9 LDS Pastors and Pastorates 1852–1855

When Apostle Franklin D. Richards returned in 1854, after a two-year absence, to serve again as British Mission president, he felt pride in one change he had implemented during his previous term. “It was during that period,” he told coworkers, “that the first appointment of Pastors took place, and I find it has been a good arrangement.”1

Starting in 1852 and continuing into the 1860s, pastors filled a leadership layer between mission presidency and conference presidents in the British Mission. Local initiative gave rise to several Latter-day Saint auxiliary organizations in the nineteenth century, but this creation of an ecclesiastical position, limited to Europe, was unusual for a church with strong centralized authority at its headquarters. Here I define, explain, and illustrate the office and calling of a pastor in Britain during a four-year period, 1852–55. I focus on these years because they were the formative period when the office of pastor was introduced, implemented, and refined, and because there is an unusually rich pool of information about pastors who served then.2

Men of Experience

By mid-1852, Church membership in the British Mission was nearly double that of 1848, although it had declined slightly from an all-time high in 1851. The mission was experiencing rapid turnover in its membership. President Franklin D. Richards and his one and sometimes two counselors3 struggled to manage member and missionary work in 700 branches grouped in 50 conferences containing 32,000 Saints in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and nearby islands.4 In addition, Richards as European Mission president was faced with the task of overseeing Church operations on the Continent.

Many of the mission’s conference presidents, branch presidents, and missionaries were British Mormons who were likely to emigrate to Utah in view of newly offered assistance from the Perpetual Emigrating Fund and an increased emphasis on the gathering to Utah. To replace them and to train and supervise their successors would pose a formidable challenge for a mission presidency already straining to maintain the gains of past years. In 1850, when rapid growth had increased the need for local supervision, mission leaders had assigned missionaries to serve as district presidents to help strengthen branches. Now, Franklin Richards needed supervisory help for the conferences.5 Thus, at a special mission conference in April 1852, Richards called five experienced elders to supervise from two to five conferences and dubbed them “district presidents” at first, then “pastors.”6 Two pastors and pastorates were added during the remainder of 1852.7

New Mission President Samuel W. Richards, learning that a small battalion of perhaps eighty elders was arriving from Utah in 1853, picked twelve to be pastors—five to replace departees and seven to fill newly created pastorates.8 For the next several years, the British Mission operated between twelve and sixteen pastorates at a time.

Samuel W. Richards (standing, back row, right) was president of the British Mission in the early 1850s. Richards chose missionaries to serve as pastors. Courtesy Church Archives.

To effectively represent the mission presidency in supervising the work of local Church leaders and missionaries, pastors needed to be men of experience. It was apparently felt that a period of residence in Utah provided the advantage of more thorough initiation into Church doctrine and practices. A composite profile of the thirty-four pastors who served between 1852 and 1855 shows that thirty-three were elders from Utah, and only John Parry Jr. of Wales had never emigrated.9 British-born elders from Utah included James G. Willie, William Clayton, Edward Martin, and Charles Smith (England); William C. Dunbar, James P. Park, and Robert Campbell (Scotland); Thomas Jeremy and Daniel Daniels (Wales); and probably John McDonald of Ireland. Most of the thirty-three pastors were married men. Of twenty-nine for whom we have located birthdates, the average age was forty, two were beyond age fifty, and only three were in their twenties.10

The mission president picked pastors either from the ranks of newly arriving elders from Utah or from among conference presidents. Pastors normally did not have counselors, and they served in an average of two pastorates. Calls and releases came at year’s end. After calls were made, the Millennial Star announced them. New pastors, armed with a letter of appointment, introduced themselves to conference presidents over whom they would preside. At the next quarterly conference of the conferences involved, pastors were presented for sustaining votes.11

Pastors filed reports, not regularly but frequently, with the Liverpool presidency. Fullmer’s diary notes his sending pastoral reports by mail or submitting them in person. Records indicate that pastors occasionally visited headquarters, and that presidency members visited and worked in the pastorates. Counselor Daniel Spencer traveled constantly in the pastorates from 1853 to 1855. The most important contact between pastor and mission presidency came during a special London council of elders, May 26–28, 1854, which conference presidents also attended. Here, the presidency clarified mission policies regarding emigration and the calling of local men to be missionaries; discussed doctrinal topics including plural marriage and Adam-God teachings; and directed that branch Sunday schools be started and that branch debts be retired, even if special fast days would be required to do so.12

As a counselor in the British Mission presidency, Daniel Spencer traveled throughout the pastorates to work with Church leaders and members. Courtesy Church Archives.

