Henry Parry Liddon – the Hidden Man. the Title of This Talk Presented Itself. I Was Given the Brief of Speaking About Henry Pa

1 Henry Parry Liddon – the hidden man. The title of this talk presented itself. I was given the brief of speaking about Henry Parry Liddon, the Nineteenth Century Churchman, and specifically about him “as a person - his family life, friendships, leisure activities and so on.” Since my instincts are those of a biographer rather than an historian, the topic had sufficient appeal to make me overcome reluctantly my constitutional dislike of lecturing. Nonetheless, my title is intended to convey something of the difficulties involved in speaking about this man. The details of his public life are easily found, but trying to get behind the public figure to the individual is not easy. When I was doing research on Liddon more than a decade ago, it was clear that his public writings and activities were what concerned him and his contemporaries; but more than this, he seems to have been a man with curiously little self-awareness, at least as we would understand that term today. He appears to have been uninterested in his inner workings, except for his bodily ones. (He had in full measure that very English fascination with the state of his digestive tract, along with a concern for his health generally.) Probing into his psychology was not important to him, which means that when we look at his sermons, for example, we find almost none of the psychological insight which can make Newman’s sermons of continuing interest. The question arises, where do we look for information about Liddon the man? Three sources present themselves. To begin with there is his official biography by John Octavius Johnston, the Principal of Cuddesdon College. This remains indispensable as an account of Liddon’s public career, but Johnston makes no great attempt to probe beneath the surface of Liddon’s personality. Also, although the book did not appear until fourteen years after Liddon’s death, many of his contemporaries were still living, which made a degree of reticence necessary when reporting his opinions. The book’s supplementary chapter by Bishop Francis Paget gives something more of Liddon’s character, as does the small book on Liddon by G. W. E. Russell, published in 1929. The second source available to us is personal letters. Like most eminent Victorians, Liddon wrote quantities of letters, sometimes between twenty to thirty a day. Many of these survive, and I was fortunate to discover his correspondence with Lord Halifax which had been mostly ignored by historians. But even here his concern is almost entirely with Church matters, and personal revelations are minimal, though he was willing to express his 2 views on individuals in a way which he would not do in more public writing. (For example, Johnston in his biography charitably omits some of Liddon’s less than complimentary remarks about Archbishop Tait.) Only one collection of letters known to me, those to a former student, Reginald Porter, gives us something of the flavour of Liddon’s relations with his friends. As a tiny example, in 1863 he wrote to Porter, describing Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, “I never saw him in better spirits than last evening: he told stories about Hatchard the bookseller which would have killed you outright – if I may be guilty of the exaggeration. The laughing materially aided my digestion.” The third source for material is Liddon’s diaries. These cover almost all his adult life, and he wrote in them pretty well daily. However, this is where the patience of a researcher wears very thin, because they must rank as some of the most uninformative diaries ever written. They are not quite of the depressing kind which simply note, “wet … warm ... went out this morning”, but all too often they are not much better. He mentions again and again that he has met notable people, but then he tells us nothing of their conversation. Only occasionally are we given glimpses of really interesting discussions or allowed to see something of his personal feelings. There is one more source which is revealing about Liddon, but I am going to keep that until the end. I mention all this to show the difficulty we have in recapturing something of Liddon the man, and to indicate how in trying to do so we have to build up a kind of mosaic of impressions. Liddon’s public career is not our concern today, so it is sufficient to say that he was born in North Stoneham in Hampshire in 1829. It is worth mentioning that his family background was an Evangelical one, and there is no question that the evangelistic instinct of his upbringing never left him. Certainly, it was a major impulse behind his powerful preaching. He went to King’s College School in London, and from there to Christ Church in Oxford, which was to be his Oxford home for much of his life and where he came strongly under the influence of Dr Pusey. After ordination he served a brief curacy at Wantage, under the notable vicar, William John Butler, and then became the Vice-Principal of Bishop Wilberforce’s new theological college at Cuddesdon, where he first came to public notice. From there he went to be Vice-Principal of St Edmund Hall in Oxford and then took up residence at Christ 3 Church. It was there that he emerged as a power in the theological land when he delivered the 1866 Bampton Lectures. He had to produce them in a shorter time than was usually the case, and his diary records his daily anxiety about them. In 1870 Gladstone offered him a Canonry at St Paul’s Cathedral, which he accepted, and the same year he was appointed Dean Ireland Professor of biblical exegesis in Oxford. Thereafter he divided his time between Oxford in term time and London in the vacations, a lifestyle which would have wearied a stronger man than Liddon. This marked the summit of his career, though there will be those who maintain that to hold a St Paul’s Canonry and an Oxford professorship gives you all the glory this world can offer. He died in 1890. Enough of externals, what about the man? What, to begin with, about his family? He was one of ten children, three of whom died young. Of his remaining siblings, he maintained close contact with his brother Edward, who became a doctor, and his sister Anne. His sister Louisa married a Colonel Ambrose, who rather inconsiderately died after only five months of marriage, leaving behind a pregnant wife. Her daughter, Mary, was born in 1863, and they both subsequently took up residence with Liddon in his St Paul’s Canonry house. Liddon was clearly attached to his niece, though as she grew into a young woman he entertained worries about what he considered a certain frivolousness in her nature. He mentions in his diary talking in 1888 with one of his colleagues about Mary’s love of society. He accepted the advice that “it would pass in time if it is not contradicted.” It is not certain that her liking for a full life did pass. In 1889 he noted, “Louisa and Mary are going to the Paris exhibition. Mary seems to get her mother to devote more and more time and money to mere pleasure as distinct from health. Italy in the Spring: Ryde in July for the review: September in Paris. Amen Court [his house] only in the season.” Both women outlived him. Liddon never married. There is no indication in any of his papers which I have seen that he ever thought about such a step. I get the impression that he could be slightly ill at ease with women, unless they were well known to him and intelligent. There is no point in drawing any conclusions from this because there is simply no evidence. Once again, his inner life is hidden from us. He may well have felt that priestly celibacy was the path for him, though he expresses no regret when he hears of other priests marrying. All in all, he 4 comes across to us as a typical specimen of that species, the bachelor clerical don whose work was his life. However, if he remained single his circle of friends and acquaintances was wide. At the centre of his life for many years was Dr Pusey, to the extent that a number of people expressed concern at what they saw as an undue influence of the older man on him. Owen Chadwick, for example, thinks that Pusey made Liddon old before his time, which I’m not sure is wholly true. Of Pusey’s influence over him, especially in matters relating to the Church and doctrine, there is no question. Their correspondence is extensive, and when Liddon was in residence at Christ Church he would call at Pusey’s house regularly. Indeed, toward the end of Pusey’s life his son wrote to Liddon, asking him not to call too frequently or at great length because it tired his father too much. After Pusey’s death in 1880 Liddon was the obvious choice to write his biography, a task for which he resigned his professorship. Clearly, he found the enormous labour required for the job a daunting one. As early as 1883 he notes in his diary that he “felt miserable at the prospects of the ‘Life’ [of Dr Pusey] … this gigantic work overshadowing everything.” Certainly, his friends began to have serious worries about the effect which the biography was having on him. T. B. Strong, who later became Bishop of Oxford, remarked that “as [Liddon] became more fully steeped in the thought and writings of Dr Pusey … he seemed to find it impossible even to discuss any point upon which Dr Pusey had expressed an opinion.” That is not entirely true.

Load more