to be speaking: the Vicars' Hall, in the precincts of Chichester cathedral. Thanks to a very engaged audience tonight, for coming out to hear about Iris Murdoch.
Peter WebsterJan 22, 2024
Good grief, the last sentence of this - to be read through the fingers. (From Rory Stewart's memoir).
Peter WebsterJan 6, 2024
I normally avoid political memoirs, being often trivial and almost always self-serving. Though he is not of my tribe, I make an exception for this, which is (so far) absorbing.
Peter WebsterDec 2, 2023
Today's Oxfam finds: I love the unlikeliness of this pairing.
Peter WebsterNov 10, 2023
Well, goodbye Oxford: it's been fun
Show threadPeter WebsterAug 20, 2023
Also in Sligo, the very well-preserved abbey church and precincts: views from the north, and of the interior of the cloister. Also, the only surviving sculpted monastic altar in Ireland.