Renn Dickson Hampden, Bishop of Hereford

Renn Dickson Hampden 
by Henry William Pickersgill

Renn Dickson Hampden was born in Barbados on 29 March 1789.  He was sent to school in England in 1798, entering Oriel College, Oxford in May 1810, where he was a friend of Thomas Arnold and Richard Whately.  He graduated BA in 1814 and MA in 1816.  He was elected a Fellow of Oriel in 1814 - among his colleagues were Keble, Newman and Pusey, later the leaders of the Oxford Movement.

On 24 April 1816 he married Mary Lovell of Bath and, as was required at the time, resigned his fellowship.  He was ordained on 22 December 1816 and became curate of Newton, near Bath.  He was then  successively curate of Blagdon, of Faringdon, of Hungerford, and of Hackney.  He remained a scholar and in 1827 published Essays on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity.

He was elected Bampton lecturer at Oxford in 1832, and appointed a tutor at Oriel.  In April 1833 he was nominated principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford, by the prime minister and was made Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University in 1834.   In the same year, Hampden's Bampton Lectures were published as The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to Christian Theology.  These proved controversial.

John Henry Newman c.1841

When in 1836 he was offered the Regius Professorship of Theology (which is attached to a canonry of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford), Hampden was attacked by high churchmen on the grounds that the lectures were unorthodox.  In particular they objected to the statement that the authority of the scriptures and of reason was of greater weight than the authority of the church.  John Henry Newman published  Elucidations of Dr Hampden's Theological Statements and the case became the first measure of the Tractarians' influence at Oxford.  The heads of Oxford houses were persuaded to condemn the lectures.   Hampden offered to withdraw from the appointment, but the prime minister Lord Melbourne insisted he take it, and he did so in October 1836. However, in March 1837, a motion was proposed convocation for the exclusion of the regius professor from his place on the board that chose select preachers for the university.  The exclusion was carried, but the proctors exercised their right of veto. The proposal was again brought forward in May, and a change of proctors having in the meantime taken place, it was carried.

Hampden's appointment was subject of bitter controversy, and, in true ecclesiastical and university fashion, many books and pamphlets were issued by the parties to the discussion.

John Merewether, Dean of Hereford

In 1847 Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, offered Hampden the see of Hereford.  Russell was fanatically opposed to the 'Romanizing tendencies' of the Oxford Movement, and Hampden's best qualification in his eyes was probably that they had opposed him so violently.

Yet it was not only the extreme High Church party which objected to Hampden.  Thirteen diocesan bishops presented an address of remonstrance to Russell and John Merewether, the Dean of Hereford, wrote to him that he would vote against Hampden's election when the Queen's congé d'elire was presented.  Russell famously replied:  'Sir, I have had the honour to receive your letter of the 23rd instant, in which you intimate to me your intention of violating the law.'  Hampden was elected bishop on 28 December, the dean and a canon voting against him; Merewether refused to affix the chapter seal.

The Dictionary of National Biography continues:

At the confirmation in Bow Church on 11 Jan. 1848, when the custom of citing opposers was followed, three persons appeared by their proctors as opposers, but Dr. Lushington [the Dean of Arches - a judge of the Province of Canterbury] gave judgment that the opposers had no right to appear. These persons then made an application to the court of queen's bench for a mandamus to force the Archbishop of Canterbury to listen to them. A rule having been obtained, on 24 Jan. the attorney-general began the argument, and on 1 Feb. judgment was given against the issuing of the mandamus.

This question of the bishopric again gave rise to a paper war, and upwards of thirty works on the matter issued from the press. 

Hampden was finally consecrated as bishop in Lambeth Palace Chapel on 26 March 1848.  After all the fuss, his episcopate was undistinguished.  The Encyclopædia Britannica summed it up as follows:  'As bishop of Hereford Dr Hampden made no change in his long-formed habits of studious seclusion, and though he showed no special ecclesiastical activity or zeal, the diocese certainly prospered in his charge'.

Bishop of Hereford, 1860s

R D Hampden died in office on 23 April 1865 and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

The Very Revd Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster

Back in November when I profiled Bishop Stanley of Norwich and his family, I promised to blog separately on his son, Dean Stanley.  Here were go...

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was born on 13 December 1815 at Alderley rectory in Cheshire where his father Edward was then rector (he later became Bishop of Norwich). His mother was Catherine Leycester, daughter of another clergyman. Arthur was educated at Rugby School, where he came under the influence of the headmaster Thomas Arnold, and is supposed to have influenced the character George Arthur in Tom Brown's Schooldays.

Stanley photographed in the 1850s by
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)

He went up to Balliol College in 1834, where he was a contemporary of Benjamin Jowett, and in 1839 was elected a Fellow of University College.  He was ordained the same year.  He was an opponent of the Tractarians, then at the height of their powers in Oxford, and took a position in support of the liberal RD Hampden in the controversy that followed his appointment as Regius Professor of Divinity and, later, Bishop of Hereford.  However, he argued in Convocation against the condemnation of Tract XC, and was seen a the leader of the Broad Church movement following Arnold's death in  1842.  He published a best-selling biography of Arnold in  1844.

He was appointed secretary of the Royal Commission on University Reform in 1850, where he came to the attention of the Prince Consort, and a Canon of Canterbury Cathedral in 1851.  In 1852 Stanley travelled to Egypt and Palestine, and produced a popular account of his observations, Sinai and Palestine in Connection with Their History.  In 1862 he was chosen to accompany the Prince of Wales on his tour of the Holy Land.  He remained interested in the historical and archaeological study of the area, and in 1865 was one of the founders of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

In 1856 he was appointed Regius Professor of Ecclesiatical History at Oxford, which came with a canonry of Christ Church.  In this role he continued to further his erastian views - that the State had every right, and the duty, to legislate on matters of Church doctrine and discipline.

Lady Augusta Stanley

On 22 December 1863 in Westminster Abbey he married Lady Augusta Bruce, daughter of the 7th Earl of Elgin (the one who sold the Parthanon Marbles to the British Government) and sister of the Viceroy of Egypt.  As a woman of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria, she was an intimate of the queen, and Stanley's position was further established.

Stanley's name was put forward for the vacant Archbishopric of Dublin, but his views were not acceptable to a conservative church on the brink of disestablishment, so RC Trench, Dean of Westminister was appointed instead. Stanley took Trench's places, and in January 1864 was installed at Westminster.  Here, at the centre of the establishment, Stanley's influence on public life reached a peak.  He tried to make the Abbey a national shrine for all, irrespective of creed. In doing so, he caused some controversy, such as when he invited all the scholars who had produced the Revisised Version of the Bible, including a Unitarian, to receive Communion in the Abbey

Lady Augusta died in 1876 after an illness lasting several years. Stanley died at Westminster on 18 July 1881 and was buried with his wife. They had no children.

Dean Stanley's tomb in Westminster Abbey

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury

William Temple, 98th Archbishop of Canterbury

 

Archbishop Frederick Temple

William Temple was born on 15 October 1881 at The Palace, Exeter, residence of his father Frederick Temple (1821-1902), then Bishop of Exeter (and himself later Archbishop of Canterbury).  He was educated at Rugby (where his father had been headmaster) and Balliol College, Oxford.  At Oxford he was President of the Union and showed an interest in social issues by working at the university settlements in Bethnal Green and Bermondsey.

On graduating, he took a post as Fellow of Queen's College where he became involved in the Workers' Education Association (founded by the great Christian Socialist FD Maurice), being it's president from 1908 to 1924, and the Student Christian Movement.  He was ordained in 1909 by Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (after the Bishop of Oxford demurred because of Temple's views on the Virgin Birth).  He was headmaster of Repton School from 1910 to 1914.  In 1915 he was appointed an honorary chaplain to the King and in 1916 he married Frances Gertrude Acland.  He was a secretary of the mid-war National Mission of Repentance and Hope and a leader of the Life and Liberty Movement, an unofficial body designed to stimulate change in the governance of the Church of England.

He was appointed a Canon of Westminster in 1919, and in 1920, Lloyd-George nominated him Bishop of Manchester (which gave him a seat in the House of Lords in 1925).  Here he became involved in the ecumenical movement and attended the Faith and Order Conference at Lausanne in 1927 and was chair of the Conference in Edinburgh in 1937 - he was later to be instrumental in founding the British Council of Churches and eventually the World Council of Churches.  In 1929 he was enthroned as  Archbishop of York.

A member of the Labour Party from 1918 to 1925, he was one of the leading voices of social Christianity in England - he led the Oxford Conference on Church and State in 1937 and the Malvern Conference of 1941, in 1932 he was chosen to preach at the opening of the Geneva Conference on disarmament.  His most influential work was his 1942 book Christianity and the Social Order.

In 1942 he became the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury. Before his early death in 1944, Temple did much as one of the moral leaders of the country in wartime, though his did, of course, court controversy with those who prefer the church not to stray into the political arena.  He spoke in favour of reform of the banking system and was one of the movers behind the Education Act of 1944 and the establishment of the Welfare State.  He spoke out against antisemitism and was a founder of the Council of Christians and Jews.

He died at Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, on 26 October 1944.  He is regarded by his admirers as one of the greatest leaders of the Church of England.

Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich

Edward Stanley, was born in London on 1 January 1779, the second son and seventh child of Sir John Thomas Stanley, sixth baronet, of Alderley Park, Cheshire, and  his wife Margaret Owen (a Welsh heiress).  His elder brother, John Thomas, was first Baron Stanley of Alderley, and father of Edward John Stanley, second Baron Stanley and first Baron Eddisbury.

Edward's initial hopes were to enter the Royal Navy, but his family refused to allow that.  Accordingly, he was educated at St John's College, Cambridge and ordained in 1802.  In 1805 the family patronage was used to appoint him Rector of Alderley, a post he held until his appointment as Bishop of Norwich in 1837.  Here he took a great interest in the schools in his parish and the Church's social role: founding temperance societies, mechanics' institutes, and statistical societies.

He was an active naturalist, publishing A Familiar History of Birds, their Nature, Habits, and Instincts in 1836 and studied geology.  He was elected an Fellow of the Royal Society and President of the Linnean Society.

Norwich Cathedral

In 1837 he was nominated by Lord Melbourne to the Bishopric of Norwich, vacant by the death of the notoriously indolent Bishop Bathurst.  Here he proved himself an energetic bishop in the new Victorian mold - plurality was clamped down on and ecclesiastical discipline enforced.  He had 173 new parsonages built, doubled the number of schools and rendered them more efficient. The examinations for ordination were carefully conducted, and Stanley made himself personally acquainted with the previous career of every candidate.

He was a frequent attendee of the House of Lords, frequently speaking in support of Whig policies, such as Catholic relief, toleration of dissenters and, notably, the ragged school movement.  His political liberalism put him at odds with his diocese, but he was held in high personal regard.


In August 1849 he started for a tour in Scotland with his wife and daughters. At Brahan Castle in Rosshire he was taken ill, anddied from congestion of the brain on 6 September 1849.  His body was brought by sea from Invergordon to Yarmouth, and was buried in the nave of Norwich Cathedral, which also has a fine window in his memory.  The last time I saw it, his memorial was hidden by stackable chairs and the debris of modern worship.

Family

Stanley married Catherine (1792-1862), eldest daughter of the Revd Oswald Leycester in 1810.  They had had five children; Owen, Mary, Arthur, Charles and Catherine, each one of whom is of interest in their own right.

HMS Terror in the ice, by Owen Stanley

Owen Stanley (1811-1850) was an officer in the Royal Navy and noted explorer.  He spent four years as a midshipman surveying South America, 1826-30, and was a Lieutenant on HMS Terror, during its 1836-37 expedition to the northern part of Hudson Bay. The ship barely survived the winter, at one point being forced 40 ft up the side of a cliff by the ice. In the spring of 1837 an encounter with an iceberg further damaged the ship, which was in a sinking condition by the time the captain was able to beach the ship on the coast of Ireland at Logh Swilly.

In 1846 Owen sailed for Australia as captain of HMS Rattlesnake, with the purpose of surveying the seas around the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait.  Junior naturalist on the ship was T.H. Huxley, soon to be known as 'Darwin's Bulldog'.  The bishop, as President of the Linnaean Society, was instrumental in having Huxley's early papers published. Owen would send cases of bird and shell specimens back home, where the family would assemble in the front hall of the palace to open the treasure chest, and would marvel at a little oppossum in a bottle. Owen died on his ship in 1850 and was buried in Sydney.

Mary Stanley (1813-1879) worked to support poor women.  She had a home in Norwich for factory girls and trained them in the production of lace.  In 1854, she went to the Crimea in charge of fifty nurses under Florence Nightingale.   In 1856 she converted to Catholicism, in the second wave of 'Puseyite perversions'.  She worked closely with Henry Edward Manning, continued with her philanthropic work, establishing savings clubs, an industrial laundry and creating employment for soldiers' wives in the production of army uniforms. During the Lancashire 'cotton famine' of 1861she helped Mrs Gaskell distribe aid to the unemployed weavers.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881) became Dean of Westminster, and will almost certainly earn a 'Dead Bishops' blog entry of his own.

Charles joined the Royal Engineers, and was stationed at Hobart, Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land). He died suddenly in 1849 from gastroenteritis - he, his father and his brother Owen all died within eight months of each other.

Catherine Maria married the Revd Charles John Vaugham, headmaster of Harrow School and Dean of Llandaff. She died in 1899.

Beardies Speak Out

Wizzard

This afternoon I was able to catch up with reading the Saturday newspapers.

The Daily Telegraph carried interviews with two giants of our time.  Have a look - they're worth reading.

Terry Practchett interview

Rowan Williams interview

Archbishop

Alan Brunskill Webster

Listening to a radio programme on the expulsion of Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin has reminded me of some work I did on Alan Webster (1918-2007), Dean of Norwich (1970-1978) and Dean of St Paul's (1978-1987).  While some cities were taking out adverts telling the Asians not to settle there, Webster (then Dean of Norwich) set aside a house in The Close in order to welcome refugee families - one of Webster's sayings was that The Close should be renamed 'The Open'.

Alan Brunskill Webster was born on 1 July 1918 in Wrenbury, Cheshire, son of the Rev J. Webster. He attended Shrewsbury School and studied Modern History at Queen's College, Oxford (BA, 1939 and MA, 1943). He subsequently entered the theological college Westcott House, Cambridge, where he came under the influence of the principal, B.K. Cunningham and Launcelot Fleming. He was awarded a BD in 1954 and an honorary DD by City University in 1983.

Webster was ordained deacon in 1942, serving his curacy in Sheffield parishes, and priest in 1943. He remained in Sheffield until 1946, where he was influenced by Bishop Leslie Hunter and Alan Ecclestone and their vision for the Church of England to be 'loved into new life so that it could be once again the moral and spiritual centre of the whole community' [Times obituary].

From 1946 to 1953, Webster was chaplain and vice principal of Westcott House, where his students included the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. In 1951, he married Margaret C.F. Falconer, who was working in the study department of the SCM. He was the first member of the Westcott staff to marry and have children. He introduced a more liberal approach to married students and their needs. He left Westcott in 1953, becoming vicar of Barnard Castle in the Diocese of Durham (the bishop at the time being Michael Ramsey). Runcie succeeded him as vice principal of Westcott.

In 1959 Webster became warden of Lincoln Theological College, where he initiated Anglican-Methodist dialogue, introduced women students and arranged for lectures by Roman Catholic theologians. From 1964 to 1970 he was a canon and prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.

Norwich Cathedral

In 1970 he was appointed Dean of Norwich, initially working alongside Bishop Launcelot Fleming, but from 1971 with Bishop Maurice Wood, a conservative evangelical with whom Webster was sometimes at odds. Webster's vision for a cathedral community was to be an inclusive centre for city and diocesan life. While at Norwich he put into effect many of his social teachings, establishing a night shelter for the homeless, housing refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda in The Close and supporting clergy expelled from Apartheid-era South Africa. Webster also developed a personal devotion for Dame Julian of Norwich, one very much in keeping with his views on women's rights and on the necessity for the ordination of women.

In 1978 Webster became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral. His tenure there, until 1987, coincided with the height of the social campaigns by the liberal wing of the Church of England and the crisis of church/state relations brought about by opposition to policies of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government. Webster

Runcie and Thatcher

was involved with anti-Apartheid campaigns, issues relating to social exclusion and the implementation of the Faith in the City report (published in 1986).  Perhaps the most direct point of conflict between church and state came with the service held at St Paul's to commemorate the end of the Falklands War at which Runcie (now Archbishop of Canterbury) preached a conciliatory sermon. Webster was adamant that this should not be a victory celebration and suggested several elements to emphasise this, including the recital of the Lord's Prayer in Spanish. One Conservative MP commented that 'it is wrong for cringing clergy to misuse St Paul's to throw doubt upon the sacrifices of our fighting men'.

Within the church itself, Webster had become a leading advocate of the ordination of women to the priesthood. In this, he worked closely with his wife, Margaret, who was executive secretary of the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) from 1979 to 1986. In 1982 Webster earned the rebuke of Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, for hosting a eucharist irregularly celebrated by Elizabeth Canham, an English woman ordained in the United States.

Webster was a member of the Crown Appointments Commission, the perceived liberal bias of which was a factor in the 'Crockford's Controversy', seen as severely damaging Robert Runcie's leadership. Webster's own view was that the presence of the Prime Minister's patronage secretary put more radical candidates at a disadvantage.

Webster's activities did little to endear him to a divided chapter at St Paul's. In 1984 an unsuccessful attempt was made to force his retirement. When Webster did retire, he was not appointed Dean Emeritus of St Paul's until after the tenure of Bishop Graham and his equally conservative successor, Bishop Hope.

In 1988 he was appointed KCVO by the Queen and retired to Norfolk. He died in Cley on 3 September 2007.

Independent obit, 5 Sep 2007 
Daily Telegraph obit, 6 Sep 2007
Guardian obit, 11 Sep 2007