A pastor’s primary work was training, assisting, and supervising conference presidents and, through them, the branches. Conference presidents were appointed by the mission president, frequently after nomination by a pastor. Conference presidents were experienced local men or missionaries from America. They depended on Church members for their support and sometimes lived in “conference houses” rented with funds contributed locally. Some conference presidents had their families with them, who also required local support. Except in very large conferences, presidents served without counselors.13 Each conference had a clerk who handled money, accounts, and reports.

Conference presidents were required to train and oversee branch presidents, among whom there was high turnover; to see that conference and branch records were kept; and to be sure the conference book agent did his job properly. Conference presidents called quarterly conferences, and they visited the branches where they helped the leaders, spoke in meetings, and ate and lodged with members.14

Branches varied in size from ten to several hundred members. Some owned meeting halls or chapels, others rented. Branch presidents, usually local men who earned their own livings, served without counselors.15 They were assisted by a clerk, a book agent, a council of priesthood holders, and priesthood visiting teachers assigned districts within the branch. On Sundays, branch presidents conducted morning, afternoon, and evening services. They held weekly priesthood council meetings and a midweek preaching or prayer meeting. Some conference presidents grouped branches into districts, supervised by district presidents, who were missionaries pulled partially and sometimes fully from proselyting.16

Conferences supported from one to ten traveling elders, who were Utah elders or local men serving full time. Traveling elders, when not assigned as district presidents, proselyted by traveling, usually alone, from town to town distributing tracts and trying to hold public preaching meetings. Conference presidents chose specific areas for the traveling elders and notified the mission president of these assignments. A few traveling elders were assigned to cover entire pastorates. One was Elder John McAllister, in Pastor Dorr P. Curtis’s pastorate, who described one of his circuits: “[May 20, 1854] I now commenced my travels through the conferences, visiting all the branches of the Church, opening new places, also attending to the several conferences held in the Pastorate.”17

Typically, pastors followed a circuit, visiting one conference after another and then repeating the process. Pastor John S. Fullmer, for example, started his ministry in late January 1853 by staying with Liverpool Conference President Alexander F. MacDonald for a week while they visited branches. Two weeks later, he moved to the Manchester Conference and lodged at its conference house, where President Perrigrine Sessions lived. Fullmer and Sessions spent a week touring branches. Then Fullmer went to Preston, and with Conference President Robert Menzies he preached to full houses in various branches. Fullmer spent several days among Saints in Preston “teaching privately.” After visiting nearby branches, he returned to Liverpool for a quarterly conference there. He then repeated his circuit of the three conferences.18 Such grass-roots contacts let pastors strengthen and improve local operations and commitment.

Starting in May 1853, Pastor Bunker spent twenty months supervising the Bradford, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire conferences. He lived with Sheffield Branch President John Memmott but traveled constantly. If Bunker had visited a different branch each week, he could not have visited in one year each of the sixty branches in his three conferences. By mid-1853 his pastorate included:

Critical to the pastor’s work was his attending each conference’s quarterly conference, where he presided. This gathering let him meet with and instruct local priesthood officers, preach to the Saints, review finances, monitor special projects the mission was stressing, hear appeals from local members, mingle with the Saints, and visit them in their homes. Typically, conferences within the same pastorate held quarterly gatherings a week or two apart, to allow pastors to attend.

