b'Rev. John Adams EldridgeMike PrattF ollowing the death of the Rev. John Adams Eldridge on January 9th 1905, an obituary appeared in Church Bells & Illustrated Church News (January 20th, 1905), a copy of which had been kept by the late Eileen Hopper. The photograph that appears here, of the Rev. Eldridge in his doorway at the Old Vicarage in his later years, accompanied the obituary.The obituary tells us a number of interesting things about this nonagenerian clergyman, like the fact that he was the oldest clergyman in Yorkshire, attaining his 90th birthday on Christmas day preceding his death, having had a ministry of 63 years entirely in the East Riding of Yorkshire.We have already written about the commemoration of his 90th birthday with the planting of a horse chestnut tree in the churchyard at Bishop Wilton (see The Vicars Tree in the very first Bulletin). Evidently he was in fairly good health at the time of the planting and his sudden death was unexpected.In his 90 years, the Rev. Eldridge saw King George III lying in state whilst living at Windsor. Then havinghis friends and fellow-Tractarians fell under suspicion. been sent to school in France he witnessed theMr Eldridge was for years labelled dangerous, but revolutions of 1830 and 1848.strong in the support and cooperation of the Sykes Entering Worcester College, Oxford where hefamily he went quietly on with his work.obtained a BA and then an MA, he was swept up byThe writer of the obituary, the Rev. W. R. Shepherd, the Tractarian Movement (see inset), being influencedRector of Kirby Underdale, says that one of the last by John Henry Newman, and he took orders full ofremarks of the Rev. Eldridge to him was to express enthusiasm for the new opinions. his satisfaction at being able to leave the church in Eldridge came to Bishop Wilton in 1857 to findsuch perfect order for his successor.a church in a ruinous condition that was soon to be restored by Sir Tatton Sykes. The completion of the work on the church was not without its difficulties,The Tractarian (or Oxford) Movement was an the Vicar declining to restore the old reading pew inaffiliation of High Church Anglicans, mostly from the nave, preferring to read the service from his stall inOxford University, who sought to demonstrate the chancel; also The procession of surpliced clergythat the Church of England was a direct at the reopening service was a much criticised novelty.descendant of the Church established by the Archdeacon Wilberforce had unfortunately resignedApostles thereby reviving the Catholic religion.his preferments and joined the Church of Rome, so BULLETIN 18 353'