Robert Wellington Bagnall
Thirteenth Rector (1933-1943)...

The Rev. Robert Wellington Bagnall was the 13th rector of St. Thomas. He served St. Thomas from 1933 to 1943. His rectorate covered monumental events such as the recovery (for some) from the Great Depression; World War II and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that thrust the United States of America into that war; St. Thomas’ move from “South Philadelphia” (12th Street near Walnut Street) to West Philadelphia, and the joinder of St. Thomas with the Church of St. John the Divine (Church of St. John the Beloved Disciple). Fr. Bagnall was unique in two ways. First, he was the first “PK” - Priest’s Kid – to become rector. His father, also The Rev. Robert Bagnall, had been an Episcopal priest in Virginia. Second, he was the first rector – and possibly the only rector - to come to the position having already gained a national reputation that extended beyond the Episcopal Church. Fr. Bagnall had served for ten years in the high-ranking position of Director of Branches for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) often called the nation’s premier civil rights organization.

Robert W. Bagnall attended public school in Norfolk, Virginia and graduated from Mission College. Mission College was founded by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Norfolk in 1883 - the same year Bagnall was born - for African Americans. By one account Bagnall graduated from Bishop Payne Divinity School in 1903 and was ordained to the priesthood that same year. From 1903 to 1904 he was priest-in-charge of Epiphany Church in Blackstone, Virginia. Moving to Prince George’s County, Maryland in 1904 he served as both principal of the Croom Normal School in (later known as the Croom Industrial and Agricultural Institute) and as the rector of St. Simon’s Church, Croom, Maryland. St. Simon’s was founded in 1894 by members of nearby St. Thomas Church as a mission for African-Americans. According to their history St. Thomas, which dates to the 1740’s, had been “ministering to members of the African American community for generations.” (The two congregations merged in 1964.) In 1906 The Rev. Robert W. Bagnall married Lillian Anderson, a native of Baltimore, Maryland. Thereafter, from 1906 to 1910, Fr. Bagnall served as rector of St. Andrew’s Church, Cleveland, Ohio. St. Andrew’s had been founded in the 1890’s as an Episcopal outreach to Cleveland’s growing African American community. During his tenure at St. Andrew’s Fr. Bagnall liquidated the mortgage, remodeled the church, and doubled the congregation. In 1908 a group of African Americans petitioned the Ohio Board of Missions seeking support for a mission in Youngstown, Ohio. In 1908 Fr. Bagnall was also appointed priest-in-charge of St. Augustine’s Mission in Youngstown.

In 1911 Fr. Bagnall earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree - possibly from Bishop Payne Divinity School - and he studied at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also in 1911 Fr. Bagnall was called to serve St. Matthew’s Church in Detroit, Michigan. Again, Fr. Bagnall’s efforts doubled the congregation’s membership, stewardship increased, and he abolished the pew rent system. Fr. Bagnall also encouraged the congregation to address the problems facing the increasing number of black southerners who were emigrating to the city. Soon after coming to Detroit Fr. Bagnall led a local protest group in negotiating with Ford Motor Company to hire more African American workers. Fr. Bagnall converted the group into a chapter of the NAACP and they successfully fought segregated schools in Ypsilanti, Michigan, campaigned against police brutality and advocated for the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Bill. He also found time to publish What Every Churchman Should Know (A Manual) in 1915. By 1918 Fr. Bagnall’s skill as an orator and an organizer led to his appointment as an NAACP district organizer. In this role he formed twenty-five new chapters in Michigan and Ohio.

The March 1921 issue of the NAACP publication The Crisis noted that during Fr. Bagnall’s tenure as rector of St. Matthew’s “he built a strong and powerful church organization which leads in community activity.” That same year the NAACP hired Fr. Bagnall full-time as the Director of Branches. In part Fr. Bagnall was hired in order to relieve some of the demands made on James Weldon Johnson who had just assumed the position of Executive Secretary in 1920. Over the next eleven years Bagnall reorganized the NAACP’s branch system and encouraged branches to get involved in local civil rights struggles. Much of the NAACP revenue was dependent on monies supplied by the branches. In this position Fr. Bagnall worked closely with W.E.B. DuBois, editor of The Crisis magazine, William Pickens, Field Secretary, Daisy Lampkin, Regional Field Secretary, and Walter White who served as Acting Executive Secretary when Johnson was away on leave. Fr. Bagnall typified what historian Barbara Dianne Savage demonstrates was Walter White’s understanding of the critical relationship between the NAACP and black churches in her treatment of the controversy surrounding William Pickens’ support for Baptist leader Nannie Helen Burroughs in her struggles with the male-dominated National Baptist Convention.

William Pickens and Fr. Bagnall were also collegial with A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen who led a more radical wing of the Civil Rights movement. Fr. Bagnall even served as first executive officer of the Friends of Negro Freedom an organization sponsored by Randolph’s and Owens’ Messenger publication. Fr. Bagnall, together with William Pickens, Chandler Owen, and publisher Robert S. Abbott, were fierce critics of Marcus Garvey who they deemed to be a “demagogue” defrauding the “black masses.” Garvey and Bagnall were personally antagonistic towards each other. Garvey accused Fr. Bagnall of discriminating against dark-skinned black people and of having behaved immorally as a priest. Fr. Bagnall was exonerated of charges of misconduct by an ecclesial tribunal. He coined the famous derogatory description of Garvey as being “a Jamaican Negro of unmixed stock, squat, fat, and sleek, with protruding jaws, and heavy jowls, small bright pig-like eyes and rather bulldog like face.” Garvey’s belief that he could find common cause with the Ku Klux Klan was seemingly the final act that motivated Pickens, Owens, Abbott, and Bagnall to successfully petition the Justice Department to charge Garvey with mail fraud. Garvey was convicted and deported. By 1930 the NAACP was in dire financial difficulty. Walter White, by then the Executive Secretary, argued that Fr. Bagnall was not bringing in sufficient monies to support the organization and Bagnall left the NAACP.