Christ Church in bitter row after donor’s grandson insists gifted Chinese cope is returned

A bitter row has broken out over a 19th-century textile that was donated to the Dean of Christ Church College and Cathedral half a century ago. The grandson of the donor is seeking the return of the Whittingham Cope, a liturgical vestment, after struggling to find out where it was or if it was appreciated.

Dr Selby Whittingham, a leading art historian, was a student at the University of Oxford in the 1960s, when he watched his grandmother formally donate her treasured textile to the Dean, who gratefully accepted it for use in the Cathedral.

Now he has lost patience, having written repeatedly over the years to find out what use was being made of it, only, he says, for questions to remain unanswered.

He told The Telegraph: “I’d had a correspondence some years ago, which was very unsatisfactory. I’d had no proper response.”

Asked what had prompted him to request the return now, he spoke of being dismayed by press reports of Christ Church’s handling of a bitter feud involving Dean Martyn Percy, who was suspended in 2018 over alleged misconduct in a pay dispute and then fully exonerated by an internal tribunal.

As The Telegraph reported in July, a new tribunal will hear a claim by a woman who alleges that he stroked her hair and complimented her on her appearance. He denies the allegation and his many supporters – including alumni, college staff and undergraduates – have come to his defence, while he is suspended.

Dr Whittingham, who does not know Dean Percy, said: “I read more and more about the saga in the press about Christ Church. I gather lots of donors are withdrawing promises and gifts. It just seems a scandal.”

It is decades since he last saw the Chinese silk textile, originally a mandarin’s robe, but he recalls its embroidered dragons.

On Aug 10, he wrote to The Rt Rev Dr Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, that he was seeking support for Christ Church to return the “Whittingham Cope” presented by his grandmother, Edith Whittingham-Jones, in 1962, when he was an undergraduate at Oriel. “Dean Cuthbert Simpson donned it for our benefit and said he was pleased to accept it for use in the Cathedral… The Professor of Chinese had declared that the Chinese symbolism… was compatible with Christian ideas,” he said.

He added: “Becoming aware of how such gifts are sometimes mistreated, years ago I enquired from the college about the cope, but got no reply. I eventually discovered that Dean John Drury preferred some modern vestments he had commissioned and had sent the Whittingham Cope to the Ashmolean Museum. On further complaint, I was eventually told that it had been let out of the museum and used in a service, presumably a token gesture to appease me. As the House clearly has so little appreciation of the gift… I would like it to return the cope to me… so that I may give it to a church that would have greater appreciation and use for it.”

In his letter, he also refers to Dean Percy. As the grandson of a vicar, he writes: “I feel that my grandfather, who was very Christian by nature, would have deplored the scandalous behaviour of the House over Dean Percy, which brings me to the second reason for my feeling that Christ Church is not the appropriate repository for the Whittingham Cope.”

His grandmother made the donation to Christ Church because she wished she could have studied at Oxford: “Because I was at Oxford, she just liked the place. So there’s not a huge reason why it should stay there. If they don’t really appreciate it, I can think of other places that would.”

He remembers the formal presentation: “The Dean said it would suit the Cathedral very well. The Dean, who’s the head of the college is also the Dean of the Cathedral. So it’s really the college chapel as well as the Cathedral. It’s so often the case that these institutions don’t really appreciate a gift they’re given.”

Dr Whittingham is a former curator of the Manchester City Art Gallery and a leading scholar of JMW Turner. He has long argued that the terms of the artist’s bequest to the nation – some 300 paintings and 30,000 sketches – have not been honoured as his will stipulated and that they should be housed together by National Gallery trustees in a “Turner’s Gallery”. Instead, the collection is split between the National and the Tate.

In his letter to the Bishop of Oxford, Dr Whittingham lamented: “There has also been an intellectual and moral failure about another scandal – the frequent flouting of the conditions attached to gifts to colleges, museums etc.”

While the Ashmolean confirmed that the cope was returned to Christ Church in 2008, a spokesman for the Bishop said: “The Bishop has seen the letter and will be replying to Dr Whittingham shortly.”

Declining to comment on why Dr Whittingham’s letters were either unanswered or prompted unsatisfactory replies, a Cathedral spokesman said: “The Whittingham Cope is in our safekeeping at the Cathedral… The cope is a beautiful vestment that has been worn and appreciated by members of our clergy on numerous occasions… However, the fabric has become extremely fragile, especially around the fastening… and our embroiderers have advised us against regular use because of the danger of causing permanent damage. The Cathedral Chapter will discuss Dr Whittingham’s request for the return of the cope at its next meeting.”

On hearing the Cathedral’s response, Dr Whittingham said: “My distant memory of the cope is not of its being particularly fragile. I wonder if this is an excuse for not using it now.”