Pastor Willie penned a good description of a quarterly conference he attended in late March 1854. On Sunday, “the Saints began to flock to Bridport from all the country branches at an early hour,” and “many walked 24 miles” to be there. The meetings began with singing at 10:30 am. Willie gave the opening prayer. This being a business meeting, leaders reviewed branch reports and finances, “after which the Presidents of branches, expressed their views, and desires in spreading the Principles of the Gospel in their immediate neighborhoods.” At the 2 pm meeting, Willie talked about sales of books and the Millennial Star, emigration and conference funds, and “gave general instruction.” At 6:30 pm, Willie spoke to a large gathering of Saints and nonmembers about the resurrection, and a “good spirit was manifested by all present.”20

Pastors and Missionary Work

Among pastors’ major responsibilities was the supervision of proselyting work within their pastorates. Although many of them were effective preachers, they carried strict orders to have others proselyte, not themselves. Some conferences, such as Wales, Preston, Liverpool, South, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, had become pockets of resistance to missionary work, believing that enough preaching had been done already or that their areas were dead to missionary work. By mid-1854 pastors claimed they had reversed these negative feelings.21

The mission employed five methods of proselyting. First, traveling elders, when not burdened by responsibilities for congregations, went from house to house and town to town, leaving and retrieving tracts and holding special preaching meetings. Pastors and conference presidents assigned these elders to specific areas to proselyte.

Second, nonmembers were invited to specially called camp meetings, debates, lectures, and discourses. Missionaries publicized the meetings by going door-to-door, distributing flyers, or hiring the town crier to cry it out. Despite strict orders to let other elders do the proselyting, pastors, being good preachers, sometimes contributed their services. For example, on August 14, 1853, Pastor Charles Smith and about fifty Saints and the Leicester Branch choir boarded conveyances to go to a camp meeting they sponsored at Dunton. Smith spoke in the afternoon and Conference President Edward Frost at night. “The meetings were well attended,” Smith noted.22

Not all outdoor meetings went well. In September 1855 Pastor Dana and Traveling Elder Wolcott sent the town crier through Luton to announce their outdoor preaching. A crowd came, and, when riled up by a minister, started shoving Dana and Wolcott out of town. A nearby townsman shamed the mob until the crisis passed. Being opportunists, the elders called a meeting for the next night, where they and opponents each lectured for one hour. Some nine hundred people paid to witness the event.23

Third, branch elders and priests did open-air preaching on Sundays and sometimes on weeknights. In mid-1854, for example, the Glasgow Conference had “open preaching in fifty places.” Because of shortages of traveling elders, pastors encouraged local men to do Sunday public preaching.24

Fourth, individually and through “tract societies” that some branches organized, local members obtained LDS tracts and loaned them out to nonmembers personally or in letters. Pastors encouraged this sharing of tracts.25

Fifth, nonmembers came to branch meetings by invitation or from curiosity. In Manchester, members “placarded the towns, and now many strangers come to hear us.”26 When strangers appeared, leaders usually turned the meeting into a preach-to-proselyte session, especially when pastors were the speakers.

The mission president assigned Utah men who became traveling elders to a pastor’s jurisdiction, and the pastor assigned them to one of his conferences. A conference president then assigned the elder to a particular district or region to proselyte or to be a district president. However, a pastor could transfer a traveling elder from one conference to another in his pastorate without the mission president’s permission. Likewise, the mission president could transfer that elder from one pastorate to another without a pastor’s concurrence. A local man called to be a traveling elder by his conference president could be transferred by pastor or mission president. This explains one pastor’s complaint that he had had several traveling elders but “they were called to travel in other conferences or retired to their shoemaking, etc.”27

Traveling Elder William Budge illustrates the jurisdictional realities. Mission Counselor Daniel Spencer assigned him to the Norwich Conference in Pastor Dana’s pastorate. Dana told Budge to report to Norwich Conference President Charles Harper. Harper assigned Budge to the Yarmouth District and its six branches. Budge there became part of the “traveling priesthood” consisting of Conference President Harper and six traveling elders, including himself. Later, to Harper’s surprise, Pastor Dana transferred Budge away to the Cambridgeshire Conference. A month later, the mission president surprised Dana by moving Budge to the Swiss-Italian Mission.28

