A serious and unfortunate error has crept into some accounts of the life of Joan Procter (1897-1931), Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo, about whom I have written several times before. Her entry in Wikipedia, repeated of course elsewhere, states that she was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree by the University of Chicago in view of her contributions to herpetology. The Linnean Society, of which she was a Fellow, also put out the same information in 2018. However, the footnote in the Wikipedia entry itself shows that the information came from her papers, held along with those of her sister, Chrystabel, in the archives of Girton College, Cambridge. Not only does the footnote show where the information came from but that the entry in the main text is wrong. It was not an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago but the Intercollegiate University of Chicago which, as I found out, was something completely different, indeed an embarrassment.
As I delved into this curious ‘university’ I realised that an important clue lay in the account of her funeral at Golders Green crematorium on 23 September 1931. The Times reported: ‘The officiating clergy were the Archbishop of Antioch (the Most Rev. Dr. Churchill Sibley) and the Rev. Herbert Trundle.’ Herbert Trundle was chaplain of the crematorium and a Church of England cleric from St Alban’s in Golders Green who, for our purposes can be ignored. Sibley though is a different kettle of fish. He had founded a branch of the Intercollegiate University, based in Chicago, in England.
Reading further, I found that Sibley—the Archbishop of Antioch—belonged to a catholic sect that had nothing whatever to do with the one run from Rome and which seems to have gone under the name of the Orthodox Catholic Church. Sibley had been ordained in 1924 by the leader of the American Catholic Church, Frederick Ebenezer Lloyd, but ran his enterprise in England as a separate empire.
The various machinations by which Sibley assumed the title of Archbishop of Antioch are too tortuous to recount. He and others of his ilk have been described apparently with good reason as ‘religious confidence men’. Nevertheless, hagiographies of Sibley appear online, including on Wikipedia, containing claims and items of information that are blatantly incorrect. What is known is that Sibley was a church organist, conductor and music teacher who was born in Crewkerne, Somerset in 1858, the son of a house painter and glazier. In 1929, five years after his ‘ordination’ he was installed by Lloyd as Archbishop Metropolitan of the Orthodox Catholic Church in the British Empire. As far as I can make out the Antioch bit was added later by Sibley himself.
Articles on Sibley suggest he was attacked by clergy of the Church of England and that the magazine John Bull carried an exposé by a female undercover reporter. A search through old copies of that magazine might prove instructive.
In parallel with what some people might describe as the spiritual side of Lloyd and Sibley, they had a parallel commercial organisation, the Intercollegiate University, founded in Kansas but later based in Chicago, of which Lloyd held the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Lloyd took it over as President and then, with Sibley, expanded to England, where its base was on Thanet in Kent. It conducted correspondence courses, offering ““exceptional advantages to earnest students through its varied carefully arranged courses of study in theology, arts, music and practical business” with degrees conferred “after thorough preparation” at an annual service in St George’s Church, Bloomsbury, London”. The Intercollegiate University has been described as a ‘notorious degree mill’; in other words, conferring paid for ‘degrees’ with little or no study. Clergymen were the main recipients of the numerous doctorates on offer, and local newspapers took them to task in letters and articles questioning their validity. Extracts appear below. Sibley is said to have ‘scattered honorary doctorates on English clergymen’ to drum up trade.
John Churchill died in December 1938. Being a mere Archbishop was obviously too lowly and he was raised in status to Blessed Saint.
The question arises of how did Joan Procter, six months before her death, become involved in all of this? She was known to regard herself as an agnostic, with no religious inclination. My guess, without having looked at the papers in Girton College, is that her elder sister was involved with Sibley. Chrystabel Prudence Goldsmith Procter (1894–1982) was a gardener who after her sister’s death became head gardener and garden steward at Girton. Both sisters were known for their forceful personalities and I have found that in her middle years she was a catholic, not perhaps of the Roman kind but that propounded by Sibley and his few acolytes in England. His appearance in the lead at Joan’s funeral suggests a close link with the remaining (and, the cynic must add, wealthy) family. Had Chrystabel and/or her father taken it on themselves to suggest to Sibley that an honorary doctorate for her ailing sister would be a kind gesture?
However it came about, the honorary doctorate from the Intercollegiate “University” was not worth the vellum it may or not have been printed on. The record is best corrected and the whole affair quietly put aside. The geegaw added nothing to her achievements.
Two examples of articles and letters in the press:
Sheffield Daily Telegraph 8 June 1922
The letter of the clergyman who signs himself a “Bachelor of Divinity” of the unknown institution which he describes by the singular abbreviation, “Ch. Coll. Mus., Inter. Colleg. Univer., U.S.A.” is a piteous attempt to induce the public to believe that his “B.D.” “degree” has been conferred by a university of reputable standing. I have authoritative information before me of this co-called college. The extension of the curious abbreviation appended by your correspondent after his “degree” is “The College of Church Musicians, Intercollegiate University.” This so-called college originated among some church musicians in Kansas, where they first secured articles of incorporation and a charter in 1880. Later they removed to Chicago and changed their title. Now they give all kind of “degrees,” not one of which is recognised as of any value in the United States, and happily is not now admitted to the official list of the ministry of any religious denomination. They would be laughed out of court if put forward by an elementary or secondary teacher as a claim for receiving the additional salary…
Rugby Advertiser 25 May 1923
…The transparent ignorance manifested in Mr Middleton’s frequent attacks…gives anyone the right to look into the Rec. Vicar’s credentials, and to appraise the value of what he is pleased to call his “degrees and University status.” We have only Mr. Middleton’s authority before us for the statement that “increasing numbers of graduates from the English universities are taking the examinations for and are obtaining further degrees from the Intercollegiate University, U.S.A.” This assertion is worth what it is worth. Needless to say, Mr. Middleton is not one of these graduates from the English Universities. He has no English degree whatever. As far as our Universities are concerned, the Doctorate in Literature is one of the highest academical distinctions, and it is no discourtesy in this scholastic centre to note that there is no one here with such a qualification. As to the Yankee doctorate and its value, well, Mr. Middleton was apparently able to take the necessary papers and pay down his dollars. “‘Nuff said.:…
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