Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881). Portrait by Lowes Cato Dickinson (1819-1908). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (13 December 1815 - 1881) was an English divine who served as dean of Westminster.

Life

Overview

Stanley, son of Edward Stanley, bishop of Norwich, was born at Alderley, Cheshire, of which his father was then rector, and educated at Rugby and Oxford. Taking orders in 1839 he became Canon of Canterbury 1851, and of Christ Church 1858, and Dean of Westminster 1864. He was also professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford 1856. His ecclesiastical position was Erastian and latitudinarian, and his practical aim in Church politics comprehension. He gave great offense to the High Church party by his championing of Colenso, W.G. Ward, Jowett, and others, by his preaching in the pulpits of the Church of Scotland and in other ways, and his latitudinarianism made him equally obnoxious to many others. On the other hand, his singular personal charm and the fascination of his literary style secured for him a very wide popularity. He was a prolific author, his works including Life of Dr. Arnold (of Rugby) (1844), whose favorite pupil he was, and Memorials of Canterbury (1854), Sinai and Palestine (1855), Lectures on the Eastern Church (1861), History of the Jewish Church (1863, etc.), Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1867), Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland (1872), besides various commentaries. In his historical writings he aimed rather at conveying a vivid and picturesque general effect than at minute accuracy of detail or philosophical views. His masterpiece is his Life of Dr. Arnold, which is one of the great biographies in the language. His wife was Lady Augusta Bruce, to whom he was married in 1868.

Youth and education

Stanley was born at Alderley in Cheshire, where his father, afterwards bishop of Norwich, was then rector. He was educated at Rugby under Thomas Arnold.

In 1834 he went up to Balliol College, Oxford. After obtaining the Ireland scholarship, he was in 1839 elected a fellow of University College, and in the same year took holy orders.

In 1840 he travelled in Greece and Italy, and on his return settled at Oxford, where for 10 years he was tutor of his college and an influential element in university life. His personal relations with his pupils were of a singularly close and affectionate nature, and the charm of his social gifts and genial character won him friends on all sides. His literary reputation was early established by his Life of Arnold, published in 1844.

Early vocation

In 1845 he was appointed select preacher, and published in 1847 a volume of Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age, which not only laid the foundation of his fame as a preacher, but also marked his future position as a theologian. In university politics, which at that time wore mainly the form of theological controversy, he was a strong advocate of comprehension and toleration. As an undergraduate he had entirely sympathized with Arnold in resenting the agitation led by, but not confined to, the High Church party in 1836 against the appointment of R.D. Hampden to the regius professorship of divinity.

During the long agitation which followed the publication in 1841 of Tract No. XC. and which ended in the withdrawal of John Henry Newman from the Anglican Church, he used all his influence to protect from formal condemnation the leaders and tenets of the "Tractarian" party. In 1847 he resisted the movement set on foot at Oxford against Hampden's appointment to the bishopric of Hereford. Finally, in 1850, in an article published in the Edinburgh Review in defence of the "Gorham judgment" he asserted 2 principles which he maintained to the end of his life - first, "that the so-called supremacy of the Crown in religious matters was in reality nothing else than the supremacy of law," and, secondly, "that the Church of England, by the very condition of its being, was not High or Low, but Broad, and had always included and been meant to include, opposite and contradictory opinions on points even more important than those at present under discussion."

It was not only in theoretical but in academical matters that his sympathies were on the liberal side. He was greatly interested in university reform and acted as secretary to the royal commission appointed in 1850. Of the important changes in administration and education which were ultimately carried out, Stanley, who took the principal share in drafting the report printed in 1852, was a strenuous advocate. These changes included the transfering of the initiative in university legislation from the sole authority of the heads of houses to an elected and representative body; the opening of college fellowships and scholarships to competition, by the removal of local and other restrictions; the non-enforcement at matriculation of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles; and various steps for increasing the usefulness and influence of the professoriate.

Before the report was issued, Stanley was appointed to a canonry in Canterbury Cathedral. During his residence there he published his Memoir of his father (185r), and completed his Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians (1855). In the winter and spring of 1852-1853 he made a tour in Egypt and the Holy Land, the result of which was his well-known volume on Sinai and Palestine (1856). In 1857 he travelled in Russia, and collected much of the materials for his Lectures on the Eastern Church (1861). His Memorials of Canterbury (1855), displayed the full maturity of his power of dealing with the events and characters of past history. He was also examining chaplain to Bishop A.C. Tait, his former tutor.

At the close of 1856 Stanley was appointed regius professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford, a post which, with the attached canonry at Christ Church, he held till 1863. He began his treatment of the subject with "the first dawn of the history of the church," the call of Abraham; and published the first two volumes of his History of the Jewish Church in 1863 and 1865.

From 1860 to 1864 academical and clerical circles were agitated by the storm which followed the publication of Essays and Reviews, a volume to which two of his most valued friends, Benjamin Jowett and Frederick Temple, had been contributors. Stanley's part in this controversy may be studied in the second and third of his Essays on Church and State (1870). The result of his action was to alienate the leaders of the High Church party, who had endeavoured to procure the formal condemnation of the views advanced in Essays and Reviews. In 1836 he published a Letter to the Bishop of London, advocating a relaxation of the terms of clerical subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles and the Prayer-book. An act amending the Act of Uniformity, and carrying out in some degree Stanley's proposals, was passed in the year 1865. In 1862, Stanley, at Queen Victoria's wish, accompanied the Prince of Wales on a tour in Egypt and Palestine.

