Bangor University DOCTOR of PHILOSOPHY Henry Parry Liddon : Correspondence on Church and Faith. Orford, Barry Antony
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Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Henry Parry Liddon : correspondence on church and faith. Orford, Barry Antony Award date: 2000 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 23. Sep. 2021 Henry Parry Liddon: Correspondence on Church and Faith Barry Antony Orford PhD University of Wales, Bangor, 2000 IIW DDEFt~\/DDIO YN Y LLYFRGELL YN UN'G TO EE CONSULTED IN THE LIBRARY ONLY Summary Henry Parry Liddon (1829-90) was one of the outstanding British Anglican Churchmen in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. His greatest contemporary fame was as a preacher, notably in St Paul's Cathedral, but he was also a learned theologian and a distinguished Bampton Lecturer. He was the close friend and biographer of the famous Tractarian leader, E. B. Pusey, as well as being acquainted with most of the leading religious and political figures of his day. However, since Liddon's death little attention has been paid to him. This biographical study examines certain aspects of Liddon's life and career through the medium of his correspondence, the greater part of which has been ignored by scholars. The core material is his letters written over a twenty-six years period to his friend Charles Lindley Wood (1839-1934), Second Viscount Halifax and influential High Church layman. This is supplemented by quotation from letters of Lid~on's to other correspondents, notably those written to the Revd Reginald Porter which are used in Chapter 2 to provide contrast with the letters quoted in the bulk of the thesis. Considerable use is also made of Liddon's private diaries. An introductory chapter sketches Liddon's life and background. The succeeding chapters explore through Liddon's correspondence his approach to theological matters, his attitude to the state of the Church of England in general and his views on that Church's leaders. Particular attention is paid to his opinions on, and participation in, the controversies surrounding the Athanasian Creed, the disestablishment of the Irish Church and attempts to refonn its Prayer Book, and the issue of Ritualism. This last mentioned subject involves examination of the Public Worship Regulation Act and the prosecutions of clergy which followed it. A concluding chapter assesses Liddon as a man, and also his place in the Victorian Church. The study is an original work based on primary sources, many of which have not previously been examined or utilised by writers on the Church of England in the Victorian era. Contents Acknow ledgements. Pages i-iii Abbreviations. Pageiv Chapter 1 Introduction. Page 1 Chapter 2 "My dear Porter". Page 9 Chapter 3 The Athanasian Creed. Page 27 Chapter 4 Liddon and the Irish Church. Page 44 Chapter 5 Liddon and Ritualism. Page 75 Chapter 6 The Purchas Judgment. Page 92 Chapter 7 The Public Worship Regulation Act Page 107 Chapter 8 The Aftermath. Page 119 Chapter 9 The Persecutions. Page 134 Chapter 10 Further Persecutions. Page 143 Chapter 11 Final Ritual Cases. Page 157 Chapter 12 Conclusion. Page 188 Bibliography Page 207 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I must thank my supervisor, the Revd Prof A. M. Allchin, for the help and guidance he has given me during the preparation of this thesis. Many times he has called my attention to points I should otherwise have missed, as well as questioning my ill-founded assumptions and theories and constantly urging me to take a wider view. His own enthusiasm for the Tractarians and their successors has helped to keep my own interest alive and fresh. I should state, however, that the views expressed in this study are my own. I am deeply grateful to the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Wales, Bangor, and Prof Gareth Lloyd Jones for allowing me to pursue my studies in the Department as a mature student. I must record my thanks to the Revd Brian Mastin and Dr Densil Morgan for advice and assistance. I am grateful to the following for allowing me access to manuscript material: The Marquess of Salisbury for permission to use the letters of Liddon to the Third Marquess and his wife; and to Mr Robin Harcourt Williams, Librarian at Hatfield House, for making them available to me. The staff of the Borthwick Institute, York, for their helpfulness during my work on the Halifax Papers. The staff of Lambeth Palace Library. The Principal, Librarian and Archivist of Pusey House, Oxford, for enabling me to reside at the House in order to study the Liddon and Pusey Papers, as well as the many other documents in their keeping. Mrs Marjory Szurko, Librarian of Keble College, Oxford. Mr John Davies, Assistant Librarian at Ripon College Cuddesdon. 