Baptisms for 1853, 1854, and 1855 averaged close to 4,260 per year—about 85 per conference or 6 per branch.29 Mission leaders indicated that baptisms would have increased greatly if more proselyting elders were called. In June 1854, when at least sixty-three traveling elders were at work, some conferences called for more; several poor conferences asked for more elders, but only if the men would work “without purse or scrip.”30

Three causes were cited for the British Mission’s shortage of traveling elders in the period of 1852–55. First, Utah could not supply enough. Second, branches could not support British elders if these men had families who had to be supported, too. Pastor Dana admitted he did not call local men to be missionaries. He hesitated because “there was so much opposition by some of the brethren and the Saints generally on account of their poverty, as they said.” Later, he called and ordained five “and sent them forth to labor in the pastorate, shifting them as it was deemed wisdom.” Third, there was a “practice universally adopted by persons who have sons of suitable age, to send them to the Valley, as pioneers, or to procure means to emigrate the balance of the family.”31

Some branches relied too heavily on the district presidents for local leadership. Sensing this, Pastor Dana and Conference President Harper in mid-1854 “concluded to cut loose the traveling elders” and “set them to preach among the Gentiles and make Presidents of Branches responsible for the Saints in their charge.”32 Late in 1855, Pastor Fullmer eliminated district presidents from his conferences, and, for the first time apparently, held a conferencewide meeting of all branch presidents:

This was thought advisable because the Districts had been disorganized at the last conference, so these [branch presidents] were called up to receive instruction direct from the President and Pastor and that they might be made to feel the direct responsibility that rested upon them and in short that they might realize there was now no more a middle wall between them and him who presided over the whole conference.33

Pastors as Teachers

Pastors were spokesmen for Church teachings and policies. Utah elders who arrived for early 1853 missionary duty brought with them the Church’s first public announcement of plural marriage and were called upon to explain it. During Fullmer’s first visits to branches, he preached the new revelation to “full and crowded” meetings. In Liverpool he thought that “the Saints feel first rate about the late revelation,” but five months later at Upholland he found the Saints “begin to cavil about the Revelation.” At the elders council at London in mid-1854, one conference president observed that “polygamy has got over pretty well, that cloud has vanished away.” More troubling, he said, was the last “cat that was let out of the bag”—the teaching “about Adam being our Father and God,” a controversial concept then circulating in Utah.34

Whether these teachings caused widespread apostasy or severely reduced conversions is yet to be determined, but sources consulted for this study do not indicate dramatic initial impacts. The president of Land’s End Conference reported, “Relative to the principles recently revealed, we have not the least difficulty.” A late-1854 memorial honoring President Samuel Richards’s retirement stated that the shock that leaders expected the two teachings to cause had “to a great extent been prevented.”35 However, long-term effects were yet to be seen.

Pastors explained baptism for the dead, consecration, and proper ways to perform ordinances. Pastor Fullmer corrected one branch for lengthy prayers and for prayers asking for the spirits of Joseph and Hyrum Smith to be with them. He explained that their spirits, unlike the Holy Ghost, were in one place and could not be jumping around the universe. At Oldham Branch, Fullmer ruffled feathers by announcing that men need not advance through each office of the Aaronic Priesthood, as most believed, and then he ordained a man a priest who had not been a deacon or teacher first.36

Pastors were responsible for the promotion of all mission and church programs. A major emphasis during this period was emigration, and pastors exhorted Church members to prepare to emigrate and to donate to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. Pastors supervised each winter’s emigration process. During 1853, 1854, and 1855, about two thousand Saints departed annually. All missionaries were expected to help with emigration from January to April, along with devoting themselves to their normal labors. In January 1854, Pastor Bunker met with Sheffield Conference President Matthew Rowan and together they chose six local people to fill that conference’s Perpetual Emigrating Fund quota for that season. A year later, in Bradford Branch, Bunker and President Millen Atwood “told old Saints in our Branch to emigrate before the year is out,” and then released Branch President Joseph Bean and counseled him to emigrate.37

