Researching Reverend De Quincey proved difficult until I found that he was actually born Arnold De Quincey Mears at Hartlepool in 1894 the son of Edward Mears a clergyman and Mary Florence Quincey. The fact that all his brothers also bore the middle name De Quincey would seem to be an attempt to gain status by linking the family with the De Quincey family Earls of Winchester through their mother’s family. Sometime in the early 1930 Arnold dropped the surname Mears and thenceforth called himself Arnold De Quincey.

It is interesting that the writer Thomas De Quincey (1785 – 1859) similarly changed his name being born plain Quincey and changing it to De Quincey.

Arnold studied at Hatfield College Durham and Lichfield Theological College being ordained in York in 1933 however before this he served in the East Kent Regiment as a second lieutenant from 1917 to 1919 in the First World War, he lost one brother in the war, another two going on to also serve in the clergy. He then embarked on a boat to Kobe Japan where he was to work as a teacher throughout the 1920s, he must have returned at least once during this time as he married Ann Read at Tufnell Park in 1926.

He returned to England via Canada to stay in 1931. Starting his career in the church he served as a curate in Middlesbrough in 1933 and then Pocklington before moving to Perranuthnoe Cornwell from 1936 to 1944 when as we have seen he exchanged livings with Reverend Richards and came to Stowupland. His father had been vicar of Great Bardfield Essex so its possible he still had family there so he may have moved to be closer to them. He served in Stowupland until 1965 when aged 70 he took the curacy of Alcester Warwickshire dying the following year in Stratford-on-Avon hospital.