11 Ms Nancy Watkins, Assistant Curator of Archives and Manuscripts, Pitts Theological Library. Emory University, USA, for sending me photocopies of six letters written by Liddon. The Revd H. E. J. Cowdrey, Acting Archivist of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, for answering my queries concerning material relating to Liddon. The Dean and Chapter Library, Durham. I am one of the considerable number of Victorian Church students indebted to St Deiniol' s Library, Hawarden, which houses a magnificent collection of books and pamphlets not readily available elsewhere. To the Warden, the Revd Peter Francis, who made my repeated stays there possible, and to the Librarian, Miss Patsy Williams, I offer my deep thanks. Those who are able to live and study in the supportive and friendly atmosphere of St Deiniol's are blessed indeed. Nor must I omit to praise the shade of William Ewart Gladstone, whose generosity and imagination brought the Library into existence. The research necessary for this study would have been impossible without generous financial support from the following: The Cleaver Trusts. The Isla Johnston Trust. The Liddon Trust. The St Luke's College Foundation, Exeter. The St George's Trust. The Pershore, Nashdom and Elmore Trust. The University of Wales, Bangor. All research students know the problems of obtaining funding for their work. The above listing of those who have assisted me conceals a gratitude which I would find hard to put into words. Mr A. J. M. Bray, Mrs K. Barker, Miss C. Johnson and Miss A. Sillett very kindly offered me hospitality during my travels to examine Liddon material. They and other good friends nobly endured my interest in a Victorian clergyman. 111 Finally, I must express my gratitude to my friend Richard Golding for providing me with a home, for the use (very inexpert on my part) of his word processor, and for his company. His own historical expertise was both a stimulus and a rebuke to me. Without his encouragement (and occasional reprimand) I doubt that I should have found the confidence to embark on this study or the will to complete it. IV ABBREVIA TIONS Diaries Diaries of H. P. Liddon, Pusey House Mss., Oxford. Halifax Correspondence of H. P. Liddon and Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, Borthwick Institute, York, Halifax Papers, A4.210. Ham. Papers of Walter Kerr Hamilton, Pusey House, Oxford. Johnston J. O. Johnston: Life and Letters of Henry Parry Liddon D.D., D. c.L., LL.D (London, 1904). LBV Liddon Bound Volumes, Pusey House, Oxford. LP Letters of H. P. Liddon to E. B. Pusey, Pusey House Mss., Oxford. Lockhart J. G. Lockhart: Charles Lindley Viscount Halifax, Part I, 1839-85 (London, 1935); Part II, 1885-1934 (London, 1936). PL Letters of E. B. Pusey to H. P. Liddon, Pusey House Mss., Oxford. Pusey H. P. Liddon: Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, 2nd Ed. (4 vols., London, 1893-7). Tait R. T. Davidson-W. Benham: Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, 3rd Ed., (2 vols., London, 1891). 1 1. Introduction This study is primarily an exerCIse m narrative history. Its purpose is to restore to wider awareness a figure from the Nineteenth Century who has been largely ignored by historians of the Church of England writing this century. Its method is to examine, and excerpt from, a correspondence continued over nearly thirty years, which in its tum has been almost wholly ignored or simply unknown. It aims to add a piece to the jigsaw of Victorian Anglicanism. The subject of this work is Henry Parry Liddon (1829-90). Today's scholars remember him, if at all, as the author of the four-volume biography of the notable Tractarian, Edward Bouvelie Pusey, an undertaking of such scope that only recently has its portrait of its subject been seriously challenged. 1 Yet in his day Liddon was an important figure in Church of England affairs - a learned (though unoriginal) theologian, and the author of a distinguished series of 2 Bampton Lectures ; a powerful controversialist, and by general consent one of the greatest preachers of his age. He was a major figure in the group of "second generation" Tractarians which included such people as Richard Church, William Bright and Edward King, all of whom will be encountered in this study.