On December 13, 1854, President Franklin D. Richards discovered unfilled space on a ship he had chartered for Danish emigrants. Desperate to fill berths, he asked Pastor Smith to recruit additional emigrants on short notice. Smith contacted Brother West of Barrowash, who agreed to take his family of nine.38

Financial concerns claimed much of the attention of mission personnel. Pastors spearheaded a campaign to retire branch debts for Church books and the Millennial Star. Saints had been able to maintain subscriptions to the Star until they were asked to subscribe to two new Church periodicals, The Seer and the Journal of Discourses, when English prices were rising and unemployment spreading. As a result, branches fell into debt for the publications sent them.39

When Millen Atwood became Bradford Conference president in January 1854, Pastor Bunker told him that the conference owed a formidable debt for mission publications. Bunker and Atwood “laboured diligently” to raise money to retire the debt but had little success. Following the June 1854 elders council in London, however, “new life was given to the [Bradford] Conference” and most branches paid their debts. Atwood was pleased, and credited God, the “wise counsels of Pastor Bunker,” and priesthood unity for the success.40

Pastors encouraged tithe paying, which, Fullmer learned upon arriving in England, “has hitherto been considered more as a free will offering or donation than a tithing, and is an annual thing, and not limited as to amount.” Not until 1856 was tithing more fully explained and expected. Pastors also promoted the Salt Lake Temple fund by preaching and reviewing donation reports. Bunker, for example, talked at a Bradford Conference “particularly about Temple building, and their use, and the great sacrifices that people ought to make to rear these places.”41 Pastors also solicited funds for foreign missions.

Vigilant for signs of backsliding, contention, and iniquity, pastors generally dealt firmly with problems that came to their attention. In late 1853, Pastor Fullmer attended a Manchester quarterly meeting conducted by Conference President Perrigrine Sessions. When an officer “in a bad spirit” criticized a former district president, other members caught his spirit. Sessions failed to calm the situation, and “the Devil was about to take the conference.” Fullmer took charge and spoke bluntly, and, said he, “My battle axe, and the manner I used it had a most happy effect.”42

Pastor Fullmer visited the Hyde Branch in April 1853 and found a problem. At the Saturday branch social, Saints used tea instead of other drinks, and on Sunday, few came to meeting and most who did come, slept. To counter the dull spirit, the branch president asked Fullmer to speak. He spent five minutes rebuking the president and members for preferring tea, socials, and sleep to worship. Fullmer told the congregation they were “cold and indifferent, stupid or asleep,” depriving the branch of the Lord’s Spirit.43

As a missionary in England in the early 1850s, John S. Fullmer recorded some of the trials he and his companions encountered. Courtesy Church Archives.

In the branches and conferences, whenever pastors found disputing, disagreements, and faultfinding, they tried to straighten out matters. Pastor Fullmer once found Bury Branch rife with contention. He cited branch leaders to a hearing and told them “they very well knew that they had quarreled with every President and Pastor that had been appointed in the conference for years,” something he would not tolerate. Pastor Charles Smith learned of a couple who became parents six months after they were married and instructed the Derbyshire Conference president “to deal with them”—i.e., excommunicate the couple. As part of their disciplinary responsibilities, pastors also participated in excommunication proceedings for missionaries.44

Once, when Pastor Dana visited Hemel Hempstead Branch, he discerned darkness and iniquity. The branch president said Dana’s feelings were wrong. It took two days, but Dana ferreted out two priesthood holders who had taken liberties with female Church members. Before Dana left, the two men were excommunicated and the branch president reproved.45

Pastors discovered that excommunicated Saints could become festering sores. For that reason, Pastor Fullmer, for one, taught branch presidents not to be too quick to cut off members, sometimes for trivial transgressions. He urged presidents to “not bury the Saints before they are dead.”46

Pastor Charles Smith and Nottinghamshire Conference President Henry Savage witnessed an explosion at an Ashfield Branch council meeting. A faction insisted that a couple be excommunicated. When Savage refused, several said they could not sustain him and asked for their own excommunication, which the council granted. Two men threatened Savage, and “many of them went on with disgusting and filthy language, showing they were of the Devil.” Pastor Smith interviewed the two people that the dissenters wanted cut off, and was satisfied with President Savage’s decision.47

