Henry Michell Wagner

Henry Michell Wagner was born on 16 November 1792 at 93 Pall Mall, London. His baptism took place on 15 December of that year at St James's Church, Piccadilly. He was the youngest of four children of Melchior Henry Wagner and Anne Elizabeth Michell. who moved to London, was naturalised in 1709 and became hatmaker to King George I in 1717. Henry Michell Wagner went to Eton College in 1805, attained King's Scholar status in 1808 and left for King's College, Cambridge in 1812, where he read Classics. From 1815 until 1824 he was a fellow of the college. Wagner was recalled from his tour in the autumn of 1817 to become tutor to the sons of the Duke of Wellington. The duke's brother the Marquis of Wellesley had asked the advice of his schoolfriend Joseph Goodall, Provost of Eton, and Goodall suggested Wagner. The Duke "seems to have accepted the recommendation without further enquiry", and Wagner returned to Brighton via Dieppe and travelled to Eton to meet Goodall. He was then sent back to France to meet the Duke, who was staying at Cambrai. His interview was successful, and after another visit to Paris Wagner returned to England to meet the Duke's sons—the ten-year-old Marquess of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley, who was a year younger. and remained in contact with them until 1827 or later. ==Ordination==

Soon after meeting his future wife Elizabeth, Wagner was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. He undertook preparation with his uncle Rev. John Henry Michell, rector of St Andrew's Church, Buckland, Hertfordshire, during September and October 1821. His ordination ceremony took place at Ely Cathedral on 28 October 1821 and was undertaken by the Bishop of Ely Bowyer Sparke, who knew his mother. The following Sunday, at St Andrew's Church, Clewer (near his Eton home), he conducted his first service. The Duke of Wellington had the authority to present the living to a priest of his choice, and on 12 May 1824 he offered it to Wagner. "His choice of this living ... showed that he was most anxious to be of service to his protégé": Wagner would have had an emotional connection to Brighton because his grandfather had served forty-five years as Vicar of Brighton. Wagner accepted the position, and immediately asked for the Bishop of Ely to ordain him as a priest so he could take up the position (as he was still only a deacon). The ceremony took place on 16 May 1824 at St James's Church, Piccadilly. At the time, the vicarage was a medieval house in The Lanes which had been rebuilt for Wagner's grandfather Rev. Henry Michell in 1790. Henry Michell Wagner occupied it until 1835, when the firm of Cheesman & Son designed and built a new vicarage in the Montpelier district. Wagner was appointed Treasurer of the Chichester Cathedral in April 1834. The position had been created in the 12th century by Bishop Hilary and came with its own house on the cathedral close near the Bishop's Palace. Wagner had the house demolished and a replacement built on its site. ==Early years as Vicar of Brighton==

. Wagner was now in ecclesiastical control of a town which was growing rapidly but which had only three public places of Anglican worship: St Nicholas' Church, the Chapel Royal (1795) near the Royal Pavilion, and St James's Chapel east of the town centre (1810–13). Nonconformist places of worship, meanwhile, were numerous: Brighton Friends Meeting House, Brighton Unitarian Church, Dorset Gardens Methodist Church, Union Chapel and chapels for Particular Baptists and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion all existed by 1824, as did a Roman Catholic church and a synagogue. Several churches were being built or were planned to provide more capacity—but Wagner soon became embroiled in conflicts with some of the people involved. St Margaret's Chapel was built in 1824 to serve the fashionable Regency Square. Founded solely as a property speculation, it was paid for by Barnard Gregory—a man who would have "upset a much less difficult character than Wagner". but he bought the right to the patronage from Gregory for £500 so that the appointment of curates to the church was formally under his (Wagner's) control. Within three years, three more Anglican churches—all proprietary chapels—had been opened in Brighton. St George's Church near the Kemp Town estate was sponsored by the estate's developer Thomas Read Kemp and opened on 1 January 1826. Rev. J.S.M. Anderson, a friend of Wagner's, became its Perpetual curate in 1829. and it opened for worship in 1827. From 1824, Wagner oversaw the design and building of St Peter's Church, a landmark chapel of ease "at the entrance to the town". Its construction had been sanctioned in 1818, and the Commissioners for Building New Churches had lent £15,000 interest-free. In Wagner's first year as Vicar of Brighton, the competition to select an architect was held, Charles Barry was selected, "The building of St Peter's proved to be a stormy passage for all concerned". Amon Henry Wilds and Charles Busby had been favourites to design the church but were runners-up in the competition. Wagner was connected with a curious incident in 1837 which "so upset the Duchess of St Albans that she vowed she would never set foot in Brighton again". An unknown blackmailer sent an anonymous letter to her husband William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans, fraudulently using the name of a prominent firm of Brighton solicitors and claiming to have been written on behalf of Wagner and Thomas Read Kemp. Kemp, a friend of the Duke and Duchess, knew nothing of the letter, and Wagner and the solicitors confirmed it was a forgery. The mystery was never solved, but it was apparently connected with an incident where the Duke went hunting with hawks at Devil's Dyke and forced a farmer to move his sheep elsewhere. ==Wagner's churches==

in central Brighton for his son Arthur. The Anglican cause grew strongly under Henry Michell Wagner's guidance as Vicar of Brighton. By 1866, there were 27 churches in the town, compared to 14 in 1841, and Wagner himself had founded six of them. Of the six only St Paul's Church, which he built for his son Arthur, remains in Anglican use though; one other is now used by the Greek Orthodox community and the others have been demolished. Wagner's first church served Brighton's largest area of poor housing—the district around Eastern Road now known as Kemptown. All Souls Church was founded on 29 July 1833—Wagner himself laid the first stone—and opened on 4 April 1834. Its cost of £3,082.10s.8d. was met mostly by the clergy of other local churches (£1,000) and the Society for the Building and Enlargement of Churches (£500). Wagner contributed £150, and many of his relatives assisted as well. "Money did not run to architectural embellishments" on the starkly plain building; there was a rudimentary Classical façade facing north, and all other elevations were hidden. The interior had Gothic Revival features and was old-fashioned for the date, resembling an 18th-century "preaching house". The church became redundant in 1968 and was demolished that year during work to widen Eastern Road. Soon afterwards, Wagner founded Christ Church in the south of the developing residential area of Montpelier. It was a higher-class district, and more money was spent on the building; it was designed by prolific church architect George Cheesman, Jr. in the Early English Gothic Revival style, and there was a tower with a spire. It was built in 1837–38 and opened on 26 April 1838. Of the £4,600 cost, the Commissioners for Building New Churches and the Society for the Building and Enlargement of Churches gave £500 each, £50 each came from King William IV, Queen Adelaide and (after her accession) Queen Victoria, Wagner gave £200 and separately paid for the stained glass and the vaults under the church, and other members of the Wagner family gave £420 between them. The church survived until 1982, when it was demolished following fire damage in 1978. ) served the Carlton Hill district. The third of Wagner's churches served Brighton's poorest slum district, Carlton Hill. George Cheesman junior was again commissioned to design the church, which was dedicated to St John the Evangelist. A plain and "strangely bleak" Classical exterior, dominated by Doric pilasters, led to an "elegant" galleried interior. The area was so impoverished that Wagner arranged for an endowment fund to be set up, as its worshippers would not be able to support the church financially. This raised nearly £3,000. Construction cost £5,212.7s.11d., and the church opened for worship on 28 January 1840. Wagner and his family contributed much towards it: he gave £200 himself, his wife and father-in-law donated £118.10s. and £265 respectively, and his mother, sister and brother George gave £60 between them. Other donors included Queen Victoria (£50), Member of Parliament for Brighton Adolphus Dalrymple (£25) and local landowner Frederick Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol (£100). The Commissioners for Building New Churches and the Society for the Building and Enlargement of Churches gave £1,500 between them as well. St John the Evangelist's Church closed in 1980 