So wrote two observers of the clergy, one a Norfolk woman and the other the daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman. To these opinions can be added that of Armstrong:

Who were the Norfolk clergy?

Aged 33 when he was appointed to Dereham, Armstrong was one of a large group of young men entering the ministry at the time. Reporting in 1835 on the age of the clergy, the Ecclesiastical Commission noted that while the largest number of incumbents in the Norwich diocese (fifty) were in the age group 60–65, there was also a significant group of younger men, with forty-five being under 30 and forty-three being between 31 and 35. The years 1800–30 saw a huge expansion of Oxford and Cambridge universities, creating a pool of potential graduate clergymen and producing throughout Victoria's reign about 600 ordinands a year. As a result, nationally by 1840 the majority of parsons were aged under 45. For the first time since the Reformation the church was served by a majority of young and enthusiastic clergy. To quote Charlotte Brontë describing in the first paragraph of Shirley the situation in the 1840s, ‘They [the curates] are young enough to be very active and ought to be doing a great deal of good.’ By the 1850s the profession was therefore predominantly a young one.