Rev C R Stewart
Priest-in-Charge 1905-1906

Charles Robert Stewart was born in Folkestone, Kent in 1879. By 1901, after Clifton College in Bristol,  he was studying at Ely Theological College and Selwyn College, Cambridge where he earned a MA. He was ordained at Farnham as a Deacon in 1902 for his post as a assistant curate in Basingstoke, serving alongside Revs L C Hamerton and A H Thorold under Rev Cooper Smith, the Basingstoke Parish Vicar at the time. Stewart was priested in December 1903. Electoral Registers for 1904 and 1906 show that Charles Robert Stewart rented "two rooms ground and first floors furnished" for 7s (35p) per week in Vyne Road from a Mrs Bowerman of the same address. 

There are several mentions of Rev Stewart in local papers during his time in Basingstoke, not only recording his participation in church services, weddings and funerals, but also his presiding at a meeting of the St Michael's Cricket Club in 1903. In September 1904, a Hampshire Observer report of a meeting of the Borough Council records that "The Town Clerk also read a letter from the Rev C R Stewart, correspondent and manager of St John's Schools, giving notice of the proposed enlargement of the schools ..." A Hampshire Observer article in October 1907 described a special service held in St Michael's Church to  celebrate the jubilee of the Oakley Lodge of Freemasons "... Rev C R Stewart, who is a Mason, officiating." 

At the start of March 1908 it was announced that Rev C R Stewart would be leaving Basingstoke to become senior curate at St Clement's,  Bournemouth in the following month. A subsequent newspaper announcement appeared later in March reporting that a marriage had been arranged between Rev C R Stewart and Miss Ella Stradling-Carne. Ella Damasyn Stradling-Carne was the daughter of the late late John Whitlock Nicholl Stradling Carne, a Welsh landowner, magistrate and barrister, and his second wife, Mary Salusbury Crump. The Carne family owned St Donats Castle in Glamorgan (the medieval edifice was later acquired by William Randolph Hearst). The marriage of Charles and Ella took place at All Saints' Church,  Saint Marylebone, London on April 27th 1909, and was solemnised by Rev H Cooper Smith with the address given by Rev H W Boustead (the Parish Vicars of Basingstoke at the start and end respectively of Rev Stewart's curacy there). The groom's nest man was Mr R F Truscott, nephew of the then Lord Mayor of London (Sir John Knill).

By 1913, Rev Charles Robert had become Vicar of St Clement's, a position he held until 1935. He had become, in length of service at the time, Bournemouth's senior incumbent - as reported in the Hampshire Advertiser.  The same report also notes that Rev Stewart was a prominent Freemason and had been Master of the Boscombe Lodge. He took up his new role as Vicar of Fordingbridge and Ibsley in July 1935 and remained there until his death in 1944.