#harold davidson

[j-august]

Defrocked and bankrupt, Davidson was reduced to making a public exhibition of himself. For a while he appeared on the Blackpool seafront, notionally being roasted in a glass-fronted oven while a mechanised devil prodded him with a pitchfork. When interest in this performance waned, he began appearing in Skegness with caged lions, in a show billed as 'Daniel in a modern lion's den'; unfortunately ,he stepped on a lion's tail and was fatally mauled. A.J.P. Taylor wrote that the rector's case 'offered a parable of the  age', and argued that Davidson had attracted more attention than the Archbishop of Canterbury. 'Which man deserves a greater place in the history books?'

Adam Sisman, The Professor and the Parson

[themaninthegreenshirt]

Harold Davidson [14 July 1875 – 30 July 1937], generally known as the Rector of Stiffkey [as well as the Prostitute's Padre or the Lion Taming Curate] was a Church of England priest who in 1932, after a public scandal, was convicted of immorality by a church court and defrocked. Davidson strongly protested his innocence and to raise funds for his reinstatement campaign he exhibited himself in a barrel on the Blackpool seafront. He performed in other sideshows of a similar nature, and died after being attacked by a lion in whose cage he was appearing in a seaside spectacular.

[neworleansvoudou]

Sculptures by Navajo artist Harold Davidson, Gallup, New Mexico