A MEMORIAL plaque to a former churchwarden of St John the Baptist, Fifield can’t be installed on the north wall of the nave, after the Consistory Court of the diocese of Oxford refused to grant a school. The court ruled that the petition failed the exceptionality test that was required for installation within the Grade II* listed medieval church.
The petition for the college was presented by John William Palmer, whose wife, Tina Olivia Palmer, a much loved churchwarden and parishioner, died in May 2023. She had been involved in lots of parish projects, including a car-pool service for taking patients to hospitals, the church flowers service, organising the annual church fête, and organising the Mothers’ Union. She had also been a founding member of the Friends of the church and organised several fund-raising activities.
The DAC advisable Mr Palmer’s proposals, but didn’t comment on whether the exceptionality test had been met. The PCC was sympathetic towards the petition, but didn’t imagine that the exceptionality test had been met.
The Diocesan Chancellor, the Worshipful David Hodge KC, identified that the case law referring to the introduction of memorial plaques in a church showed that a school for a memorial plaque could be granted only in an exceptional case.
One factor relevant to the consideration of exceptionality was that an association between the person commemorated and the church needed to be established. Care needed to be taken not to provide the impression of privilege or superiority.
Another factor was that sufficient time must have elapsed after death to permit perspective to be placed on the life, character, and repair of the deceased, in order to enable careful and objective assessment.
The Chancellor said that the primary factor pointed in favour of the petition, however the second “pointed the opposite way”, and “as a general rule a school authorising the installation of any commemorative plaque, or other memorial inside a church [would] not normally be granted until no less than five years had elapsed because the person’s death.”
The reason for that, the Chancellor explained, was to go away an affordable time period after the death to permit the family to grieve, and in addition to permit a more balanced assessment of the life and achievement of the deceased. Mrs Palmer had died only in May 2023.
Mr Palmer reported, nevertheless, that the family all felt that they’d passed the emotional period of grieving and wished the applying for a plaque to be processed.
The Chancellor acknowledged that the “five-year rule” was not inflexible, but Mr Palmer had recommend no objective ground as to the necessity to install the plaque imminently reasonably than after one other three years. In the Chancellor’s judgment, little greater than two years was insufficient time to permit any informed perspective to be applied to Mrs Palmer’s life, character, and repair.
To establish “exceptionality”, it had also to be shown that Mrs Palmer’s service went substantially above and beyond that which was normally expected by the Church. It have to be able to withstanding the test of time, and be of intending to future generations, not simply to contemporaries of the person to be commemorated.
The Chancellor found that Mrs Palmer’s contribution, “although considerable and significant [had] not been sufficiently special or outstanding in order to go substantially above and beyond the faithful discipleship which the Church aspires to, and hopes for from all of its members.”
The Oxford diocesan guidance on the installation of commemorative plaques inside churches states that the test of exceptionality doesn’t apply where what’s sought to be introduced right into a church will not be a memorial or plaque commemorating an individual, but, reasonably, an artefact, corresponding to a stained-glass window, which is meant to adorn and beautify the church and develop into a part of its fabric, regardless that it would, as well as, incidentally commemorate a specific individual.