and was sold to the Greek Orthodox community in 1985, for whom it now serves as the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity. St Paul's Church on West Street in central Brighton was Wagner's fourth church. It was built specifically for the ministry of his son Arthur, whose ordination was imminent at the time. Construction took place between 1846 and 1848, the church opened on 18 October 1848 and its consecration ceremony took place on 12 October 1849. Three months later, Arthur Wagner became its perpetual curate. "The first of the great Gothic [Revival] churches" in Brighton, St Paul's cost £12,000 and was designed by Richard Cromwell Carpenter, whose Tractarian "High Church" views on ecclesiastical architecture and ecclesiology met with Arthur Wagner's approval. As before, part of the cost of the church was met by members of Henry Michell Wagner's family, and he donated £1,475 himself. St Paul's was built near several other centrally located Anglican churches, particularly St Nicholas', the Chapel Royal and Holy Trinity, but it remains in use as an Anglican place of worship. Architecturally and historically, it is "one of the great churches of Victorian Brighton". Wagner's fifth church was more modest; it "attracted little attention during ... its existence". All Saints Church stood on Compton Avenue in the West Hill area near Brighton railway station. Richard Cromwell Carpenter was again commissioned to design it, and like St Paul's Church it was a flint-built Gothic Revival structure (this time in the Decorated Gothic style); but there was no tower or spire, and only the "beautiful woodwork" of the interior gave it any architectural interest. All Saints opened in 1852 and was paid for by various contributors including the Society for the Building and Enlargement of Churches and Henry Michell Wagner himself, who gave £300. It was damaged by bombs in World War II and was demolished in 1957, but its church hall survives. at West Blatchington, but this did not happen until after his death. Unlike his other churches, Wagner's final church was built as a memorial to a specific man and was funded principally by an endowment from his mother. St Anne's Church on Burlington Street in the East Cliff area near Royal Crescent commemorated Rev. James Churchill, formerly the Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery chaplain. His mother gave £6,600, and more funding came from his aunt. The endowment paid for the running of the church rather than its construction, for which money was given by Wagner himself (£2,200), its first Perpetual Curate Rev. Alfred Cooper (£2,000), the Society for the Building and Enlargement of Churches (£300) and many other subscribers. Benjamin Ferrey designed the church, which opened on 13 June 1863 nearly a year after Wagner laid the first stone. St Anne's Church was declared redundant in 1983 and was demolished three years later, but its flamboyant church hall survives nearby. Under Wagner's guidance, Brighton's parish church was also rebuilt from its state of "sad disrepair" in 1853–54 to the design of Richard Cromwell Carpenter. Thomas Walker Horsfield's History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex (1835) was critical of the "tasteless and unsightly edifice", West Blatchington Since 1801, the parish of Brighton had been connected with that of nearby West Blatchington as part of the Hundred of Whalesbone. Accordingly, Wagner also held the living of West Blatchington church, although by that time the medieval building had fallen into disrepair and was not used. The village had also declined and had a population of about 80, most of whom were associated with its single farm. ==Disputes and discord==

With his "masterful character" and centralised power within the parish of Brighton, Wagner found himself at the centre of regular disputes and controversies. Financial, political and personal clashes marked his incumbency. Arguments over the Church rate levied by the Vestry on every resident within the parish lasted throughout his time in Brighton and were "the most bitter cause of strife". Wagner's strongly Tory political views were also at odds with the town's Radicalism and set the influential Brighton Herald newspaper against him. Church rates Church rates were a common cause of dispute throughout the country in the 19th century as Roman Catholics and Nonconformists became more numerous: these religious communities worshipped outside the Church of England but were legally responsible for the upkeep of the Church's buildings as well as of their own. Because Nonconformism was so strong in Brighton by the time Wagner was ordained, he faced hostility straight away. One of the first branches of the Metropolitan Society for the Abolition of Church Rates outside London was formed in Brighton in 1836. Important public figures were involved: Thomas Read Kemp , Isaac Newton Wigney , Joseph Hume , Sir George Brooke-Pechell, 4th Baronet and several prominent Nonconformists. A Church rate was first proposed at a public meeting at Brighton Town Hall in 1835 which was chaired by Wagner. The proposed 1% rate was voted out in a public poll after Nonconformist opponents tabled an amendment asking for funds to be raised privately by a committee. At meetings in 1836 and 1839, in response to the churchwardens' proposal of 1%, the majority of voters supported the opponents' demands to defer any discussion for six months and a year respectively. In 1840, money was urgently needed for a new burial ground near St Nicholas' Church. A poorly supported public vote supported the Vestry's proposal for a 3% rate; but Wagner's opponents set up a meeting to examine whether the decision was legal and to organise a petition to Parliament demanding the abolition of the Church rate as "unjust in principle ... a violation of the rights of conscience and a continual source of discord ... [in] this parish". Captain Pechell delivered this petition himself after another meeting in March 1841 when a 2% rate was sought for work at St Peter's Church. Although this rate was voted in, events at the next meeting in October 1841 led to "the most notorious incident of Wagner's incumbency". This was unpopular with the public, and Wagner began to face criticism and "petty persecution". On 15 January 1842, in response to mockery by a group of boys, he chased one into a house, reprimanded him and hit him with his riding crop. Although the boy's mother supported the vicar's actions, his father sought to prosecute Wagner for assault, and he was recommended to solicitor Sidney Bennett—one of Wagner's fiercest opponents. He insisted on a summons being issued, and Wagner appeared in front of the magistrates on 20 January 1842. The bench was made up of a mixture of his supporters and opponents, including Isaac Wigney who led proceedings. Wagner was fined £2 (instead of the £5 sought by Bennett), and the incident affected Wagner's reputation in Brighton for the rest of his life. Vestry meetings continued in the same vein for several years, with regular arguments, votes and polls about the levying of rates. Even a favourable High Court ruling in 1847, which should have helped Wagner's cause, did little to deter his opponents. Wagner stopped attending Vestry meetings for a time from 1843 "in protest against past bad behaviour", Meanwhile, St Nicholas' Church was falling into disrepair and was grossly inadequate for the hundreds of poor people who tried to attend services, such that a church rate of several percent would have been needed for a full restoration. In 1852, though, Wagner took decisive action when the Duke of Wellington died: he suggested the church should be rebuilt as a memorial to the Duke, called a meeting to this effect at the Town Hall and pledged £1,000 himself. Eventually nearly £5,000 was raised, and in April 1853 the Bishop granted permission for the church to close for restoration. Richard Cromwell Carpenter, who had recently designed St Paul's Church for Wagner, undertook the restoration at a final cost of £5,769.18s.7d., and the church reopened in April 1854. Church rates, which had severely affected the early part of his incumbency, accordingly ceased to be a problem in 1852; and Wagner's workload was reduced further in 1854 when Brighton was incorporated as a town. Administration passed from the Vestry and the Brighton Commissioners (of which Wagner was a member) to a mayor, 12 aldermen and six elected councillors in each of six wards. Frederick Robertson Wagner's reputation in Brighton was damaged again in 1853 when he was an involved in an incident with popular preacher Frederick William Robertson of Holy Trinity Church in Ship Street. In May 1853 Robertson had a mental breakdown which was blamed on overwork. Holy Trinity Church offered to pay for a curate to help ease the burden; but Wagner disapproved of Robertson's choice, Rev. Ernest Tower, and vetoed him. This was apparently due to an earlier disagreement between Tower and Wagner in which Wagner was affronted by Tower's behaviour in connection with a local society. Wagner spoke to Robertson after a service at Holy Trinity about the matter, apparently believing that he would nominate another curate; but Robertson was