Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonas Pilling


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Doczilla Ohhhhhh, no! 04:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Jonas Pilling

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

The justification for this subject having an article is the long-running dispute between him and his parishioners, which did attract some attention from local press at the time, but it seems that much of this content could simply be rolled into the article on St Mark's Church, Huddersfield, where he was the vicar for a number of years. It is not clear to me why Pilling himself needs an article of his own. Leonstojka (talk) 01:14, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Christianity and England.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  04:14, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep. The substance of the article is bigger than Pilling himself, but he is the vehicle for the publication of that substance, because he was the subject of the event concerned. For whatever reason, he was unable to fulfil his task as a vicar in one of the most terribly deprived areas of England at the time. When the Bishop did not appear to be doing anything about this tragedy for the local poor, the local newspaper said sadly that there was much work to do (for the poor and deprived). The fact is, the Bishop left it far too long before resolving the issue for the local congregation. To understand what happened, we need the full story (as far as we can know it) of Pilling. We cannot surmise, speculate or give opinion, but what we can do is give all the facts and give the reader a chance to get a full idea of what happened. In order to give all the facts, we need the full article on Pilling. To  put the whole Pilling article into the church article would be to overwhelm the latter. Besides all that, the Pilling article is in itself an interesting study on how the Anglican church dealt (or didn't deal at all) with inadequate and/or suffering priests. In this case at least, the Bishop just let it be.


 * Since the severe problems began in 1905, we cannot blame the interruption of World War I for the bishop's lack of action. We cannot know why the bishop behaved like that, or exactly why Pilling behaved like that, but as the article stands, we can at least look at the facts. And the facts are important for the history of Huddersfield, for the history of the church, for the history of Anglican priests, and for the history of Pilling himself. Not all Wikipedia articles have to be about heroes and success stories. Sometimes we can learn from the mistakes of the past. One thing for sure: we should not shut our eyes to what happened in Huddersfield in Pilling's time, and nor should we actively try to minimise its importance by deleting the article and shrinking it to fit into a dusty corner of another article.. Storye book (talk) 09:21, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep I think some attention from local press understates it a bit. This unusual dispute received coverage in papers across the UK over a period of years - e.g. the article quotes reports in the Aberdeen Journal and The Cornishman, which certainly aren't local to Huddersfield. Merging it into the article about the church itself would make that article rather long and unbalanced. Adam Sampson (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep - Pretty clearly a historical figure of some note amongst his contemporaries of 100 years ago. Passes GNG. Carrite (talk) 16:48, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep per the drama described above. Hyperbolick (talk) 07:07, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete - outside of the drama of the dispute between him and parishioners, which seems rather something of a tempest in a teacup, this is a mere footnote in the history of the church. The entire, laborious history is not notable enough to recount beyond the existing paragraph in the church's article (which could be expanded slightly if necessary). Outside of that dispute, he does not seem notable at all. WmLawson (talk) 00:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It is not a "tempest in a teacup", since this church scandal lasted between 1905 and 1921, with World War I in the middle, when the poor and deprived of the area really needed church charity. At that time, vicars were in charge of the charity given by individual churches, and for many hundreds of years, England and then the United Kingdom depended primarily on the Roman Catholic Church and then the Anglican Church for charity and welfare. Apart from the religious tradition of helping the poor, the local rich people felt beholden to the church for various reasons, so that the church could ask them for money to help the poor. During Pilling's employment in that Huddersfield position, that need for the church to help the poor still pertained. Because that was one of the poorest and most deprived areas of the country, Pilling's failure would have been disastrous. If the church did not help destitute people, then destitute people died - and that situation continued in that area of Huddersfield for over fifteen years, while the church authorities looked on and did nothing, in spite of newspaper comments and public knowledge across the country.
 * Because this is a biography of Pilling, we can give the full facts of him and his life. Without that, and if the story were told from another perspective, his details would have to be curtailed, and he would just look blameworthy, whereas the facts tell us that the case was not that simple. The buck stopped with the bishop.
 * British history is what made us what we are today. Our history, good or bad, is part of our identity. Today, history is a grown-up matter - no longer merely a list of kings and wars for schoolboys to memorise. Today, history includes social history - including the histories of ordinary working people, whose biographies symbolise the lives of all the millions of people who were here before us. Today, history helps us learn from our mistakes, and goodness knows the church needs to learn from its mistakes, where past hiring of the wrong kind of priest is now very much in the limelight. Real history needs to be understood fully in all its aspects. Storye book (talk) 08:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.