The Victorian era was the heyday of the English rural clergy. The excesses of pluralism—whereby an absentee rector could receive income from multiple livings, with a poorly paid curate doing his work—had disappeared following the Pluralities Act of 1836, yet the social structures of previous centuries still lingered. There was, therefore, usually, a parson in each parish whose special concern was that parish. Greater prosperity allowed some large rectories and vicarages to be built. Admittedly, in some cases where there were only a few parishioners, time might hang heavily on the rural parson. Indeed, Owen Chadwick in his The Victorian Church (1970) mentions a country doctor who opined that the “great disease that afflicted country clergy was want of work” (vol. 2, 166). But many used their time to great advantage. Some were distinguished naturalists: such was Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (1828–1917), rector of Bloxworth in Dorset for forty-six years, perhaps the world's foremost expert on spiders. A few were astronomers of note, such as Thomas William Webb (1806–1885), “the stargazer of Hardwicke,” in Herefordshire. Some dabbled in politics. But many were firmly grounded in the affairs of their own community, concentrating on church, school, and the welfare of their people. Many of these are unremembered, but a few of them were diarists who maintained chronicles of their life and times. Notable among these was Francis Kilvert (1840–1879), who worked in the Welsh Borderland, around Hereford: much of his diary was destroyed by his widow when he died at the age of thirty-eight, but what remains has been described as a literary masterpiece.

The eleven volumes of the journal of Reverend Benjamin Armstrong (no kin to this reviewer) correspond closely with his time as vicar of Dereham, a small town in rural Norfolk, from 1850 to 1888. Without the literary distinction of those of Kilvert, they remained unopened until 1924. Volumes of extracts were then published in 1949 and 1963, edited by his grandson, the Reverend Herbert B. J. Armstrong.

Susanna Martins's book is based on these volumes, now examined fully for the first time. Although the first and second chapters are titled “Early Life” and “The Move to Dereham” and the penultimate (chapter 10) “The Later Years,” this is not a conventional biography. Chapters 3 to 9 describe the social setting and context of an incumbency in a small East Anglian community—the town had around four thousand inhabitants when Armstrong arrived. His focus was on “church, school, and people,” and appropriately there are chapters named “The Norfolk Clergy,” “Church Life,” “Schools” and “Town Life.” “Family Life” documents Armstrong's concern for his five children—four survived, one dying in infancy. The sad death of eleven-month-old Gertrude is documented. This is followed by “Friends”: although far from neglectful of his duty towards the poor, the vicar's position in a rural community meant that many of his social links were with the gentry and minor aristocracy of the Norfolk countryside. Armstrong dined with them, and they with him, and his observations were not always complimentary, nor, for a slightly pompous individual, devoid of humor. Acquaintances included the Bulwers of Quebec Hall and the Haggards of Bradenham Hall. Captain Haggard had eight sons, including Rider, whom Armstrong met: the well-known author lived in South Africa and wrote tales of the relationships among the British, the Boers, and the Zulus. Another Haggard son, William, was at the British embassy in Washington, where he had married an American divorcee of “large property.” Armstrong describes her as “a very ‘fast’ specimen, and although young was much rouged and frizzled, and wore very little above the waist” (225–26; diary entry for 8 July 1875). In short, Armstrong was broadly connected despite his rural post. Accordingly, Martins places him in context in her final chapter: “Armstrong: A Man of His Time.”

The book documents Benjamin Armstrong's civic work (sanitation, roads, libraries) and the vicissitudes of church life and dealing with parishioners. The remnants of witchcraft lingered: he describes an individual who said the Lord's Prayer backward to counteract a spell that had been placed.

The great events and controversies of church and state are often filtered thought the minds and pens of the bishops, politicians, and academics of their era. Their recall may be at variance with the experience of the people of the countryside, village, and country town. We read, for example, of the tensions between the “High Church” or “Catholic” wing of the Church of England and the Evangelicals. Benjamin aligned with the former. Although he cooperated with them on civic matters, the vicar of Dereham had little time for the ministry of dissenters. Armstrong eschewed the magistrates’ bench, seeing the position of magistrate as incompatible with the priestly vocation. The wars in South Africa are much discussed as Benjamin's son Herbert was serving there as an army officer. Matters of European politics were apparently less important. It seems that the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, although it caused an uproar in certain places in the church and kingdom, had little impact in the vicarage in Dereham.

Benjamin Armstrong was not a naturalist, an archaeologist, or a local historian of note. He never sought, or attained, high office in the church. Yet he was more conscientious than many of his kind, even if he seems to have enjoyed the occasional shoot, fishing, and gardening (many functions that took place in the vicarage garden are described). He could be described as “a square peg in a square hole.” He liked Norfolk and the local, gently undulating countryside, with its “waiving fields of golden grain, the peaceful pastures, the retired villages and the rippling stream” (278; diary entry, 28 September 1854).

Benjamin Armstrong saw his task as the worship of almighty God and the salvation of souls, and he prosecuted his duty, as he saw it, with vigor. He restored the church, brought dignity to the services, and was active in parish visiting and in the church schools. Martins describes in detail how he achieved all this: ably narrating the daily life, the joys and sorrows of an ordinary nineteenth-century incumbent, placing them securely in context. Although the eleven volumes of diaries provide the raw material for this work, Martins skillfully includes background material from elsewhere, including contemporary local newspapers, directories, and local archives.

Criticisms are few: the index is a little thin, some of the photos are rather dark and unclear, and in a couple of places proofreading has slipped up, the page of a cross-reference appearing as “xx” instead of having been inserted a proof stage. These are niggles. Overall, A Vicar in Victorian Norfolk offers a valuable picture of nineteenth-century life that will interest church and social historians alike.