Dean of Westminster

Towards the close of 1863 he was appointed by the Crown to the deanery of Westminster. In December he married Lady Augusta Bruce, sister of Lord Elgin, then governor-general of India. His tenure as Dean was memorable in many ways. He recognized from the first 2 important disqualifications - his indifference to music and his slight knowledge of architecture. On both these subjects he availed himself largely of the aid of others, and threw himself with characteristic energy and entire success into the task of rescuing from neglect and preserving from decay the treasure of historic monuments in which the abbey is so rich.

In 1865 he published his Memorials of Westminster Abbey, a work which, despite occasional inaccuracies, is a mine of information. He was a constant preacher, and gave a great impulse to Trench's practice of inviting distinguished preachers to the abbey pulpit, especially to the evening services in the nave.

His personal influence, already unique, was much increased by his move to London. His circle of friends included men of every denomination, every class and almost of every nation. He was untiring in literary work, and, though this consisted very largely of occasional papers, lectures, articles in reviews, addresses, and sermons, it included a third volume of his History of the Jewish Church, a volume on the Church of Scotland, another of Addresses and Sermons preached in America, and another on Christian Institutions (1881).

He was continually engaged in theological controversy, and, by his advocacy of all efforts to promote the social, moral, and religious amelioration of the poorer classes and his chivalrous courage in defending those whom he held to be unjustly denounced, undoubtedly incurred much and growing odium in influential circles. Among the causes of offence might be enumerated not only his vigorous defence of someone from whom he greatly differed, Bishop Colenso, but his invitation to the Holy Communion of all the revisers of the translation of the Bible, including a Unitarian among other Nonconformists. Still stronger was the feeling caused by his efforts to make the recital of the Athanasian Creed optional instead of imperative in the Anglican Church.

In 1874 he spent part of the winter in Russia, whither he went to take part in the marriage of the duke of Edinburgh and the grand duchess Marie. He lost his wife in the spring of 1876, a blow from which he never entirely recovered. But in 1878 he was deeply interested by a tour in America, and in the following autumn visited for the last time northern Italy and Venice.

In the spring of 1881 he preached funeral sermons in the abbey on Thomas Carlyle and Lord Beaconsfield, concluding with the latter a series of sermons preached on public occasions. In the summer he was preparing a paper on the Westminster Confession, and preaching in the abbey a course of Saturday Lectures on the Beatitudes.

He died on 18 July, and was buried in Henry VII's chapel, in the same grave as his wife.

Writing

Alfred H. Miles: "Dean Stanley wrote very little verse, and that little does not display high poetic merit. Prose was clearly his natural form of expression, and in the freedom of prose he was much more poetic than when hampered by the fetters of rhyme. Dr. Overton, writing in Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology, says: 'That exquisite taste and felicity of diction which distinguish more or less all his prose writings, seem to desert him when he is writing verse. Like another great writer, Jeremy Taylor, his prose is poetical, but his poetry is prosaic. The divine afflatus is wanting.'"

Recognition

At Oxford he won the Newdigate Prize in 1837 for his poem, The Gipsies.

His pall-bearers comprised representatives of literature, of science, of both Houses of Parliament, of theology, Anglican and Nonconformist, and of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The recumbent monument placed to him in Henry VII's chapel, and the windows in the chapter-house of the Abbey (1 of them a gift from Queen Victoria), were a tribute to his memory from friends of every class in England and America.

Publications

Poetry

• The Gipsies: A prize poem; recited in the Theatre, Oxford, June 7, 1837. Oxford, UK: J. Vincent, 1842.

Non-fiction

• Sermons and Essays in the Apostolical Age. London, Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, 1847.
• Historical Memorials of Canterbury. London: John Murray, 1855.
• Three Introductory Lectures on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. Oxford, UK: J.H. & J. Parker, 1857.
• The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold. (2 volumes), London: B. Fellowes, 1858; (1 volume), Boston: Fields, 1870. Volume I, Volume II
• The Unity of Evangelical and Apostolical Teaching: Sermons preached mostly in Canterbury Cathedral. London: John Murray, 1859.
• Freedom and Labour: Two sermons. Oxford, UK: J.H. & J. Parker, 1860.
• Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. (3 volumes), New York: Scribner, 1862-1866. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. New York: Scribner, 1862.
• The Creation of Man: A sermon. Oxford, UK: Parker, 1865.
• An Address on the Connection of Church and State. London: Macmillan, 1868.
• Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey. London: John Murray, 1866. Volume I
• Sinai and Palestine. London: John Murray, 1871.
• The Athanasian Creed. London: Macmillan, 1871.
• Three Lectures on the Church of Scotland. Edinburgh: J. Maclaren, 1872; New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1872..
• Memoirs of Edward and Catherine Stanley. London: John Murray, 1880.
• Christian Institutions: Essays on ecclsiastical subjects. London: John Murray, 1881.

Juvenile

• Sermons for Children: Including the beatitudes and the faithful servant. London : John Murray, 1888.

Collected editions

• Letters and Verses, 1829-1881. London: John Murray, 1895; New York: Scribner, 1895.

Edited

• Connop Thirlwall, Letters to a Friend. (2 volumes), London: Bentley, 1881; Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882.

O Master, it is good to be (Tallis' Lamentation)

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language hymnists

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 777-779. . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 3, 2017.

External links

Poems

• "Teach Us to Die" in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895
• Stanley in The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century: "Hymn on the Transfiguration," "He is gone—beyond the skies"
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley at Hymnary (profiles & 13 hymns)

Books

• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley at Amazon.com

About

• Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn in the Dictionary of National Biography
• "Dean Stanley" in Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day
• Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. Miles

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn