Herbert Saves the Day

At [the time I was baptized] the Church was very unpopular in England. The members suffered a lot of persecution. We had been members just a few months when we attended our first conference. The Bristol District covered the area from Bristol on the North to Plymouth and all parts of Devonshire on the South, to Swindon and Gloucester on the East and all towns to the West Coast. The conference had been well advertised. One of the Twelve Apostles was to be in attendance. It was Elder Rudgar Clawson. The Saints gathered to Bristol on that Sunday morning--not too many compared with today. We met in our regular meeting place, Wolseley Hall. It wasn't very large nor very clean, but was the best available.

We had a social on Saturday evening and three meetings on Sunday. Many people were called from the audience to speak, but of course, Elder Clawson was the main speaker. I still remember one thing he said: "Every tub must stand on its own bottom", meaning, every person is responsible for his own salvation.

As the evening session was drawing to a close, we became aware of angry voices in the street outside. A mob was gathering and soon they began throwing rocks and mud through the transoms. President Clawson gave the closing prayer and especially asked for the Lord's protection over all of us. He then told us to remain in the hall until it was safe for us to leave. After about a half an hour a knock came on the door and when President Little opened the door there stood two policemen. One of them had become a friend of President Little. He said he was off duty and lived not far from the hall. Hearing the mob, he put on his uniform, called upon one of his neighbors who was also a policeman, and came to help. (The law in England at that time would not protect Mormons). This policeman had a tramcar waiting at the corner (the terminal was close by). With [truncheons] swinging, the police made a lane through the crowd and we walked through to the double-decker tramcar.

Herbert Neal

President Clawson was walking right behind our family. He was wearing a high silk hat and frock-tailed coat and some of the crowd soon spotted him (that was the regular clothes worn by ministers then). They cried out, "There's the d------  Apostle", and the mob closed in around us. My brother Herbert, without thought of what he was doing, snatched the hat from the Apostle's head and put it upon his own head and dived through the crowd. Some of the men gave chase, following the hat through the crowd. Herbert ran for his very life, up one street and down another. He was able to outrun his pursuers and hid in a garden behind some shrubs until the men got tired of looking for him. He came home in the early hours of the morning. The next day, President Clawson came to the house to see if he was all right and to reclaim his hat. He gave Herbert a special blessing. In it he said, "The Lord will spare your life also". This prophecy was fulfilled during the first world war. I remember my feelings that night of the mob coming to our meeting. I wasn't a bit frightened, just proud that I belonged to a Church that was being persecuted for Jesus Christ's sake.

Pictured in this photo are (from left) John Harris Taylor, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, Elder Rudger Clawson, President Grant, Sister Augusta W. Grant, Elder James E. Talmage, and Elder Brigham H. Roberts, president of the Eastern States Mission. September, 1923