William Edwin Orchard

Review by Manipled Mutineer (who sold this book to nautilus_library):

A Congregational Minister's unique Missal, Breviary and Ritual all in one!
Dr William Orchard, former Minister of the King's Weigh House Chapel and later Catholic priest, was the author of this unique little work. Amongst its distinguishing features are not less than ten orders in total for morning and evening prayer (one of which includes the Divine Praises, two orders for Holy Communion - one of which interpolates Roman and Orthodox material with classic forms (such as the Prayer of Humble Access) from the Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion alongside extempore prayer - abbreviated forms of Vespers, Compline and Prime, Tenebrae, numerous litanies, baptism, marriage and burial services and his own revised version of the BCP psalter.

Of particular interest is the second, main, eucharistic order in the book, which appears to be based on a Western framework owing debts to both the BCP and the Missal framework, with extensive interpolations from a huge range of liturgical sources ranging from the liturgy of S. James, through the Roman Missal (via the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries) to the work of Vagante Bishop Ulric Vernon Herford, including such gems cum quirks of arrangement as the use of the Te Deum before the communion as an alternative to the Creed and the Nunc Dimittis after!

From this it will be clear that The Order of Divine Service is effectively a combined breviary, missal and psalter of a distinctively "Catholic" kind - though drawing heavily on the Book of Common Prayer for material and structure - produced for free church use. It is open to question whether he used it himself in his King's Weigh House chapel, or whether - as sources apparently suggest - something more "extreme" and Missal-esque was favoured, with this book then being a more moderate version designed to find favour with its target audience, who might be more receptive to the structure of the Book of Common Prayer.

It undoubtedly did have some use in Non-conformist circles - I recently came into possession of a copy previously belonging to a Congregational Minister, the amount of wear on which shews that he at least must have used it fairly extensively (although principally for marriages and burials, it appears!) How widespread its use was other than that is open to question and I would welcome any elucidations on this point.

A typical selling price for copies in good condition appears to be around £30 at the moment, but diligent searching should unearth copies for significantly less. It is certainly worth adding to any liturgical library.

M.M.'s comments re this copy:

This copy belonged to a Congregational Minister who spent some time minstering very close to where I live, although the place I got it from was somewhat far away. From the wear pattern it is pretty clear that he used it mainly for weddings and funerals, but the ticks against the various orders of morning and evening prayer are also interesting as an indicator of what he might have used!… (altro)