More than once pastors had to settle differences between a district president and branch president. For example, Pastor Willie once settled a feud that erupted when District President Ward removed the Southampton Branch president from office for wife beating. Branch members felt aggrieved, claiming Ward lacked authority over their branch. Willie heard their case, then determined that Ward had transcended his calling by assuming the duties of branch president. Willie reinstated the branch president, who declined to serve. So Willie appointed Ward, whom the members now agreed to accept!48

But most pastoral visits to branches were positive. For example, Fullmer once attended a Wednesday night meeting in the Liverpool Branch where “we had a fine time. Speaking in tongues and interpretations.”49

At quarterly conferences, pastors watched for practices, attitudes, or ideas that needed correcting. At Preston, Fullmer heard one branch president admit he had not visited all his flock for years, and another say that he deferred to older, more knowledgeable men. Fullmer countered that “a shepherd should look after his flock,” and that a branch president, no matter how young, would be upheld by God and given wisdom to govern the branch.50

Pastors had occasional differences with conference presidents. As one example, Sheffield President Rowan once disagreed with Pastor Bunker about how to report “scattered” and “lost” members on the half-year report.51

Overall, however, pastors and presidents seemed to function smoothly together. President Robert Holt reported in late 1855 a “union of feeling that exists between myself and Pastor [George] Grant, for I can truly say, there has never been the least unkind feeling towards each other. The Saints have seen and felt this.” Elder Holt felt pride in carrying out “every measure” that Pastor Grant devised to benefit the work. At the 1854 missionwide council of elders, Pastor Tyler boasted that he “had the united operations of the four Presidents in supporting me in all things.” Pastor Dana said that “the Presidents and I have seen eye to eye all the time.” Pastor Willie was pleased that he and Conference President George Bramwell “were one in all things.”52

Church members were expected to provide pastors and conference presidents with lodging, clothes, and other necessities. To enable Pastor Bunker to attend a special London leadership conference in late June 1854, the Sheffield Conference voted to give him £1.10.53 At a Feast of Oysters held by the Bosham Branch, Pastor Willie noted that “The Saints assisted me with some little means to defray my expenses.” Willie kept track of everyone who donated to help him, and when he received an inheritance during his mission, he repaid the donors.54 In December 1855, the Bristol Branch held a fast day to raise money to buy clothes for Pastor Millen Atwood. Pastor Dana said of his two years: “I have not had to make calls upon any of the Saints, for the small presents I have had have met my demands.”55

After three years the office of pastor needed refinements. In 1855–56 President Franklin D. Richards made four changes. Henceforth, he said, mission presidency approval was required before pastors could publish any book or pamphlet, transfer missionaries, hold pastoratewide conferences, or attend conferences outside their jurisdictions. Also, in 1855, Church members were urged to recognize the pastors’ authority and to “pay the most strict attention to their counsels and instructions.”56

The individual contributions of pastors to the mission varied. Fullmer’s journals indicate that he was a veteran churchman, knowledgeable about doctrine and practices, and an authoritarian leader who spoke his mind and tackled problems head on. Dana’s journal reveals him to be an extremely hard worker. “I lost no time when I was traveling either on foot, in the carrs, or omnibuses,” he said, to preach “if an opportunity afforded.”57 Willie, an Englishman, spent much time visiting outside his pastorate and seemed less forceful as an administrator. Bunker was a kindly man and a good public speaker.

Although records show no attempts to have a pastor removed or reprimanded, pastors occasionally provoked the ire of at least some with whom they had contact. The local priesthood disliked Fullmer’s “sharp reproof” of the Bury Branch. Pastors caused some confusion when they explained practices and procedures differently from the way their predecessors had done. Some pastors disliked aspects of British society or customs, and expressed it. Fullmer, for example, rebuked the Hyde Branch for tea drinking, and walked out of a Royton Branch social, disliking the people’s low tastes in amusement and judging the town to be “a dirty stinking place. No Saint ought to live in it.”58 Pastors, like other officers, probably upset people by soliciting new donations and payments on old branch debts from poor Saints.