distressed by the incident and later wrote to Wagner criticising him for his "permanent unforgivingness" and stating that he could not nominate anybody else. Within three months Robertson had died. Wagner's opponents claimed that he had "forced himself upon Robertson, who wanted to go home to rest", and that his unreasonable attitude had contributed to Robertson's mental distress and early death at the age of 37. Purchas affair Although the Robertson incident "probably did Wagner's reputation more harm than any other single incident" during his time as Vicar of Brighton, St James's Chapel was one of the three Anglican churches in Brighton at the time Wagner became Vicar of the town. It was owned by Nathaniel Kemp of Ovingdean House, who appointed Rev. C.D. Maitland as Perpetual curate. When he died in 1865, Purchas bought the building and the right of presentation. He had been influenced by ritualist views while working as a curate at St Paul's Church under Wagner's son Arthur. After maintaining the chapel's evangelical style of services for several months, Purchas changed to a strongly ritualist style of worship from September 1866. The clergy wore full vestments, Purchas himself wore a cope and biretta, and incense was used throughout the service. At a time when Roman Catholicism was still viewed with suspicion and animosity, such Catholic-style practices raised "an immediate outcry" among the clergy at other local churches. Wagner received letters claiming that Purchas was trying to "un-Protestantise our Protestant Church" and that the blame lay with his son, Arthur Wagner, whose introduction of ritualist services at St Paul's Church "introduced the seeds of division into the Church in Brighton". Purchas relented for a time, but after further complaints in 1868 he reacted by inviting 1,500 people to a special service at the chapel in September of that year, at which ultra-ritualist practices were given full rein. Amid negative publicity from The Times, Wagner tried to stop his former curate from continuing in this vein, but was rebuffed. He involved the Bishop of Chichester, but Purchas gave the same reply: because he owned the chapel, he could do as he wished—even when the Bishop banned him from ministering anywhere in the diocese. Riots ensued inside and outside the chapel, and the Bishop appealed to the Court of Arches, the Church of England's ecclesiastical court. The matter was not finally settled until after Wagner's death. ==Later life and death==

Henry Michell Wagner had various health problems in his middle and old age. He had an operation to repair a fistula in 1833. In the 1860s he suffered from increasingly frequent bouts of gout and was left with a permanent limp. He then suffered another serious illness in 1864. Every Anglican church in Brighton was decorated with black. ==Legacy==

. As well as building several churches in Brighton, Henry Michell Wagner founded or assisted many social, educational and charitable causes in the town. "His charitable activities ... probably formed the best side of his work in Brighton". Soon after he arrived in Brighton, he started raising money for the Royal Sussex County Hospital, which was under construction at the time. Of the £15,000 construction cost, £6,000 had already been raised by its founder Thomas Read Kemp and George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont; Wagner was the main fundraiser for the remainder and donated some money himself, as did his brother George. He was on the management board and the board of governors for the rest of his life, and played an active part in the running of the hospital. He also selected the hospital's first chaplain—Rev. J. Anderson, curate of nearby St George's Church. Wagner was also involved with the Eye Infirmary (as vice-president and a trustee), the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb Asylum (both as president), The Church of England-led National Society for Promoting Religious Education had the objective of founding schools, which became known as National Schools. There were none in Brighton in 1824, when Wagner arrived in the town; by the time of his death in 1870, he had founded nine, including the architecturally magnificent Church Street National School in the North Laine. Built in 1829 in an elaborate Gothic Revival style, it was infamously demolished in 1971 when its application for listed status was delayed by a postal strike. Wagner was also "instrumental in securing" the Swan Downer School's move from a cramped building in the North Laine to purpose-built premises at 11 Dyke Road. Swan Downer, a rich merchant from Brighton, had provided in his will for the foundation of a school for poor girls. The Percy and Wagner Almshouses were partly funded by Wagner and his sister Mary. The first six houses were built in 1795 in an isolated position on the Lewes Road; Wagner added another six (three on each end) in 1859. The small cottages are of yellow brick and in the Gothic Revival style and are Grade II-listed. ==Commemorations==

(1872–75) was built to commemorate Henry Michell Wagner. St Martin's Church on the Lewes Road, near the Percy and Wagner Almshouses, was built for Arthur Wagner and his brothers in memory of their father. George Somers Clarke junior, whose father was a long-time friend of Henry Michell Wagner, was the architect. Brighton's largest church is austere outside, belying the "breathtaking magnificence" of its opulent interior. The font (dating from 1875, when the church was finished) is inlaid with marble collected by Henry Michell Wagner during his European travels. The Church Street National School featured a bust of Wagner carved by John Edward Carew, but it was destroyed during the building's demolition. After Wagner recovered from severe illness in 1855, he paid £150 for a Clayton and Bell-designed stained glass window at Chichester Cathedral. Themes of healing were depicted in the artwork. The window was destroyed by World War II bombing. Wagner is also commemorated by a stained glass window at St Nicholas' Church, which was presented to the church by his friend Somers Clarke. He was a solicitor who served as Clerk to the Vestry of Brighton for more than 60 years, and was the father of the architect of St Martin's Church. ==Personal life and character==

Marriages Wagner's first recorded meeting with Elizabeth Harriott Douglas came on 13 November 1820, On 13 June 1824, their son Arthur Douglas Wagner was born at Park Hill in Windsor, a house belonging to Elizabeth Harriott Wagner's family. He was named Arthur in honour of the Duke of Wellington. During this period they made plans to move to nearby Winkfield. The vicar of its parish church was a relative of Elizabeth, and Henry Michell Wagner assisted there—effectively "act[ing] as an unpaid curate". This later caused controversy among his religious opponents in Brighton. They continued to live in the vicarage until their deaths in 1844 and 1868 respectively. His mother was buried at St Nicholas' Church in the Michell family vault, as was his first wife; his sister's grave is in Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery. In 1838 Wagner married Mary Sikes Watson, the 38-year-old daughter of Joshua Watson—a prominent High churchman and philanthropist. She was "of too great Victorian piety for comfort": letters between her and Wagner during their courtship discussed administrative matters and philosophical principles rather than love and romance. The marriage produced two sons—Joshua Watson Wagner (b. 29 May 1839) and Henry Wagner (b. 16 July 1840)—but Mary died on 20 July 1840 because of complications with the latter birth. She was also buried in the family vault at St Nicholas' Church. Religious views Wagner was an "old style High churchman" with "pre-Tractarian" rather than fully Tractarian views. and had concerns over his views and the way he ministered at St Paul's Church. Wagner was a "zealous, devoted clergyman". His strength of character meant he would not compromise his principles for anybody. King William IV once visited Brighton on a Sunday. All church bells in the town were traditionally rung to herald a king's visit, but when asked what he would do Wagner replied "on a Sunday, the bells are rung only for the King of Kings". (The famously pious Queen Adelaide was delighted by this response.) Wagner was opposed to pew rents, though not so strongly as his son. When St Paul's Church opened, Arthur wanted all 1,200 seats to be free, but Henry held the more old-fashioned view that there should be a mix. Accordingly, 460 pews were for rent and the rest were free; Arthur Wagner abolished all rented pews in 1873 after his father's death. As Vicar of Brighton, he gained the right of presentation after each proprietary chapel had been open for 40 years; but in 1856 the Marquess of Blandford tried to abolish this right by raising a bill before Parliament. Wagner, who "clung firmly to the rights of presentation" he expected to receive, tried to persuade the Marquess to exclude Brighton's four proprietary chapels from the bill—first by going through his solicitor friend Somers Clarke, then by asking Brighton MPs Lord Alfred Hervey (1816–1875) and Sir George Brooke-Pechell, 4th Baronet