Rector of Headley 1872–1928
The Rev. Wallis Hay Laverty was, like many of his predecessors, a Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford. He was one of the University's leading mathematicians, and a distinguished career in this branch of learning seemed assured to him. But he fell in love, and as all Fellows at that period had to be bachelors (there being no married quarters in College), another position had to be found for him. Fortunately, the living of Headley was then of some value, and so in 1872 he became Rector and his almost historic incumbency did not end till he died in harness in 1928.
We have transcribed his notebooks here
Someone who came to Headley soon after his death sends a few notes about this exceptional man...
This brilliant young mathematical Fellow of Queen's wanted to get married when it was not permitted, and therefore decided to be ordained. He had no vocation in the ordinary sense, but he was intensely conscientious. The village could set their clocks by him, setting out to visit on his bicycle at 2pm, or maybe 2.30, and he visited every house in the parish twice a year. The visits were brief ones and he often left tracts about such things as sleeping with open windows etc. He could not face sick visits, and used to send the daughters to visit the sick with baskets of eggs and more tracts.
No Bishop was allowed in the church and no churchwarden in the vestry! The Rector pocketed the collections and paid all the bills, and such was the esteem in which he was held that no one had any doubt but that he was out of pocket.
A photograph in one of the parish registers shows him as a small man who normally wore a knickerbocker suit and a black or speckled straw hat, and, at any rate in his later years, a grey beard.
In eleven volumes of notebooks which Mr. Laverty left containing short biographies of his parishioners, there are many instances of the practical help which he gave to those who had met with misfortune.
These notebooks are now in the Surrey History Centre, Woking (Headley being in the Diocese of Guildford, Surrey) and are available for inspection there - Ref: PSH/HED/24/1-11.
See the notebook he kept from 1872 in which he tried to understand the documents relating to the foundation of the Holme School, organised the expansion of the school to include an Infants Room, and started an Education Council in the parish.