Percy Drax

Percy Drax, the vicar of St Thomas’s parish, governs access to the church and its graveyard where Randolph Henry Ash is buried. His insistence that the church is a place of worship rather than an Ash shrine places him in opposition to the scholars and admirers who seek access to Ash’s memorial objects; when Mortimer Cropper’s interest turns toward the grave itself, Drax is identified as a possible person to alert, though not a dependable ally.

Office and setting

Drax is the Reverend Percy Drax, vicar of a group of three parishes that includes St Thomas’s. The small church is ordinarily kept locked against vandals, and its churchyard is enclosed by crumbling iron railings. A notice at the entrance records the parish arrangements: Holy Eucharist and Morning Prayer are held there on the first Sunday of each month, and Evensong on the last. This setting makes Drax’s authority concrete: the church is not simply a landmark for Ash’s admirers but an active religious space under parish care.

Dispute over Ash’s memorial objects

The Schenectady Poetry Fellowship had given the church an inkwell Ash used on his American tour, along with books he signed for American admirers and a photograph pasted into them. The fellowship also supplied a glass case for displaying these objects. Drax placed the case in an obscure corner and covered it with a dusty baize pall, leaving no external sign to alert casual visitors to its contents. Hildebrand Ash notes that visitors cannot get into the locked church in the first place, underscoring how little practical access the display offers.

Cropper resents Drax’s resistance to Ash scholars who ask for the church keys to pay their respects. Drax has written to him that the church is God’s house, not Randolph Henry Ash’s mausoleum; Cropper considers those purposes compatible. The exchange marks a dispute not only over access, but over what the church’s obligations are: a sacred building in parish use, or a place that should accommodate a poet’s scholarly afterlife.

Refusal and the graveyard conflict

Cropper says he has offered Drax substantial donations, including in exchange for the loan of the church’s objects. The books are already represented in the Stant Collection, but the inkwell is unique. Drax refuses to make the objects available, citing the terms of the original gift and showing no interest in changing them. Cropper describes him as surly, but the account also establishes that the refusal is grounded in the conditions under which the objects were given, not merely in personal antagonism.

When James Blackadder considers how to prevent Cropper from disturbing Ash’s grave, he proposes alerting Drax, while conceding that this may be of little use: Drax hates Ash scholars and poetic visitors. His role thus sharpens the irony of the impending conflict. He has defended the boundary between church and literary memorial, yet that hostility makes him an uncertain safeguard when the grave itself may be threatened.