for their support. The bill did not pass into law, and the right of presentation did eventually pass to Wagner in each case. Likewise, when conducting evensong at St Peter's Church one evening in 1834, he saw two military officers talking and misbehaving. "He strode down the aisle ... and stationed himself between them for the rest of the service", and when they asked for an apology for the embarrassment caused to them he instead demanded that they apologise for their conduct, otherwise he would write to his friend the Duke of Wellington and inform him about his officers' behaviour. An incident in January 1824, in which the house at Eton was broken into and money stolen from Wagner's pupils, also "throws a good deal of light on his character". He initially set out to find the thief—by engaging the police, using his own efforts and enlisting the help of one of a gang of beggars who often loitered around the house. Wagner captured the offender himself; he was a man whom Wagner had employed for several years despite incidents of improper conduct, because the man's father had persuaded him to give him another chance. As soon as he captured the man, "Wagner's reaction to the crime completely changed, and compassion became his dominant consideration". The death penalty was applied to crimes of burglary in which more than five shillings was stolen; Wagner attempted to get the charge changed to one of felony, and stated that only three shillings was stolen when in fact the man took £2.3s. Wagner later signed a petition for clemency which was presented to King George IV, and the man was spared the death sentence. A sense of fairness and personal responsibility was also demonstrated in his reaction to the Marquess of Abergavenny's refusal to allow the rebuilding and reopening of St Peter's Church, West Blatchington. Wagner had asked George Frederick Bodley to produce a plan; when the project was cancelled, he decided to pay Bodley £10.10s. as partial compensation for the fee he would have received, as it was "the proper and liberal thing to do". Wagner wrote a diary for many years. This was more a factual list of events than an expression of his feelings, and when any emotion was demonstrated it was always "in a very restrained way" and was usually written in Latin, Italian or French. For example, after an evening spent with his future wife Elizabeth, his diary entry for the day read "O qual gioja!" (Oh what joy!). On another occasion, though, after two evenings in her company he commented "Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat" (Those whom God would destroy, He first makes mad). Wagner was fond of entertainment and socialising. He regularly played cards until late at night—although he admonished himself in his diary for doing so—and was a keen tennis and billiards player. He also attended horse races and theatre productions both before and after his ordination. King William IV often invited him to parties and events at the Royal Pavilion, and Queen Adelaide and the late King George III's daughter Princess Augusta Sophia were also on friendly terms with him. Influential opponents included John Colbatch (owner of the Albion Hotel), Presbyterian minister Rev. James Edwards, local Quaker Isaac Bass, and Lt-Col. Thomas Trusty Trickey. These men often abused Wagner and disrupted meetings by filibustering; Trickey has been called the main antagonist. In contrast, the minister of Union Chapel Rev. John Nelson Goulty maintained good relations with Wagner despite their regular debates and disagreements. Goulty served the Nonconformist community for the same length of time as Wagner served the Anglican church, and their influence over their respective communities was similar. Politically, Wagner was a High Tory: this made him "very unpopular in zealous Whig circles" during a time when there was great hostility between the parties—especially in Brighton, which was dominated by radical Whig views. Wagner's experiences with Barnard Gregory and St Margaret's Chapel showed that he could sometimes compromise in the spirit of conciliation, but the reasons for his opposition to Edward Everard's appointment as Perpetual curate are unknown. Although Everard gave up the position in 1828, he was still active locally as rector of St Michael and All Angels Church, Southwick, founder and first incumbent of St Andrew's Church, Brunswick Town, and chaplain of the King's private chapel. His motivation for founding St Andrew's Church, a chapel of ease to Hove's parish church, may have been "to remove himself from Wagner's jurisdiction" in neighbouring Brighton. ==Notes==