Pastors’ Long-term Effects

By the time the last of the 1852–53 elders who had served as the first pastors sailed home in 1856, they had given vital leadership to Church operations in the British Isles. Certainly a dozen pastors laboring at a given time eased the mission presidency’s burden and provided conferences and branches with closer supervision than the presidency could have given. Pastors had supported, reformed, and enhanced more than four dozen conferences, about a hundred conference presidents, and scores of traveling elders. Several felt they had livened up many units that were dead when they arrived. Pastors helped many conferences reduce their debt loads, tighten up their record systems, and overcome bitternesses caused by elders who had mishandled or misappropriated conference funds.59

Despite these contributions, any assessment of the effectiveness of pastors must take into account the fact that their addition failed to reverse the mission’s decline in membership, a fact that haunted mission leadership at the time. Seeking an explanation for lack of progress, in mid-1854 Daniel Spencer, counselor in the mission presidency, gave pastors and other leaders partial blame for low missionary and member zeal in some places. He said he did not think “there is such energy as might be manifested on their part. We are dull and stupid in comparison with those who have gone before us.” Leaders, he added, did not “realize our positions sufficiently, or we could create means for building up of the Kingdom.” Specifically criticized were those pastors and presidents who harbored beliefs that increased preaching was fruitless, more traveling elders need not be called, finance agents did not need close supervision, elders could not labor without purse or scrip, and members’ poverty excused them from Church financial obligations. Yet the overall assessment of Spencer and of conference and branch leaders who worked with the pastors seems to have been positive.60

As shown in table 1, the British Mission’s membership declined during the 1853–55 period by 6,338, a number almost equal to the emigration total. Baptisms exceeded excommunications; had it not been for emigration there would have been no net loss. Branches declined by 65, although the number of pastorates held steady. Close scrutiny of the figures reveals a loss of nearly 1,500 members unaccounted for by deaths, excommunications, and emigration; why these disappeared from the records is unclear. The lack of mission growth during the pastors’ period of service deserves further study; it was probably due largely to factors beyond their control.61

Table 1 
British Mission Semiannual Statistics, 1852–55

Statistics were reported twice yearly in the Millennial Star for 1853 and 1854. The 1855 figures are in the British Mission Statistical Reports, LDS European Church Archives. Statistics for the half year ending December 31, 1852, from Millennial Star 15 (January 29, 1853): 78, are also cited here to show changes over three full years.

Edward Bunker served as a pastor over conferences in England and Scotland from 1853 through 1855. Courtesy Bunker family.

Released pastors continued to give leadership to the Church when called. Of those discussed previously, many left for home early in 1856. During the journey, several presided over shiploads of Latter-day Saint emigrants and four became captains of four of the five handcart companies that year—Ellsworth, Bunker, Willie, and Martin.

The British Mission utilized the office of pastor beyond the 1852–55 period studied here. Pastors continued to serve in a similar fashion until Apostles Amasa Lyman, Charles C. Rich, and George Q. Cannon became the new mission presidency in 1860. They ordered pastors to vacate the conference houses (where they were spending too much time in residence), to do more visiting of officers and branches, and to preach more. The trio changed the name of pastor to “district president” and decreed that conferences henceforth send reports and monies direct to mission headquarters, not through the pastors.62

A steady and serious decline in Church membership made the pastor layer of leadership unnecessary. Membership, which stood at 30,747 in 1850, slid to 13,853 in 1860, and down to 8,804 in 1870. Conferences decreased from 53 in 1853 to 14 in 1870, or one-fourth the number that existed when the office of pastor was first introduced.63 The pastoral office of district president was phased out by 1869.64

Nearly a century later, in response to renewed membership growth, leaders created the position of Regional Representative to help supervise Church units throughout the world. Similar in many ways to the office of pastor in the 1850s and 1860s, which was limited to Europe, it became a new level of supervision and communication between general authorities and stake or mission presidencies.65

This article was originally published in Mormons in Early Victorian Britain, ed. Richard L. Jensen and Malcolm R. Thorp (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), 194–210.