4. Patrick Dott, the first 38 years: from 1867 to 1906

Patrick was a few months short of his ninth birthday when his father died.

Between 1871, when Patrick was three, and May 1889, when he matriculated at St Mary Hall, Oxford, I can find no mention of Patrick in the official records.  In the 1881 census his sisters are visiting friends and family, but I have not been able to find his mother or any of her sons.  I don't know whether the family remained at 120 Stepney Green between 1871 and 1890 (by which time Mrs Dott owned 96 Lauriston Road, Hackney) though it is clear that the family were in Hackney in the 1880s when Patrick's youngest sisters attended Lady Holles' Middle Class School in Mare Street and it seems most likely that they never left the area.  I don't know where Patrick went to school, nor what he did between leaving school and entering St Mary's Hall, Oxford at the age of 21.

Patrick had clearly found that his vocation was to become a minister in the Church of England.  Nobody in his family had done such a thing before – they were, after all, Scottish – though it is clear that they attended the Anglican church in London.  His mother and sisters went to St John's in Croydon and were clearly much involved in parish affairs, and one of his brothers was an organist.  But it seems clear that Patrick did not come from the background usually associated with Anglican clergymen.  When he made his decision, he was not a graduate and it is striking that he did not train at, for example, St Aidan's in Birkenhead – on its opening in 1856, the principal said 

they did not wish for mere educated gentlemen, but for earnest, laborious, pious men, who would speak from their own hearts to the hearts of others.  

Patrick's aptitude and inclinations were evidently for academic study.  He went to read theology at Oxford – not one of the colleges, but St Mary's Hall which was an academic hall associated for centuries with Oriel College and formally incorporated into Oriel in 1902.  This was more suitable for an older man, and living there would be cheaper.

He clearly made the most of his time there – a report in Sporting Life in 21 May 1890 names him as playing cricket for his Hall against a team from Exeter College, the "Exeter Busters" – but from the beginning, we can see that Patrick was in training for the priesthood.  There are several mentions in the Oxford press of Patrick's activities as lay reader for Hempton, near Banbury – for example, the Oxford Journal on 9 January 1892 reported,

Through the exertions of Mr W P Dott, the lay reader in charge of Hempton, a capital concert was given in the School room on Tuesday last, and was an unqualified success.

I wonder if Patrick's abilities and obvious potential attracted the attention of

Rev W P Dott (1867-1938)

someone, probably a clergyman, who encouraged him to go to Oxford and follow his vocation.

On coming down from St Mary Hall in 1893, he was a curate at St Saviour's in Croydon.  This was a new church, built in 1867.  He was priested in 1894 at the age of 27 and left Croydon in 1896, licensed by the Bishop of London to be a "West London Missionary".  This meant that he had become a member of the Mission College attached to All Hallows', Barking.  It was quite a recent venture, set up in 1884 on the initiative of Archbishop Edward White Benson, with the aim of serving All Hallows' and the wider church.  Patrick and three other clergymen can be found in the 1901 census at the Mission College's house at 7 Trinity Square, where they were cared for by a housekeeper, a cook and two housemaids.

Patrick was in charge of the parish work at All Hallows' for nearly eight years, as well as taking his share of the work of the college of mission preachers.  Then in July 1904 he set sail for South Africa.  At the age of nearly 37 he had been given his first parish and was to be Rector of Woodstock, Cape Town.

In January 1906, Patrick Dott and Annabel Hall were married in South Africa.

Very many thanks to Catherine Brown for the photograph

Next:  5. Annabel & Patrick Dott in South Africa: from 1906 to 1909